It was a bad day for Deputy Opposition leader and Shadow Foreign Minister Julie Bishop yesterday. Julie let it slip that local intelligence agencies are involved in passport forgery, in a video interview with The Age online. Bishop said it would be naive to think only Israel is involved with passport forgery.

Kevin Rudd is accusing Bishop of breaching national security and the convention that both sides of politics never comment about security agencies activities.

Bishop has now backtracked on her forgery comments, releasing a statement saying:

My responses were referring to the fact that forged Australian passports have been used previously, as noted by the Foreign Minister today.

I have no knowledge of any Australian authority forging any passports of any nation.

So how bad was Julie’s stuff up? Here’s what the pundits are saying:

The Australian

Dennis Shanahan: Libs’ spin on expulsion an abuse of privilege

The last person to abuse such a briefing, and who suffered permanent damage to his credentials as someone who could be trusted to act maturely with such knowledge, was Mark Latham.

Samantha Maiden: Bishop’s passport to rile Labor

Agent provocateur Julie Bishop was declared an enemy of the Labor state in question time yesterday.

The Daily Telegraph

Malcolm Farr: Bishop shops the spies

…Julie Bishop, has put at risk any confidence and trust Australia’s security and intelligence services will have in her—whether she is in Opposition or government. And she probably has compromised a significant element of our diplomatic integrity.