Shadow Minister for Women Tanya Plibersek has criticised the timing of Prime Minister Scott Morrison’s apology after a claim he made during yesterday’s press conference.

Mr Morrison said in a statement late last night he deeply regretted responding to a question by making an anonymous reference to an investigation at News Corp, which was rejected by the company as untrue.

“The front pages of all the News Ltd papers starting coming in, giving the Prime Minister a hard time about getting this so very wrong, that’s when he apologised, that’s terrible,” Ms Plibersek said.

“He only apologised after News Ltd called him out on it.”

She said staff and former staff were already nervous about coming forward.

“If they think the Prime Minister is going to grab hold of an allegation and use it in this way in the parliament, without the permission of the person who is gone to the inquiry that is really going to stop people coming forward.

“That’s the last thing we want.”

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