Australia's prime minister, Tony Abbott, has denied reports he wanted to send more than 3,000 defence force personnel to Iraq to fight Islamic State (Isis), The Guardian reported.
News Corp Australia reports that Abbott raised the idea of sending 3,500 troops to the troubled nation in a meeting in Canberra in November last year, saying the action would help stop Isis in the north of the country.
Abbott is said to have taken to the idea to military officials, who told him it would be disastrous for the troops.
It would have made Australia the only nation with troops on the ground in Iraq.
"I read an article in the paper this morning and I must say I thought it was absolutely fanciful," Abbott said on Saturday. "I rang the chief of the defence force to ask him about it and he's as mystified by it as I am.
"The story is false. It is false, it is fanciful ... The idea there was a meeting in late November where I formally asked for advice and formally suggested that a large Australian force should go unilaterally to Iraq is wrong, just wrong.
"Australia does not act unilaterally in the Middle East. We work withour partners and allies to meet threats to our vital national interests and to the vital national interests of our friends and partners."
Authorities have said about 90 Australians have gone to the Middle East to fight, including in Iraq and Syria, the latest of whom is reportedly a 23-year-old university student from Perth.
The finance minister, Mathias Cormann, rejected the claims made in the report.
"That story is wrong. The prime minister never sought such advice," Cormann said on ABC Radio.
"My advice is that the journalist who wrote that story actually never put that proposition to the prime minister's office when seeking comment."
Labor frontbencher Matt Thistlethwaite said the story was evidence of a damaging leak from the national security committee of cabinet, one of the most important internal committees of government.
He said Labor had given bipartisan support to actions the government had taken on Iraq, including deployment of a special forces team of 200 to advise the Iraqi military.
"But if the prime minister or anyone in the government is considering changing that approach then they need to disclose that to the Australian public and they need to disclose that to the parliament and the Labor party so that we can consider," Thistlethwaite told Sky News.
Abbott denied the story was based on a leak. "You can't leak something that never happened ... I think people should be very wary about taking too seriously stuff which is claimed, which no one is prepared to put his or her name to."