This letter sent for publication (but not yet published) will, no doubt, come as huge comfort to Gerald McManus and Michael Harvey:

The Letters Editor
The Australian

I strongly object to recent statements and imputations regarding my conduct contained in a report by Matt Price and Patricia Karvelas (The Australian, 30.8.05, p.6). The report is factually incorrect and misleading and damaging to me.

Basic questions to any government department regarding standard practice in the event of a departmental leak would have been helpful if the truth still mattered.

At no time did I order an investigation of the departmental leak.

Nor did I present Cabinet with a plan costing $150 million. As far as I am aware, my Cabinet submission is still secret.

I seek a correction and an apology for the false claim that I instigated the investigation. I seek your response forthwith. I also seek assurances you will not repeat this false claim, and that you will correct the News Limited files which relate to this issue. If the correction, apology and assurances are not forthcoming, I shall consider legal redress.

Lord protect us all from the suffocating judgment of pompous journalists in the pulpit. Especially the lazy ones.

Danna Vale, MP

Federal Member for Hughes