Subjects: asylum seekers; defence photos; Governor General; South Australian election; Michael Bowers'; departure.
E&OE...........
Ladies and Gentleman, I would like to start today';s news conference by congratulating Steven Bradbury for his gold medal in the short track speed skating and Alisa Camplin for a gold medal in the aeriel skiing. I think these two victories have for Australia really brought the winter Olympics in Salt Lake City alive. That';s not the only reason I called this news conference, pleased though I am to have something to say about it. But given some the reporting and analysis of the material presented to the Senate estimates committee last night, I thought it might be useful, if I were to make some comment on that and to put it in context lest what I regard is some inaccurate conclusions in that material gather a currency.
Can I first of all remind you that the original basis of my claim in relation to the children overboard was the information that was conveyed to me by Mr Ruddock on the 7th of October. I never based that claim, indeed almost all of the claims that I made on this issue, were based on material other than the photographs. And I think one of the difficult things in this whole issue is that the question of doubt about the date on which the dates depicted by the photographs, that that has become merged and blended, with doubt about the veracity of the basic claim. And in the process, I think that in the process I think some unreasonable conclusions have been drawn.
Now, I';m not denying that the photographs aren';t material. I';m not saying there immaterial, I';m not saying that for a moment, but I think it';s important to keep those two things separate. If I can put it hypothetically, it is quite possible, it would have been possible and I stress this as a hypothetical proposition, to have had a situation where undeniably the photographs were as appears to be the case of the 8th of October yet there could have been separate evidence not involving photographs of children being thrown overboard on the 7th, so I think it is important and this is relevant to some of the further thing I';m going to say, thatt that be kept in mind. So, my primary source was my conversation with Mr Ruddock. The substance of that advice was then conveyed to me, I';m told in a fax to Kirribilli House on the evening of the 7th of October and that was the taskgroup report which I don';t think is being made available in full. And I';m going to make it available after this news conference, the only thing I've taken out of it and I ask you to accept this - if anybody wants to have a separate discussion with somebody in my office they are welcome to - the only thing I've taken out of it is some references to Indonesia, and I don';t think it would be consonent with the very positive approach that we're endeavouring to take in co-operation with Indonesia for those references to remain.
But that report very clearly states that children were being thrown overboard, and that of course is relevant to the question to the ONA report which was discussed last night. Now, in the Senate estimates and in some of reporting this morning there was a great amount of play on the fact that Miles Jordana had got in touch with Jenny Bryant on the 7th of November requesting documents. That, if I may put it this way, is about the most innocent contact imaginable because it arose from the request from me to be refreshed, if I can put it that way, on the advice, particularly written advice I';d received about a month earlier regarding the children overboard incident. As you remember the 7th was the day before my press club appearance. I spent the evening at the Lodge with a number of my advisers and sometime during the day I';d asked Miles to go through the material I';d already seen, or the office had received. He wasn';t making a fresh request for new information. I knew I was going to get asked questions about the children overboard issue, apart from anything else there was a story on the front page of the Australian that day quoting Naval officers having spoken to people in Christmas Island querying the original story and I knew it was an issue and what I wanted what written evidence there was, or written references to it were available. Miles spoke to both my Department and ONA, ONA produced that report and that was the one I quoted from, I quoted from it in complete ignorance of the reference that Kim Jones made when he spoke of the source of the information, the source of the information he was inconclusive about on the 7th of November. He said it could have been based, he didn';t say the information in the ONA report was wrong, as some news reports have said this morning. What he said was that the source could have been based on ministerial comments or it could have been from defence sources, he wasn';t sure. Subsequently on the 12th of November he confirmed it had been based on the former.
