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'The truth went overboard'
16/08/2004 13:17 - (SA)
Sydney - Australian Prime Minister John Howard was accused on Monday of misleading voters in the lead-up to the last national elections about asylum-seekers supposedly throwing their children into the sea.
With preparations for an upcoming poll intensifying, a retired senior defence aide has emerged to allege that Howard and ministers kept repeating the so-called "children overboard" claims despite knowing they were false.
The government allegations sparked outrage at the time and the subsequent wave of anti-asylum seeker sentiment has been widely credited with sweeping Howard's conservative government to a third term.
Howard has said he only found out after the 2001 poll that the allegations - which involved the asylum-seekers throwing their offspring into the sea when intercepted by a navy warship of Western Australia - were unreliable.
Designed to mislead
However, former defence department adviser Mike Scrafton told Monday's edition of the Australian newspaper: "The evidence they had before them was used in a way that was designed to mislead."
Scrafton said he personally told Howard there were serious doubts about the claims but the prime minister and government ministers ignored him and continued to publicise them as they campaigned.
In a letter to the newspaper, Scrafton, who worked in a former defence minister's office, said the government's actions raised vital questions about truth in government.
Inquiries by senior bureaucrats and the Senate found no children were thrown overboard - the overloaded and unseaworthy boat simply sank and 219 mostly Iraqi asylum seekers scrambled for their lives. They all survived and were later placed in detention camps.
Howard's office acknowledged Scrafton had told him that evidence supporting the claims was inconclusive ahead of a key speech on election eve, but denied the adviser told Howard that no one in the Defence Department believed them.
Scrafton said he decided to break his silence after three years because he was outraged at the government's treatment last week of 43 retired diplomats and military chiefs who questioned Australia's involvement in Iraq.
Opposition leader Mark Latham accused Howard of deceiving voters during an election campaign. "The truth went overboard and he should be apologising to the Australian people," Latham said.
- AFP
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