KEY POINTS:
CANBERRA - Veteran political journalist Laurie Oakes says the Liberal Party is behind a "fact sheet" about a Howard Government minister who visits gay bathhouses and harasses other men.
A report in News Ltd papers yesterday said the fact sheet claims the unnamed minister, who is married with children, sexually harasses other males in political circles and is rumoured to be sleeping with one of his staff members in Canberra.
It follows accusations last week that government operatives were digging up Opposition Leader Kevin Rudd's medical records, after confirmation Rudd had a heart procedure 14 years ago.
News Ltd journalist Glenn Milne's report on the gay accusations said the fact sheet on the minister was not being circulated by the Labor Party.
While interviewing deputy Labor leader Julia Gillard yesterday about the personal smears tarnishing federal politics, Oakes said he, too, had been fed the material about the minister.
And he pointed the finger at the Liberal Party. "I'm interested in this, you see, because I've been fed the same allegations about this minister, and they were fed to me by a Liberal," Oakes said.
Gillard said Labor was not behind the smears. "I've never heard anyone in Labor refer to this supposed fact sheet," she told the Nine Network.
Gillard maintained the Government runs a dirt unit, citing an episode involving a Howard minister trying to peddle a dirt file about her to a Fairfax journalist, Jason Koutsoukis.
"We know on the public record that there are references to forensic accountants looking at people's financial records, there's a reference to a dirt file being peddled to a journalist - a dirt file about me and a journalist being invited to a ministerial suite to receive it," she said.
"Their denials that they've never thought of being in the smear business simply aren't credible and can't be believed. We know they've been in the smear business."
Prime Minister John Howard has denied running a dirt unit, and launched a sustained assault on Rudd in Parliament last week after Labor asked if government operatives had been trawling through Rudd's medical history.
Gillard said Labor monitored coalition MPs' public statements for contradictions and hypocrisy.
"[But] what I think is inappropriate is the dirt-digging. The private investigators, the going through garbage bins, all of those kind of things which aren't about policy, aren't about the public debate, but are a naked attempt to try and dig up something usable and grubby and dirty which will then be put into the public debate."
-AAP