But the point I';d make ladies and gentlemen is that in any event as far as documentary evidence is concerned on which I based my original claims, the ONA report is in a sense academic when you look at the taskgroup';s report which unambiguously, as you will see when the document is released, unambiguously speaks of children being thrown overboard. The irony now is that the response to Miles'; request to my department apparently wasn';t delivered until after I';d got to my feet to address the National Press Club. And that is why in terms of quoting from the document, the one that was available to me was only the ONA report, if the other one had been available then I';ve no doubt I would have quoted from that. But as the to the substance I';d simply make the point to you again that I didn';t base my original claim on photographs, I based my original claim on advice from Mr Ruddock and the circumstances of that advice had been explained and that advice was confirmed in a taskgroup report that was, so I';m told by my Department, sent to Kirribilli House on the evening on the 7th of October, it was also copied to Mr Ruddock and copied to Mr Reith.
I think it is important to bear that sequence of events in mind. The other material that came out last night were references to contacts between Ms Halton and Ms Bryant and Miles Jordana. The sequence of events in relation to that as I understand it from what I've been told is that Miles believes that Jane Halton may have spoken to him about that time and passed on some tea room, or tea break gossip from Defence and I think the circumstances of that are pretty fully set out in the Financial Review this morning, from Defence to the effect that there was real doubt about the photographs, not real doubt about the original allegation but real doubt about the photographs. And in the interest of complete disclosure I';m also going to make available a letter that was given to me yesterday by the head of my Department which is a letter from Jane Halton to Mr Moore Wilton elaborating on that and this letter as you will see is broadly consistent, well is consistent with what was said last night by Jenny Bryant and also is what is in the Financial Review this morning. I would in other circumstances have taken the view that this something that ought to have been related before the Senate inquiry along with Ms Halton';s original statement, but given that this issue of that contact is now in the public arena in the interests of full disclosure and to avoid any accusations that I';ve concealed this because I have knowledge of it, I';m going to make it available today.
So ladies and gentlemen it remains the case that at no stage was I informed by my Department or by anybody on my staff including Mr Jordana that it or they had received a contradiction of the original advice that children had been thrown overboard. What Mr Jordana alluded to, and which I referred to in the House yesterday was some tea room gossip reported to him via the lines and the channels outlined in the Financial Review this morning regarding the photographs, bearing in mind that although the photographs are clearly relevant there are two separate issues. You can have confusion and error over the photographs but hypothetically you could still have separate evidence in relation to children overboard and I think for any fair analysis of this issue you do have to keep both of those things separate.
So ladies and gentlemen I';d be obviously very happy to answer any questions on this issue but I thought it appropriate to have this news conference to contextualise some of the material that has come out and there were some suggestions made in, I think this morning';s media by the Opposition Leader that what I said yesterday about Miles Jordana in the House contradicted what I said last week. That';s not right. What I said last week, and I remains the case is that Jordana didn';t tell me that the original advice was wrong and Jordana didn';t tell me that he';d been given advice that the original advice was wrong. What Jordana told me was that he believes he could have had a conversation with Jane Halton and somebody in Reith';s Office about the photograph issue. And that is a, as I';ve been at pains to explain is a separate issue.
JOURNALIST:
(inaudible).
PRIME MINISTER:
No.
JOURNALIST:
(inaudible) of the original advice about children being thrown overboard.
PRIME MINISTER:
Ian, I wouldn';t try and put a date on this, obviously long after the election but …
JOURNALIST:
(inaudible).
PRIME MINISTER:
Well that';s a press report. I don';t automatically….no no I don';t mean this disrespectfully. I don';t automatically disbelieve every report. I mean the press report was one of the things that prompted me to ask Mr Reith on, I think to the best of my recollections, the evening of the 7th of November. I mean the all of this if you look at the sequence of events it does all present a situation where you have a flurry of activity on this issue – 7th, 8th, 9th and 10th of October, and then it really goes, as far as I';m concerned, goes right off the radar screen and it obviously goes right off the radar screen for the Opposition as well. I don';t get questioned for 16 days according to my transcripts about the children overboard issue and then it comes back in the last few days. And you';ll remember the 7th of November was clearly, was the origin of that Australian report and that was on the 7th and then I spoke to Peter Reith that evening. I not only spoke to him about the issue of whether he got contrary advice from defence but I also spoke to him about the video, and I also spoke to Scrafton in his office and the reason I spoke to Scrafton was that Scrafton had looked at the video. I didn';t speak to Scrafton to get an independent source of advice. Scrafton was relevant because he was the person designated by Reith to look at the video. He was in Sydney and the video was apparently in Sydney so he had a look at the video.
