PM rejects new children overboard claims:

"Prime Minister John Howard has rejected a former ministerial adviser's claim that he was told before the 2001 federal election that no children had been thrown overboard from a boat carrying asylum seekers in Australian waters.

Mike Scrafton, an adviser to former Defence Minister Peter Reith, has written a letter to The Australian newspaper to clear the air over the 'children overboard' affair. Mr Scrafton said in the letter he had had three telephone conversations with Mr Howard on November 7, 2001.

He said he told Mr Howard that a videotape of the incident did not support the proposition that children had been thrown overboard. And he said he had advised the prime minister that no one in Defence that he had dealt with believed the allegation."