Children Overboard affair
On the afternoon of 6 October 2001, HMAS Adelaide and an RAAF P-3C Orion intercepted a vessel, later known as SIEV 4, about 100 nautical miles north of Christmas Island. By 10 October, its 223 passengers and crew had been handed to the Australian Federal Police on Christmas Island.
On 7 October 2001, Immigration Minister Philip Ruddock announced that "a number of children had been thrown overboard". The Senate Select Committee on a Certain Maritime Incident says the claim was repeated by Defence Minister Peter Reith and Prime Minister John Howard. The committee found: "The story was in fact untrue." It also found that photographs released on 10 October as evidence were taken on 8 October, while SIEV 4 was sinking.
The committee found that by 11 October 2001 the naval chain of command had concluded no children were thrown overboard. It also found that "no correction, retraction or communication about the existence of doubts" was made by any member of the government before the 10 November 2001 election. It found: "The Committee finds that Mr Reith deceived the Australian people during the 2001 Federal Election campaign concerning the state of the evidence for the claim that children had been thrown overboard from SIEV 4." It said it could not make findings about what the Prime Minister was told, because Cabinet had ordered ministerial staff not to give evidence.
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