With former Howard Coalition Government Defence Minister Peter Reith complaining this month about his treatment by the media during the “Children Overboard Affair” and, baldly stating that he believed the children overboard story to be true at the time, although it was later found to be untrue by a Senate Select Committee, perhaps it’s time to look back on the truth of the matter.
Extract from the Executive Summary of the Main Report of the Senate Select Committee’s 2000 Inquiry Into A Certain Maritime Incident:
On 11 October 2001, Minister Reith and his staff were separately informed that the
photographs were not of the alleged children overboard events of 7 October, but were
of the foundering of SIEV 4 on 8 October.
On or about 17 October 2001, Admiral Barrie informed Minister Reith that there were
serious doubts about the veracity of the report that children had been thrown
overboard from SIEV 4.
On 7 November 2001, the then Acting Chief of Defence Force, Air Marshal Angus
Houston, informed Minister Reith that children had not been thrown overboard from
SIEV 4.
On four other occasions the lack of or dubious nature of evidence for the ‘children
overboard’ report were drawn to the attention of the Minister or his staff by officers
from Defence.
On no occasion did the Defence organisation produce any evidence to PM & C, and
through it to the office of the Prime Minister, which corroborated the original report
that children had been thrown overboard. However, on no occasion did the Defence
organisation provide definitive advice to the Department of the Prime Minister and
Cabinet or the People Smuggling Taskforce that children were not thrown overboard
from SIEV 4 or that the photographs were not of that alleged incident.
On 7 November 2001, Minister Reith informed the Prime Minister that, at the least,
there were doubts about whether the photographs represented the alleged children
overboard incident or whether they represented events connected with SIEV 4’s
sinking.
Despite direct media questioning on the issue, no correction, retraction or
communication about the existence of doubts in connection with either the alleged
incident itself or the photographs as evidence for it was made by any member of the
Federal Government before the election on 10 November 2001.
Minister Reith made a number of misleading statements, implying that the published
photographs and a video supported the original report that children had been thrown
overboard well after he had received definitive advice to the contrary.
The Committee finds that Mr Reith deceived the Australian people during the 2001
Federal Election campaign concerning the state of the evidence for the claim that
children had been thrown overboard from SIEV 4. [my red bolding]
No comments:
Post a Comment