Refugees: it's what you do and how you say it - The war of words over asylum seekers

In 2002 I sat through all of the Senate Committee hearings into the infamous children overboard incident of 6 October 2001. The evidence presented to the Senate Select Committee into a Certain Maritime Incident was riveting, the final report a gripping expose of the then-governments deliberate manipulation of the facts. The children overboard incident began just before a Federal election; when an Australian Naval vessel, HMAS Adelaide, intercepted an unseaworthy wooden boat carrying 223 asylum seekers 100 nautical miles north of Christmas Island.