Ian Lincoln, ambassador to Vietnam from 1986 to 1988, has been accused of passing on confidential information to communist officials about 54 boatpeople who landed in Australia in 2003, while serving on the refugee tribunal.
The leaking claims, which Mr Lincoln strongly denies, were made by the Vietnamese Community in Australia group in a written submission to a Senate inquiry dated August 8 last year.
But the report examines how DFAT handled Mr Lincoln’s relationship with a 16-year-old he met in a park near his home in Hanoi in September 1987.
The report said Mr Lincoln later sponsored the boy to Australia in 1990, where the pair said their relationship became sexual.
Let’s see if I got that right. The Australian Ambassador in Vietnam had a thing about 16 year old Vietnamese boys, seduced one and then brought him back to Australia.
Of course we all believe that the relationship became sexual only after the boy was 18.
What was Bob Hawke thinking?