Government News Index
Ruddock regrets 'misinformation'
AAP
31mar02
IMMIGRATION Minister Philip Ruddock today said he regretted spreading misinformation that asylum seekers' children were thrown overboard but said he took the information on trust.
Federal ministers falsely claimed children were thrown from a people smuggling boat on October 7, during the federal election campaign.
HMAS Adelaide photographs of children in the water, provided by the government as proof of the claims, were actually taken the following day during a rescue of asylum seekers from the sinking boat.
"I certainly regret any misinformation that may have been abroad because of the way in which I was informed of these events," Mr Ruddock told the Nine Network.
"What has become quite apparent is that I received certain information properly and in a circumstance in which you wouldn't bring it into question."
Internal ALP polling reportedly shows the children overboard affair was rated the most damaging issue for the government by 46 per cent of voters, while 54 per cent said their trust in Prime Minister John Howard had been diminished by this and other recent scandals.
Mr Ruddock said people would form their own judgment but it was simply a misunderstanding.
"I mean, the information came to me properly and it's quite apparent how that arose because there was a misunderstanding, to put it in its most benign form, as to what was said by the captain (Commander Norman Banks) to another naval officer who recorded it and passed it on," he said.
"The issue of trust arises where people believe that having used that information I was in some way complicit.
"I clearly wasn't but you can't always address those issues, people will form their own judgments."