25feb02

THE federal opposition would hound the Howard government over the children overboard affair until it got to the bottom of the alleged cover-up, Opposition Leader Simon Crean has vowed.

"I think that this is a government, as a whole, that is rotten at the top," Mr Crean told ABC radio in Melbourne.

"It's not rotten at the core - the advice was getting through in terms of the public servants getting it into ministers' offices.

"We're expected to believe it was not getting to the top, the cream wasn't rising in other words. "Now I don't believe it, but so far we haven't proven it. We've got the smoking guns but the prime minister has hidden the bullets in so many folds of deceit that they're yet to be found."

A Senate estimates committee has been investigating false allegations by the federal government during last year's election that asylum seekers had thrown children into the sea.

"I do not believe the prime minister when he says he didn't know," Mr Crean said, of Mr Howard's claims he was not told there were doubts about the accuracy of the children overboard claims.

"What we've demonstrated is that everyone else in the government knew except the prime minister. Well I don't believe him.

"If in fact it's a question of trust in your leader, your prime minister, your government, it's terribly important to expose it where that trust's been abused. "I believe it's been seriously abused and we want to show that."