Fed: I did not set out to mislead the public, says Howard

AAP General News (Australia)
08-19-2004
Fed: I did not set out to mislead the public, says Howard

Prime Minister JOHN HOWARD says he did not set out to mislead the Australian people
over the children overboard affair.

Mr HOWARD has been under pressure since former senior defence adviser, MIKE SCRAFTON,
said he spoke to the prime minister on November the 7th, three days before the 2001 election.

Mr SCRAFTON says he told Mr HOWARD there was no evidence to back government claims
that children had been thrown overboard from a crowded refugee vessel.

The former staffer to then defence minister PETER REITH said he told Mr HOWARD a navy
video taken of the incident was inconclusive and that no one in defence believed children
had been thrown overboard.

Mr HOWARD disputes Mr SCRAFTON'S version of events and says he did not intend to mislead
the public.

He says Mr SCRAFTON told him that the video itself did not support nor disprove the
argument that children had been thrown overboard and was thus inconclusive.

Mr HOWARD says after being told that the video was inconclusive, he authorised its
release, which he says is hardly the action of someone trying a cover-up.

Liberal Senator GEORGE BRANDIS, who chaired the first Senate committee into the incident,
says Mr SCRAFTON has changed his version of the conversations since giving evidence to
an internal probe in December 2001.

He says Mr SCRAFTON told the Bryant inquiry he never had a sense that original advice
provided to the government about children being thrown overboard wasn't correct.

Labor and the minor parties have backed plans for a second politically-based Senate
inquiry into the affair, which Mr HOWARD expects to find him guilty because it won't be
impartial.

Senator BRANDIS says Mr HOWARD should not have to step down -- even if he's found guilty
-- because his account of events has remained consistent since the affair arose.

AAP RTV ka/wz/jv t

KEYWORD: OVERBOARD HOWARD (SYDNEY)

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