JOURNALIST:
Prime Minister why didn';t your office ask for advice from the Commander of the Adelaide on November 8 and 9 as to what actually occurred given there was so much speculation about it at the time, the comments by Vice Admiral Shackleton and the report in the Australian on November 7?
PRIME MINISTER:
Well it has never been the practice in things like this to as it were double guess the advice you get from the department. I mean the normal way of operation of a prime minister and a minister such as this is to go to the normal channels of advice. I mean with the benefit of hindsight people can turn around and say you should have but putting it in the context of what was happening then it was a perfectly legitimate thing for me to ask the Defence Minister, which I did, and having been given an indication in relation to that and having decided to release the video I think in the circumstances and given that I did have a few other things on my mind at that particular time, and I was concerned to deal with those issues as well, I think to suggest I should have accepted with the benefit of hindsight, to have rung the Captain of the Adelaide is a bit rich.
JOURNALIST:
Mr Scrafton, Mr Reith, Mr Jordana, Jane Halton all knew there were doubts by this stage about the photographs. They all….
PRIME MINISTER:
Well in relation to Mr Jordana and Mr Reith on the strength of what he told me - no, not in relation to the veracity of the original advice – no.
JOURNALIST:
No just in terms of they all knew, they had all raised, according to this report and the teabreak conversation….
PRIME MINISTER:
Jordana did not raise the teabreak conversation with me at the relevant time. I mean clearly…..
JOURNALIST:
I guess the point I';m making….
PRIME MINISTER:
Well no, I mean……
JOURNALIST:
But I haven';t asked my question….
PRIME MINISTER:
Yes I know but it is one of those issues where you can easily slip over from doubt about photographs and the dates thereof.
JOURNALIST:
I';m just asking about the photographs at the moment.
PRIME MINISTER:
You';ll just ask me about the photographs?
JOURNALIST:
I';m just asking about….all those four people knew by this stage there were doubts about the date of the photographs. Did none of those people on the night of the 7th or the day of het 8th ever express to you in any casual conversation that there';s doubt about the photographs even though they may not have been saying the original story was untrue?
PRIME MINISTER:
There was discussion at the time I think in some section of the media about the photographs. But one of the reasons why there was no dwelling on that was that I';d made a decision to release the video and it seemed to me that the dominant issue then was to get the video out and let people make a judgement.
JOURNALIST:
Were doubts raised in the meeting, did anyone…..
PRIME MINISTER:
No the meeting I had at the Lodge nobody on my staff mentioned to me, nobody on my staff has ever raised at the relevant times doubts about the photographs no.
JOURNALIST:
What do you mean when you say “relevant time”?
PRIME MINISTER:
I mean relevant time, I mean before the election and I mean up until right now. I mean I';ve got to be careful that I don';t say nobody';s ever said anything to me about the photographs because unless I fix that in time that might be sort of taken out of context.
JOURNALIST:
Can you fix at a date?
PRIME MINISTER:
In relation to my staff I don';t think….I mean I probably would have had some discussions with them generally after I decided to commission the inquiry, generally some discussion with them perhaps late in November and they were, I mean to the best of my recollection I';d really have to go back and check and, hang on can I just finish answering Glenn, I';ll go back and check that, otherwise I might give an inaccurate recollection. Yes Mr Seccombe.
JOURNALIST:
Did Mr Scrafton or Mr Reith or anyone else raise any doubts with you about the photos or the children overboard incident on the 7th or 8th of November?
PRIME MINISTER:
In my conversation with Mr Reith he said that there was debate about the photographs and we agreed that that was the reason why we should release the video.
JOURNALIST:
But even though Mr Scrafton had told you the video didn';t prove…..
PRIME MINISTER:
No my recollection of the conversations I had with Scrafton, the way he described it to me, my recollection is that it was inconclusive and that was the observation I made. Now he may have a slightly different recollection than that and I';m not saying his recollection is inferior to mine but that is my recollection.
