Malcolm Turnbull has dismissed as "shameful" Labor allegations his government instigated a police investigation into the leak of confidential national broadband network documents.
The prime minister insists the first he heard of the Australian Federal Police investigation into the leaks was on Thursday and only after raids on the office of Labor senator Stephen Conroy and the home of a staffer.
Mr Turnbull said he was advised by Michael Keenan shortly after AFP commissioner Andrew Colvin told the justice minister of the raids.
Mr Turnbull said Labor should be ashamed of themselves for attacking the integrity of the AFP.
"That is a shameful thing to do," he told reporters in Launceston on Friday.
It was his job to ensure the AFP did its work free of political pressure or involvement.
"The police are doing their job, they're doing it independently, they're doing it with integrity."
The prime minister also took a swipe at shadow attorney-general Mark Dreyfus for suggesting the government instigated the raids, describing his comments as dramatic.
"They're not consistent with somebody who is seeking to be the first law officer of the Crown."
Mr Dreyfus is refusing to say the government had no involvement in the raids, insisting the timing during an election campaign undermined confidence in the AFP's independence.
He has concerns about what the government had done to pressure NBN Co, a company it owns, to go after whistleblowers and conceal Mr Turnbull's mismanagement of the project when he was communications minister.
"We've got Mr Turnbull going after whistleblowers, Mr Turnbull not wanting there to be investigation of his mismanagement," he told ABC radio.
Cabinet minister Christopher Pyne dismissed as "loopy" any suggestion the raids were timed to coincide with the election campaign.
"If you are suggesting the government has organised raids by the AFP against the Labor party, that is an extraordinary allegation," he said.
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