Former Defence Department bureaucrat Jenny McKenry has come forward to back the claims of a former ministerial adviser in the children overboard affair.
Prime Minister John Howard and former defence adviser Mike Scrafton have contradicted each other's accounts of briefings about the issue before the 2001 election.
Mr Scrafton says he told Mr Howard three days from the election that there was no evidence asylum seekers threw children into the sea and no-one in defence believed it happened.
Mr Howard denies that version of events.
But Ms McKenry, the former head of defence public affairs, says Mr Scrafton phoned her the morning after he spoke to Mr Howard.
"He told me that there was nothing conclusive in the video and there's no evidence to support the children overboard story and that is what he had conveyed to the prime minister the evening before," Ms McKenry told ABC Radio's AM program.
Ms McKenry says she believes Mr Scrafton to be an honest and professional individual.
Let voters decide: PM
But even before Ms McKenry spoke out, Mr Howard was not concerned.
"He can have any public servant he likes. I know who spoke to me and I know what they said when I spoke to them," Mr Howard said.
Mr Scrafton says a lie detector test he took this week backs his claims.
"Categorically, the issue was I think decided by the polygraph that my account of events has been justified," Mr Scrafton said.
But Mr Howard says he does not need to undergo a similar test.
"I will submit myself to the great lie detector test in Australian politics and that is the collective judgment of my fellow Australians," he said.
Deputy Prime Minister John Anderson has fiercely defended Mr Howard's credibility this morning.
"I don't think many people have worked more closely with the Prime Minister than I have over many years now in opposition and in Government," Mr Anderson told Channel Nine.
"When you work with somebody for a long time, you get to know whether you can trust them or not.
"In very simple, blunt and black and white terms, I trust the Prime Minister of Australia. I trust him personally and I trust him with the management of the country."
