Fed: Howard crying crocodile tears over journalists: Labor

AAP General News (Australia)
08-30-2005
Fed: Howard crying crocodile tears over journalists: Labor

MELBOURNE, Aug 30 AAP - Prime Minister John Howard must bear direct responsibility
if two senior political journalists are jailed for refusing to reveal a source, Labor
said today.

Labor's legal affairs spokeswoman Nicola Roxon said the two Herald Sun journalists
risked imprisonment because of a government obsession in tracking down the source of a
leak to the media.

The newspaper's chief political reporter, Michael Harvey, and a senior Canberra bureau
reporter, Gerard McManus, face a contempt of court charge after last week refusing to
divulge the source of a story that revealed federal government plans not to raise war
veterans' entitlements.

The reporters were called before Victoria's County Court as witnesses at a pre-trial
hearing for senior bureaucrat Desmond Patrick Kelly, 52, who is accused of the leak.

They both cited the journalists' code of ethics for their refusal to name their source.

Mr Kelly, employed in the Department of Veterans Affairs, is facing a charge of unauthorised
disclosure of information, which carries a maximum two-year jail sentence.

The alleged leak detailed the government's plan to not deliver $500 million in extra
pensions to veterans and widows.

The government dropped the plan after bad publicity stemming from a Herald Sun story
in February last year.

Ms Roxon today accused Mr Howard of hypocrisy when he last week described the two journalists
as "good blokes" he had a lot of time for.

She said Harvey and McManus would not be facing jail but for the intervention of the government.

"I think it is ridiculous we're in a situation where two journalists are going to go
to jail potentially because Mr Howard has been obsessed in chasing down a leak that has
embarrassed his government," Ms Roxon told reporters in Melbourne.

"I think Mr Howard is trying to intimidate journalists and bullying public servants,
and to me he's just crying crocodile tears now to say they're good blokes.

"It's his actions that have directly led to this and it will be on his hands if they
do go to jail."

The two journalists are expected to be charged within days.

AAP mp/gfr/apm/bwl

KEYWORD: KELLY SOURCE LABOR

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