Plausible deniability for man in the shadows

Trying to pin down irrefutable evidence of Kevin Rudd's till-now covert campaign to seize back the Labor leadership has been like playing hide-and-seek in the dark. Hear a rustle in the bushes, swing the torch in that direction and there's nothing there. Nothing visible, at any rate.

Mr Rudd, a former diplomat who as the foreign affairs minister had charge of the Australian Secret Intelligence Service, understands plausible deniability.

In the world of spycraft, it often refers to the ''cutout'', the person whose actions you can plead ignorance of should they be caught out. In general parlance it has come to refer to things you're confident you can get away with, despite having knowledge of them.

Mr Rudd's delicate game with senior gallery journalists has had all the hallmarks of plausible deniability about it. It has been a campaign in the shadows, leaving no clear evidence for his detractors to hang him with.

He knows it would be a fundamental breach of journalistic ethics for any political reporter or editor to reveal confidential conversations with him.

But conversations there have, apparently, been. Earlier this month, the veteran political observer Barrie Cassidy stated plainly in his column for the ABC's website The Drum that Rudd had been briefing selected journalists on Julia Gillard's shortcomings.

''I know the names of some of those he has spoken to. I know where he said it - in his office - on a parliamentary sitting day - and I know what he said,'' Cassidy wrote.

''He told them a challenge would happen; he told them he was prepared to lose the first ballot and go to the backbench; and in one conversation he laughed about the prospect of Gillard stumbling again. Yet the foreign minister has categorically denied ever having spoken to any journalist about the leadership. He can deny the approaches only because … he is protected by the cloak of journalistic ethics.''

Another senior gallery member yesterday confirmed Cassidy's appraisal.

''I'm telling you it's been happening,'' the observer said. ''His biggest problem has always been indiscretion. He is just indiscreet. And he relies on people being honourable and never betraying confidences.''

Last night on ABC TV's 7.30, a Labor backbencher, Michael Danby, challenged Mr Rudd to deny that he'd met four senior gallery reporters several times, outlining a ''two-stage program'' to regain the leadership.

Frontbencher Tony Burke claimed that Mr Rudd's ''stealth and undermining'' had been the ''worst-kept secret in Canberra''.

It's been hard for Mr Rudd's opponents to pin him down on charges of disloyalty because he's left so few tracks. But why was the foreign affairs minister having a meeting late last year in South Australia with an obscure numbers man for the left, union official David Gray? Why did he release a speech, which he delivered to the Australian Industry Group 10 days ago, a speech that - according to one source - they understood was to be given in closed session? Why was he reported by The Australian Financial Review on Monday to have been meeting quietly with key business leaders, promising a ''new policy dialogue''?

Mr Rudd strongly defended his integrity in the speech he delivered last night. He has cast himself as the honourable man. The risk is that someone will have evidence to the contrary.

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