JOURNALIST:
When you released the report the other day you gave the impression at least, I';d have to see the exact words, that it all came as an enormous surprise to you when you saw the report but up until then you had no doubts and no conversation.
PRIME MINISTER:
Well that';s your conclusion about impressions.
JOURNALIST:
Well no it';s not my conclusion. I';m asking you is that the impression you gave….?
PRIME MINISTER:
Well there were some things in that report that were surprising to me. There were other things in it that were completely unsurprising such as the finding of the report that at no stage had I been told by my department that the original advice was wrong.
JOURNALIST:
Mr Howard, do you think that the contact between Mr Jordana and the Department, including Ms Bryant, should have been in Ms Bryant';s report?
PRIME MINISTER:
You mean the contact on the 7th in relation to the documents that were previously…
JOURNALIST:
…[inaudible] refreshing you…
PRIME MINISTER:
No, I don';t. I think to be fair to Jenny Bryant I don';t think that should have been there. Well, let me put it this way, I can understand why it wasn';t.
JOURNALIST:
[Inaudible]…didn';t talk to Mr Jordana about it.
PRIME MINISTER:
I can understand why she wouldn';t put it there because the request was made in the context of asking to be given material that had already been before the office and before me and in the context of me being briefed for my appearance at the Press Club the following day. Now, I don';t think, I mean you can disagree with me and no doubt some of you will, I don';t think it';s legitimate criticism of Jenny Bryant to say that that material should have been included.
JOURNALIST:
Mr Howard, just on the evidence that was provided by the head of ONA to Mr Jordana on the evening of the 7th, he told the Senate last night that he had told Mr Jordana that ONA was not certain about the report and essentially that…
PRIME MINISTER:
No, no. He, as I understand it and I';ll ask a member of my staff while this press conference proceeds to get me a copy of it, my recollection is that he was inconclusive about the source. He said he didn';t say as I recall in that advice to Mr Jordana, that written advice, which I did not see before I spoke at the Press Club and was not told of, but my understanding of having looked at it is that what he was inconclusive about was not the veracity of the report but the source.
JOURNALIST:
But why weren';t you told that Mr Howard, surely that was a very important fact to pass onto you when Mr Jordana passed on the report. Wouldn';t he pass on the facts as well?
PRIME MINISTER:
My understanding is that the…Mr Jordana separately, and we talked about this this morning, the handing to me, what he handed to me was physically separate from the advice that came across…
JOURNALIST:
[Inaudible]
PRIME MINISTER:
…Well, he didn';t.
JOURNALIST:
[Inaudible]..given there are now people in the Department and people in your office who had considerable doubts and the public misconceptions that have arisen from that…
PRIME MINISTER:
I am sorry, with respect.
JOURNALIST:
Some doubts.
PRIME MINISTER:
No, no, I am sorry. There was nobody in my office who had been provided with any advice that contradicted the original assertion.
JOURNALIST:
The tea room gossip you mentioned…
PRIME MINISTER:
The tea room gossip. Well, I can only repeat what I have been told in relation to that.
JOURNALIST:
Is it acceptable that nobody told you?
PRIME MINISTER:
Well, look, I don';t want to get into the blame business on this issue. I understand the pressure under which people were working. And in any event, can I just say to you again, the ONA report was not the primary written authority, if I can put it that way, for the claims. Now, it is true that that was the document I quoted at the Press Club, I don';t deny that for a moment. And I quoted that without any knowledge of any inconclusiveness about the source - I stress inconclusiveness about the source of the information. But I, you know, I just want to remind you again that my initial advice was based on what Ruddock told me and then subsequently we get this task group report. Now, that';s unambiguous and you can have a look at that after the news conference.
JOURNALIST:
The Defence Situation Report identified in the hearings yesterday as being held by your office, will you also release that and wouldn';t that have not contained any evidence of children being thrown overboard and, in fact, being some sort of proof that the allegations are false because all those incidents on that day would have been logged in the Defence Situation Report which you received?
PRIME MINISTER:
Well, I';ll have a look at that report and the question of whether it gets released is something that will be governed by whether there are any operational constraints. But I think I';d have to say if there';s one thing…
JOURNALIST:
Can';t you vet that in the way you are vetting the other one?
