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CANBERRA - Opposition Leader Kevin Rudd says he is not a heavy drinker, as he continues to apologise for his boozy September 2003 visit to a New York strip club.
Mr Rudd yesterday admitted to visiting the Scores club with New York Post editor Col Allan and Labor
MP Warren Snowdon during a taxpayer-funded visit to the United Nations.
"On this occasion I had too much drink," Mr Rudd told ABC radio today.
"But I am not by habit or by reputation or by instinct a heavy drinker.
"People who know me around Parliament House would affirm that."
Mr Rudd said he was relying on a combination of his sketchy memory from the evening and his companions' recollections in explaining what had happened.
"When you have had a few drinks obviously your complete recollection of events is not going to be perfect," he said.
"(But) we were out of there before much time had elapsed."
Mr Allan said yesterday Mr Rudd had behaved like "a perfect gentleman" during the visit to the Manhattan strip club.
The Labor leader has suggested Foreign Minister Alexander Downer for being behind the smear campaign, strategically revealed to harm his electoral prospects.
Mr Rudd said he remembered having too much to drink on another occasion -- at his 35th birthday party with his family, 15 years ago.
Mr Rudd said he took full responsibility for any fallout from the strip club incident.
But it was up to voters to decide whether he should be punished.
"Yes it happened, I'm responsible for it, I don't make any excuses (and I will) cop it on the chin," he said.
"In terms of how the wider Australian community react to that, I expect I'll take a hit in the polls.
"But people will make their judgment come election day about a whole host of things."
While insisting he did not know whether the leak had come from a Howard government source, Mr Rudd continued to point the finger at the foreign minister.
"Ask Mr Downer, ask his staff," he said.
Mr Snowdon today rejected claims made by News Ltd journalist Glenn Milne yesterday that Mr Rudd was warned for touching the dancers at the Scores club, and that he had been asked to leave.
"We didn't act inappropriately and we weren't asked to leave," Mr Snowdon told ABC radio.
"I certainly drank quite a deal but I have sufficient recollection to know what happened ... I'm as certain as I can be that the incidents described by Glenn Milne didn't happen."
Mr Snowdon conceded he should not have visited the club.
"It was an inappropriate thing to do and I shouldn't have been there in the first place," he said.
- AAP
