WHAT self-serving, malevolent shysters - deliberately damaging Australia and blaming Tony Abbott for it. Who are these hypocrites who betray Australia, peddle a traitor's leaks and demand we surrender to Indonesia, just to destroy a Prime Minister they hate?

Blog all day with Andrew Bolt

Let's start with the clowns. On Tuesday, ABC managing director Mark Scott insisted the ABC was right to join the far-Left Guardian Australia in publishing secret intelligence stolen from the US National Security Agency by the American traitor Edward Snowden.

Scott said it was in the "public interest" to reveal Australia in 2009 monitored the phones of Indonesian leaders, even though he knew it would hurt his country.

"Yes, I appreciate that the release of some of this material might … cause some difficulties with the Australian-Indonesian relationship in the short term."

That is putting it mildly. These reports from the ABC and Guardian, revealing Australia monitored the phones of even President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono and his wife, haven't just led Indonesia to formally downgrade our relationship.

Nor have they simply goaded Indonesia into threatening to withhold co-operation in fighting terrorists and people smugglers, potentially putting Australians in more danger and tempting more boat people to risk their lives at sea. They will also boost support for any anti-Western nationalists in Indonesia's presidential elections next year. God knows what that might cost us.

Scott airily waved all this away, but get this. The next day he discovered there was indeed one secret too damaging to publish: how much the taxpayer-funded ABC pays its star presenters.

Scott today raged at length about this terrible leaking of information the ABC fought for three years to keep secret.

"Payroll information should be confidential. It shouldn't leak!" shrieked the head of a news outfit that made serial leaker Julian Assange a hero. Why, this leak "puts us at a significant disadvantage to our competitors".

Can you believe this guy, who had no trouble publishing secrets that put his whole country "at a significant disadvantage to our competitors"?

media_camera ABC managing director Mark Scott.

But Scott's hypocrisy is trumped by the Greens'. In 1999, Greens leader Bob Brown was demanding an "international peacekeeping force" invade Indonesia, if that's what it took to free East Timor. But now? These same Greens are shocked - shocked - that we tapped the phones of Indonesian leaders and they cry crocodile tears at "the damage that the unregulated surveillance state is doing to our diplomatic relationships".

Are these people mad? Have they forgotten that Indonesia, today a democracy under a friendly ex-general, was only recently less benign and tomorrow might be again? Don't they realise the phonetapping in 2009 occurred only a month after yet another Islamist bombing, this one killing three Australians in Jakarta, when Australia needed to know how serious Indonesia was in tackling extremists? Of course, the Greens are simply adolescents in permanent revolt against Father. They are at heart irresponsible, not to be trusted with real power.

But what excuse is there for Labor leader Bill Shorten? On Tuesday he sided with the Greens, Fairfax journalists and extremist Islamist group Hizb ut Tahrir in demanding Abbott apologise to Indonesia.

"I believe, for instance, that the example of the United States in the way that it handled a similar issue with Germany provides the opportunity for us to consider the same course of action," he told Parliament. Shorten was referring to President Barack Obama's response to another Snowden leak, which revealed the US had monitored the calls of German Chancellor Angela Merkel. Obama - foolishly - rang Merkel to apologise and, his spokesman said, "assured the Chancellor that the US is not monitoring and will not monitor the communications of Chancellor Merkel".

BUT Indonesia is not Germany. And, if Abbott gives such a guarantee to Indonesia, he'll be under pressure to give the same to the leaders of Cambodia, Vietnam, Malaysia and whoever else demands one. And if the next Snowden leak shows us spying on Chinese leaders, what does Abbott do next?

No wonder two Labor frontbenchers are already back-pedalling. Tony Burke today refused to spell out what Shorten actually wanted Abbott to say to Yudhoyono: "I'm not going to add to the words Bill Shorten put forward."

Immigration spokesman Richard Marles was just as skittish, refusing to confirm whether Shorten truly wanted Abbott to say to Yudhoyono what Obama said to Merkel. So what the hell does Shorten really want?

I suspect it's to embarrass Abbott and sink his successful campaign to stop the boats - a campaign that relies on Indonesia's help.

The Fairfax media, mad with Abbott hate, is doing its best to help, seeming at times to blame Abbott for spying actually done under the Rudd government. Worse, Fairfax writers are virtually united in insisting Abbott give Indonesia the apology we cannot afford. Indeed, most are on Indonesia's side. Don't doubt that. Hatred of Abbott and his signature boats policy is driving much of this hysterical media coverage and damn the national interest. Hear it from Jack Waterford, of the Fairfax Canberra Times: "There are many people, including me, who want to see our shameful policies fail."

Hear it also from Richard Ackland, of the Fairfax Sydney Morning Herald, suggesting the Indonesian President sends an armada to topple Abbott: "Best way for SBY to respond to spying is to open the spigot on refugees. Put 50,000 on boats, point them at Oz. Goodbye Abbott."

The hypocrites. The scoundrels. And is it too much to say they've sold out their country?