Australia PM cautiously optimistic that hostage crisis is hoax

3.15pm

CANBERRA - Prime Minister John Howard today said he was becoming cautiously optimistic that a claim two Australians had been kidnapped in Iraq was a hoax.

Mr Howard also accused Labor of being petty for complaining that the government had sent a specialist team to Iraq to help rescue any hostages without consulting the opposition.

A group known as the Horror Brigades of the Islamic Secret Army released a leaflet on Monday night, saying it had seized two Australians and two Asians near the Iraqi town of Samarra, and would execute them unless Australia withdrew forces from Iraq within 24 hours.

The deadline passed last night with no further word.

No names or photographs of the hostages have yet been released, raising suspicions it was a hoax.

"I suppose, as each hour goes by, you grow cautiously more hopeful but I don't think we should think that it still may not be true," Mr Howard told ABC radio in Perth.

"I just don't know. I hope it's not, we all hope and pray it's not."

Mr Howard said there was no need under the caretaker convention -- which applies during election campaigns -- for the government to consult the opposition before sending the logistics support team.

The team left for Iraq last night as part of a contingency plan agreed to by federal cabinet's national security council last month.

Opposition Leader Mark Latham said it was an outrageous breach of the caretaker convention.

But Mr Howard said the decision was taken before the election was called, and there was no need to consult Mr Latham or opposition frontbenchers Kevin Rudd or Kim Beazley.

"The caretaker convention requires you to consult the opposition if you are making a new commitment or proposing a new policy," he said.

"It does not require you to talk to them every minute of the day.

"He (Mr Latham) has capacity and so does Kevin Rudd and Kim Beazley to seek any briefings they wish.

"I just want them to stop being petty."

Mr Latham said it was outrageous that the government was willing to consult Labor over a new round of anti-terrorism television ads but not about decisions to send special teams to Iraq to deal with a possible hostage crisis.

"The truth is that if Labor is elected in three and a half weeks' time, we would be in charge of the operation. We would be in charge of this defence team and possibly the negotiating team, so-called, that are being sent to Iraq," Mr Latham said.

Mr Howard said he had asked Mr Latham about anti-terrorism advertising last week, in the wake of the Jakarta embassy bombing, because he needed opposition permission to commit new money to the ad campaign.

- AAP