Shorten blasted for ‘doctored’ Burney interview notes

Malcolm Turnbull has accused Bill Shorten of ‘doctoring’ a Labor MP’s media transcript on offshore detention.

Labor’s Linda Burney during question time in Canberra yesterday. Picture: Ray Strange

Malcolm Turnbull has launched an assault on Bill Shorten’s credibility and exposed the ALP’s internal divisions on asylum-seekers, accusing the ­Opposition Leader of “doctoring” a media transcript to conceal ­responses from a Labor front­bencher on offshore detention.

Remarks made by Labor’s Linda Burney on immigration were rewritten in a transcript ­issued by Mr Shorten’s office on Wednesday that altered almost every answer provided by Ms Burney and changed questions asked by Sky News political editor David Speers.

The “doctored” transcript omitted substantial parts of the ­interview, including sections where Ms Burney railed against indefinite detention and called for a time-limit to apply to the detainment of asylum-seekers held in offshore centres.

Home Affairs Minister Peter Dutton said the transcript was a deliberate act of fabrication and exposed a “civil war taking place within the Labor Party” over its position on border protection.

“It was the most duplicitous act,” Mr Dutton yesterday told parliament. “It was conveyed to the press gallery by the Leader of the Opposition’s office. Nobody would be surprised that this Leader of the Opposition would be part of a dodgy deal trying to cover up some sort of dodgy circumstance.’’

Speaking in parliament, the Prime Minister said the interview was “falsified” and used it to attack Mr Shorten’s trustworthiness and his decision to oppose the government’s corporate tax cuts.

“He has got as much chance of getting away with his job-destroying, anti-business, anti-investment policies as he has in getting away with doctoring transcripts,” he said. The Prime Minister said 800 words had been removed from the transcript.

The interview was transcribed by Ms Burney’s staffer Daryl Tan, who was “counselled” over the grossly inaccurate transcription.

Here is the Sky News transcript

The transcript was issued at 6:56pm on Wednesday, shortly after the interview.

“It was most definitely an innocent mistake,” Mr Tan told The Australian.

Ms Burney, Labor’s human services spokeswoman, said the altered transcript was “unintentional” and denied Mr Shorten’s office had any role in the changes.

“My comments on Sky News yesterday are public,” she said. “This was an error in my office and was unintentional. The staff member involved has been counselled about the mistake.

“No other office had any role; it was solely my office’s responsibility for transcribing the interview and checking its accuracy.”

All media releases and transcripts for Labor MPs are sent out by Mr Shorten’s office with the only exception being key frontbencher Anthony Albanese — the Opposition Leader’s former leadership rival — who manages his own media. Mr Shorten yesterday denied that his office had doctored the transcript.

“The Prime Minister said my office fabricated a transcript. That is not correct. Furthermore, the Prime Minister and the government should stop smearing the staff in my office,” Mr Shorten said. “They cannot defend themselves against you. It is beneath you to bully staff members — ­beneath you.’’

The Australian understands Mr Shorten’s communications director, Gerard Richardson, was working in Jenny Macklin’s office in January 2013 when the then Labor families minister answered “I could” when pressed by media on whether she could live on the dole of just $35 a day or $246 a week.

When the transcript was later issued of the press conference, the question and the answer were ­recorded “inaudible” but Mr Richardson denied tran­scribing that press conference.

Mr Turnbull yesterday rubbished the explanation for the mistake given by Ms Burney and used parliament to claim that Mr ­Shorten’s office had altered the transcript. “The Leader of the Opposition’s office edited — and when I say edited, it was doctored, falsified — the transcript of the member for Barton’s interview,” Mr Turnbull said.

“Eighteen hundred words it was. ‘Apparently,’ she said, ‘an unintentional error resulted in 800 words vanishing.’ That really is quite a slip.

“It’s no mistake; the falsification of that transcript was ­designed to do one thing and one thing only: cover up the fact that inside the Labor Party there is the deepest opposition to the government’s border protection policies.’’

Labor sources claimed Mr Turnbull’s office had altered transcripts in the past to make him look less obsequious to US President Donald Trump during their February meeting at the White House.

In the version of the February transcript issued by Mr Turnbull’s office, the Prime Minister thanked Mr Trump twice. The transcript ­issued by the White House had Mr Turnbull thanking the President four times.