Indonesia spying revelations: ABC chief Mark Scott defends decision to publish leaked Snowden documents

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The managing director of the ABC has defended publishing top-secret leaked government documents showing that Australia spied on Indonesia.

Documents revealed yesterday by the ABC and Guardian Australia show that Australia attempted to intercept president Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono's phone on at least one occasion and monitored his calls for 15 days in 2009.

The slides were leaked by former US spy contractor Edward Snowden.

Initially they were given to the Guardian Australia, which then brought them to the ABC.

In a Senate Estimates hearing on Tuesday, Mr Scott was questioned about the appropriateness of publishing documents labelled "top secret".

He defended the decision to publish them, saying it was in the public interest.

"We're seeing a big international debate on intelligence activities in this digital age, what information can be procured, what info can be shared," he said.

"I think the story yesterday centrally went to that, and therefore I think it was an important story that should have been told and that's why we told it."

Mr Scott says both organisations only had access to the documents for a few days before reporting the story, despite claims to the contrary.

"The suggestion that somehow people had been sitting on this for months is untrue," he said

"The material that the Guardian has received through this well-known leak is massive in its volume, and ... material in it is still being reviewed and uncovered over time."

In a tweet, Katharine Viner, the editor-in-chief of Guardian Australia and deputy editor of the Guardian worldwide, confirmed that:

@mirandadevine we got the material in the last few days. US team v carefully going through thousands of Snowden documents, v lengthy process — Katharine Viner (@KathViner) November 18, 2013

Topics: foreign-affairs, government-and-politics, world-politics, abbott-tony, security-intelligence, defence-and-national-security, abc, broadcasting, information-and-communication, indonesia, australia, asia