Fed: Second public servant enters children overboard debate

AAP General News (Australia)
08-18-2004
Fed: Second public servant enters children overboard debate

CANBERRA, Aug 18 AAP - A former senior public servant has backed claims that Prime
Minister John Howard was told the children overboard incident did not occur.

Former senior defence adviser Mike Scrafton this week revealed he had told Mr Howard
on November 7, 2001 - three days before the federal election - that there was no evidence
to support claims that asylum seekers threw children overboard a boat codenamed SIEV4.

Mr Scrafton said a video of the incident did not support the claims and photographs
which were said to prove it occurred were taken on a different day.

Today, the former head of the defence department's public affairs and corporate communication
division, Jenny McKenry, backed Mr Scrafton's version of events.

"During the course of his discussion with me on the 8th of November he said that he
had spoken to the prime minister the previous night and told him there was nothing conclusive
in the video and no evidence to support the children overboard story," Ms McKenry told
ABC radio.

Ms McKenry, who no longer works for the public service, said it was her role to release
the video at the time.

"When he phoned me it was specifically to talk about the release of the video," she said.

"And in the course of that I mentioned to him `What is on the video?' and he told me
that there was nothing conclusive in the video and there was no evidence to support the
children overboard story in that, and that is what he conveyed to the prime minister the
evening before."

Ms Kenry said Mr Scrafton's comments were not inconsistent with other public servants'
concerns about the veracity of the children overboard story.

"I had no evidence to believe that children were thrown overboard," she said.

But she said she was bound as a public servant not to reveal her private concerns to
inquiries into the issue.

"I believe now, as I did then, that it was not my role at that time as a public servant
to enter the debate or volunteer information about the private workings or goings on of
the government at the time," she said.

She said people such as Mr Scrafton, who worked under tight laws for ministerial advisers
and parliamentary staff, "were quite clearly told they were not free to give any evidence
or comments about this whole issue".

Mr Scrafton has since passed a lie detector test.

AAP pjo/rgr/jlw/

KEYWORD: OVERBOARD MCKENRY

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