PRIME MINISTER:
What other one Laurie?
JOURNALIST:
Well, you are chopping out references to Indonesia, can';t you chop out operational details?
PRIME MINISTER:
Well, yes, I am sorry, I misheard your question. I';ll have a look at that. Can I just say, I have no difficulty about releasing any documents on this whole thing. I have, in fact, released documents all along and in relation to your assertion that because it ought to include everything therefore it does I';d have to say with respect to everybody in this I don';t think the course of this issue demonstrates the authenticity of that proposition.
JOURNALIST:
Has Jordana offered to quit?
PRIME MINISTER:
No.
JOURNALIST:
Prime Minister, would you have used the ONA report if you had known that it was based merely on ministerial press releases and doesn';t it lend weight to the perception that you weren';t told because you didn';t want to know it?
PRIME MINISTER:
Well, the answer to the first question is no, I wouldn';t have. And the answer to the second question is also resoundingly no. That allegation is completely wrong. Can I say again, Paul, the source of the advice on which I based my claim was Mr Ruddock, our telephone conversation on the 7th of October. I then get the task group report which I am releasing to you which confirms unambiguously the allegation. Now, I';d have to say to you if I';d have had that at the Press Club I';d have quoted from that. But for some reason I didn';t, it wasn';t provided to me and I would have much rather quoted from that because normally I don';t like quoting from ONA reports. But look, can I just tell you that if I had known that, no, the answer is no I wouldn';t have quoted from it.
JOURNALIST:
Mr Howard, did anyone [inaudible] public statements before the election seeking to clarify the situation with the children and the asylum seekers being in the water, did anyone from your office seek to request or press him to amend that statement on the same day?
PRIME MINISTER:
I asked my staff. I mean, I didn';t contact him. I asked my staff, they did not contact him. They were informed that Mr Reith';s Office had spoken to him.
JOURNALIST:
Did your staff contact Vice-Admiral';s superiors such as Chris Barrie or anyone like that?
PRIME MINISTER:
No.
JOURNALIST:
You said in your conversation with Mr Reith before the Press Club that there was debate about the photographs. Can you explain what the debate was?
PRIME MINISTER:
Well, he indicated to me that there was some debate about whether they were the one day or the next and that is reflected in the report.
JOURNALIST:
You might have been aware or you might have been told at that stage that they may have been photos from the following day?
PRIME MINISTER:
No. He just said there was doubt about it and he was…
JOURNALIST:
[Inaudible]
PRIME MINISTER:
Well, the reason I didn';t is that we had the video.
JOURNALIST:
Which was inconclusive.
PRIME MINISTER:
Well, of course it was inconclusive.
JOURNALIST:
Would you be disappointed with Mr Reith if he didn';t tell you and during this debate before your big speech that he had evidence, people had told him that there was clear confusion about the date of the photographs?
PRIME MINISTER:
Sorry, what did you say about Mr Reith?
JOURNALIST:
Well, you had a debate with Mr Reith before you go to the National Press Club, he has evidence it seems that the photographs are from the wrong day, you';ve had this debate but somehow you are saying that he didn';t tell you that.
PRIME MINISTER:
No, I said we had a discussion about the issue.
JOURNALIST:
So do you think he may have said to you, Prime Minister, we think these photographs are from the wrong day?
PRIME MINISTER:
Well, the whole discussion was about suggestions that they might have been. He was still in doubt about that and he said that he';d got conflicting advice from Defence. And that is all reflected in the report.
JOURNALIST:
That put no doubt in your mind?
PRIME MINISTER:
Well, we then decided we';d release the video and we believed the video was….I mean, I took the view, once we decided to release the video, I took the view that some people would believe the reports. And the video, as you remember, was the source of an enormous amount of debate and controversy over the last two or three days of the campaign and I think in fact I took a question under an umbrella from somebody on an early morning show the last day of the campaign and I think the question contained a bald assertion that the whole thing had been trumped up.
