Scott Morrison’s office has refused to release his full text message exchange with French president Emmanuel Macron at the centre of the Aukus row, citing reasons that undermine the earlier selective leaking of one of the texts.
A senior adviser to the Australian prime minister now says the messages between the pair in mid-September “contain information that was communicated in confidence” and releasing them could damage “Australia’s international relations”.
The diplomatic rift deepened in November after Macron accused Morrison of lying to him over the dumping of the French submarine contract in favour of new plans with the US and the UK for nuclear-powered submarines.
Morrison retorted he was “not going to cop sledging of Australia”, and part of a text message exchange was released to several Australian media outlets in an apparent attempt to blunt the idea France had been completely blindsided by the cancellation.
Macron reportedly texted Morrison two days before the announcement – when the Australian prime minister was trying to schedule a phone call – to ask: “Should I expect good or bad news for our joint submarines ambitions?”
Morrison has never disputed that it was the Australian government that released the contents of the private message, insisting the text “refuted” incorrect claims – but French officials denounced the leaking as “an unprecedented new low”.
In an attempt to gain a better understanding of the extent and nature of communications between Morrison and Macron, Guardian Australia applied to the PM’s office for text messages between the pair in the period 12 to 18 September.
But a senior adviser in the prime minister’s office said he was “satisfied that disclosure of the requested documents would or could reasonably be expected to cause damage to Australia’s international relations” and were “exempt in full from disclosure” under freedom of information laws.
“The requested documents are communications between the prime minister and the head of state of a foreign government and were undertaken in confidence,” the adviser wrote in a letter sent late on Friday evening.
The FoI application, submitted two months ago, specifically included Morrison’s reply to Macron’s question and the PM’s “personal correspondence” on 15 September formally notifying him of Australia’s decision.
The FoI application asked the decision-maker to take into account the fact the Australian government had already publicly disclosed elements of the requested material, evidently judging there was not an unacceptable impact on the relationship.
But the decision letter cited FoI guidelines that say harm to international relations can include “intangible or speculative damage, such as loss of trust and confidence in the Australian government or one of its agencies”.
The guidelines also say communication between governments is confidential “if it was communicated and received under an express or implied understanding that the communication would be kept confidential”.
Labor’s acting foreign affairs spokesperson, Kristina Keneally, said the reasoning in the letter “demonstrates Mr Morrison knows he should never have selectively leaked the other messages in an attempt to embarrass President Macron”.
“Mr Morrison’s office has issued a damning indictment of Mr Morrison’s own behaviour, declaring that public distribution of such text messages causes damage to Australia’s international relations,” she said.
“This is a reminder that Mr Morrison was the one who started the craze of leaking text messages to undermine others.”
The deputy prime minister, Barnaby Joyce, who is now at the centre of a political storm over his own text describing Morrison as “a hypocrite and a liar”, said in November the leak was “not as extraordinary as calling the leader of another country a liar when they’re not”.
When asked in November whether Macron calling him a liar was the trigger for the leak, and whether it was “fair for you to do what you did”, Morrison said: “Claims had been made and those claims were refuted … what is needed now is for us to move on.”
The reasons specified in Morrison’s office’s letter appear to implicitly back up the French government’s objections to the earlier leaking of a text message they believed would be treated as private.
Close advisers to Macron said confidence had been “completely shattered” by “a pretty crude and unconventional tactic”.
The French ambassador, Jean-Pierre Thébault, had said the leaking “sends a very worrying signal for all heads of state” that the Australian government might eventually “weaponise” their confidential messages.
Late on Friday Morrison’s office also blocked a separate FoI request for the communications plan or strategy regarding the announcement of Aukus.
His office took 133 days – well in excess of the statutory deadline of 30 days – to conclude that the documents were exempt because they were created mainly to form a submission to cabinet.
Joe Biden attempted to repair the United States’ own rift with France over the “clumsy” handling of Aukus by telling Macron he had been “under the impression that France had been informed long before that the [submarine] deal was not going through”.
Last week Guardian Australia revealed Australia’s top defence official promised to report “good progress” on the French project to the Australian government, just two weeks before the deal was cancelled.
That prompted the former prime minister, Malcolm Turnbull, to accuse Morrison of presiding over “a diplomatic debacle of the first order”.
The defence minister, Peter Dutton, told the ABC the government had acted on advice that nuclear-powered submarines were “in our country’s best interests” as they would be less easily detectible. Dutton said he believed “the French have moved on” but “you and the ABC haven’t, and the Guardian, and Malcolm”.
Another tranche of documents released in December showed an earlier defence department investigation into the option of nuclear-powered submarines, launched in 2020, was to be handled on a “strictly need-to-know basis”.
While Aukus was described by US officials as the “biggest strategic step that Australia has taken in generations”, the practicalities of the submarine plan are now subject to another 18-month study.
Morrison’s office was contacted for comment.
