The truth, the whole truth and the PM’s man

In the days since Mike Scrafton revealed what he told John Howard about the “children overboard” before the last election, the question of whether he should have ignored the risks and spoken out sooner has been intensely debated. Loudest of all was the blistering contribution from Max Moore-Wilton, the former head of the Prime Minister’s Department, who told ABC radio that – among other things – Scrafton was a “weak personality” if he had indeed failed to speak out because he feared retribution. [Introduction]