Labor MP Linda Burney is in hot water after her office was caught out omitting lines from an interview transcript.

In an interview with Sky News, Ms Burney backed a time limit on how long refugees can be held in off-shore detention, a position directly contradicting Labor’s policy.

Whole paragraphs of the interview were then left out of the transcript released by Labor leader Bill Shorten’s office.

Ms Burney’s staff says the heavy editing was a mistake but Liberal Senator Eric Abetz says it’s “not a good look at all”.

“The delete button must have been red hot at the end of this exercise and why?

“Labor were embarrassed that another one of their frontbenchers had come out in defiance of Labor policy.”

The journalist conducting the interview, David Speers, isn’t buying Ms Burney’s claim of an error saying “the tape speaks for itself”.

“A mistake would normally be putting a comma in the wrong place, misspelling a word, maybe leaving a word out here or there but not the wholesale changes that were clearly made to the transcript.

“It spells like something a bit more deliberate than a simple mistake.”

Click PLAY below to hear from Senator Eric Abetz

Click PLAY below to hear from David Speers

Image: Twitter