works for me -- what version are you on?
merlin
------
[wcs1459@aclnx-cisp01 ~]$ psql --version
psql (PostgreSQL) 9.1.1
contains support for command-line editing
[wcs1459@aclnx-cisp01 ~]$ cat x
create table a (
id serial,
stuff text,
more_stuff text
);
create table a_audit (
id serial,
a_old a,
a_new a
);
alter table a add column even_more_stuff boolean not null default false;
[wcs1459@aclnx-cisp01 ~]$ psql -f x
psql:x:5: NOTICE: CREATE TABLE will create implicit sequence "a_id_seq" for serial column "
a.id"
CREATE TABLE
psql:x:11: NOTICE: CREATE TABLE will create implicit sequence "a_audit_id_seq" for serial column "
a_audit.id"
CREATE TABLE
psql:x:13: ERROR: cannot alter table "a" because column "a_audit.a_new" uses its row type
