Rudd leaked against ALP for Libs: Downer

Ousted prime minister Kevin Rudd leaked damaging material against his own Labor colleagues that the Liberal Party had fed him, a Howard government minister says.

Former foreign minister Alexander Downer said that as an ambitious Labor backbencher in opposition, Mr Rudd sought to undermine the ALP's then foreign affairs spokesman Laurie Brereton by giving information to the media.

"We used him mercilessly to embarrass Laurie Brereton," Mr Downer told News Limited's Sunday newspapers.

"We would give Rudd information to use against Brereton, and he would use it."

Soon after being elected to parliament in 1998, Mr Rudd used his position as the chairman of Labor's caucus national security and trade committee to publicly disagree with Mr Brereton's positions on foreign relations.

Before taking the foreign affairs portfolio from Mr Brereton in 2001, Mr Rudd wrote newspaper articles contradicting Mr Brereton's push for East Timorese independence and for more independent diplomatic ties between Australia and the US.

Mr Brereton declined to comment specifically on Mr Rudd's alleged political conduct for News Limited, but Mr Downer was more forthcoming.

"I don't use the c-word, but I do use the f-word pretty freely, and I can tell you that Kevin Rudd is a f***ing awful person," he said.

"He was so incredibly unprincipled."

As Labor's opposition foreign affairs spokesman, Mr Rudd politically linked Mr Downer with the Australia Wheat Board oil for food kickbacks scandal in Iraq.

Prime Minister Julia Gillard's election campaign has been undermined this week, with leaks about her conduct as deputy prime minister.

On Saturday, The Australian newspaper revealed that Ms Gillard sent her former bodyguard Andrew Stark to attend sensitive national security committee meetings on her behalf.

A few days ago, the Nine Network reported an anonymous leak alleging Ms Gillard questioned parental leave and a pension increase in cabinet.

Mr Rudd has denied being the source of this first leak, and was in hospital in Brisbane on Saturday recovering from an operation to remove his gall bladder.