JOURNALIST:
You made the [inaudible] between photographic evidence and other kinds of evidence. Yesterday Mr Moore Wilton in the committee was also suggesting that there still wasn';t, you couldn';t move the possibility that children were thrown overboard. Where is the evidence that children were thrown overboard?
PRIME MINISTER:
Well, I am not asserting that and nor was he.
JOURNALIST:
But the head of your Department… possibility, is there any evidence?
PRIME MINISTER:
Well I don';t think he said that, he…
JOURNALIST:
… double negative…
PRIME MINISTER:
Well I';ll have to check, you used a double negative, look I';m not going to argue the factual conclusions of either of the two reports. And the factual conclusions of those two reports is that there was no evidence produced that children had been thrown overboard. Now I can';t, I wasn';t there and none of us were there and we have to rely on the advice of people who were there.
JOURNALIST:
… today that children were thrown overboard.
PRIME MINISTER:
I beg your pardon?
JOURNALIST:
Do you still believe today that children were thrown overboard?
PRIME MINISTER:
Well look on the evidence I can';t assert that.
JOURNALIST:
… Jordana say he didn';t pass on that very vital facts, what is his explanation?
PRIME MINISTER:
What vital facts?
JOURNALIST:
The one from ONA, the one from Kim Jones saying that the…
PRIME MINISTER:
About the source?
JOURNALIST:
Yes. What did…
PRIME MINISTER:
Well he said to me that he doesn';t believe, he said to me that he can';t actually recall reading the Jones note.
JOURNALIST:
… Mr Jordana spoke to Mr Jones on the phone that evening as well as the fax. wasn';t that a critical error of judgement for a close adviser to yourself the night before your Press Club address not to point out to you that there was concerns about the source…
PRIME MINISTER:
That';s an issue between Mr Jordana and myself. And I don';t think, with great respect I don';t think it is relevant to this discussion.
JOURNALIST:
Do you continue to have confidence in Mr Jordana that he performed his responsibilities professionally and kept you as fully informed as he should have?
PRIME MINISTER:
Well the answer to the first part of the question is yes. Clearly with the benefit of hindsight, he';s said to me he';s sorry he didn';t advise me of some of these things. But there was a context to it and I';m not into the business of shifting blame.
JOURNALIST:
In relation to the incident itself you just said that you had to rely on advice from people on the spot. Did you ever get any advice, or seek any advice, from Commander Banks who was the man on the spot about this matter.
PRIME MINISTER:
Ian, the answer to that is no I didn';t directly go to him. But you wouldn';t normally do that, I mean because you would assume that if you were given formal advice from a taskgroup which in turn is based on advice received from other people who in turn again receive it from people on the spot, that that advice is right.
JOURNALIST:
… from Banks?
PRIME MINISTER:
I beg your pardon?
JOURNALIST:
Did they tell you that advice came from Banks?
PRIME MINISTER:
Well the taskgroup gave me advice, I can';t. Look with the great respect the whole process of government would break down if every bit of advice I get before I rely on it I then I have to ring every single person who';s involved in the chain, get them into my office and cross examine them. I mean I think we have to preserve…
JOURNALIST:
… government and your administration actually break down on this matter or could you blame dispassionate observers from finding that your story';s absolutely incredible?
PRIME MINISTER:
Well some people will think anything I say is incredible. That is their nature and it reflects their prejudice. I can understand some people questioning some of the accounts that have come out of this. I can only repeat what I';ve said all along and I';ve been saying it all along and nothing that has come out has shaken this fundamental fact that the original claims I made were based on advice I';d received from Mr Ruddock.
JOURNALIST:
Doesn';t that then point to the fact that your administration broke down on something quite fundamental during your election campaign.
PRIME MINISTER:
Well Tony the question of some communication failures was adverted to in the report. There';s going to be a Senate inquiry, in mean I think that Senate inquiry will be politically prejudiced because of the non-Government majority on it. But nonetheless we will go through the process as best we can given that disadvantage. I think it';s important that I await the outcome of that before making some judgments about arrangements in administrative…
JOURNALIST:
The government is that shonky because of lousy comm