Stuart, firstly I have personally met a senior sailor from the HMAS Adelaide who told me he saw some adults trying to throw children overboard and into the RHIB and they were frightened that the children would hurt themselves if they did fall.

If you read the signal I referred to, page three, http://www.abc.net.au/4corners/2002/overboard/cable3.htm, you will read: “070557G/SUNC (suspected unidentified non-citizen) on top of coach house dressing small child in lifejacket and preparing to throw small child overboard. Child not thrown overboard. Child and father returned to wheelhouse of SIEV 04. BPO advises that child and father under observation in coach house, some SUNCs being returned to Siev 04 via RHIBs.

A few lines below you will read: “070626G/ Male SUNCs in vicinity of wheelhouse threatened to throw women and children overboard. This did not occur.

The SUNCs eventually scuttled the SIEV 04 whilst under tow. The children were eventually forced into the water by their parents and guardians.

These are the eyewitness reports made by the HMAS Adelaide reporting to their command. Cooke, Falkiner Bartlett et al interpreted these reports, as proving their kids were not thrown overboard. The cynical and appalling political tactics of the left were used to damage the Howard Govt.

It is true that the Navy was asked not to take illegals on board a RAN ship. Note that Rudd is using a merchant vessel with a P&O sign on the bow that suggests to me that we are leasing that vessel and she is registered overseas. Rudd will not let them on RAN vessels either because he knows that they have to be taken straight to Christmas Island and therefore become our responsibilities.

Andrew will take issue with my description of the Iraqi nationals as “illegals” because he considers it to be politically incorrect! I would remind Andrew and the left-wing supporters that their idea of politics is very different from mine, so I don’t believe it is politically incorrect at all!

Geoffrey Kelley

Andrew,

You say: “In your desperation to smear refugees and advocates …”

I say: The illegal’s and their advocates smear themselves.

--Imagine pleading for rescue and then refusing to leave the rescue ship unless it took you to your preferred port ( ala BOTH the Oceanic Viking AND The Tampa).

--Imagine claiming asylum once being reject, twice being rejected, and coming back again.

--Imagine the person you processed as a Afghani refugee --- terrified of the Taliban—turned out later to be from another part of the world.

--Imagine granting asylum, and finding a short time later the refugees had returned to visit ,even work, in the country of their persecution.

--Imagine advocates advertising in an Australian backpacker magazine the wherewithal of easy refugee status in Oz.

Even to someone as—big hearted & humanitarian as you—surely that must be a bit jarring!

Do you concede that the some of the asylum seeker sabotage their vessels , or are reports of sabotage merely another attempt to smear their impeccable characters ?

I don't believe I have ever read such pitiful drivel in all my life - except for the original Reith offering.
Fancy dressing a child in a life jacket, while onboard a demonstrably unseaworthy boat. What terrible parents!
What is a parent supposed to do in that situation? Tell their children to be noble, and go down with the ship?
I'm a fourth generation dinkum Aussie, and do you know what I would do, If I had my children aboard an unseaworthy vessel, with a navy boat just a few metres away?
I would throw them overboard!
The fact these parents didn't actually do it, simply indicates they didn't trust the Australian Navy as much as I would.
And apparently, with good reason.
(I mean no offense to the Naval personel, just a recognition that they are under orders to demonstrably unscrupulous political masters).

Whilst from some perspectives I admire certain characteristics of the BlueWolfies from the Liberal party, in other regards I do find them so terribly disingenuous and opportunistic in the most profane of ways.

The reality, to me, is that the Libaral party as a collective simply do not want anyone who is not educated and of means coming to Australia.

That is quite clear upon examination of immigration law and regulations. Seriously, not enough smarts or money to additionally afford an agent plus the minimum in terms of financials, that being the so called Assurance of Support, and forget it, you simply will not be found to be eligible at law to be considered.

Of course, the BlueWolfies know that if they come out and just say we no longer wish to participate in the Asylum Convention, that they risk offending Australians as a whole to the extent of consignment to political oblivion.

So instead, they develop a sicko stream of pseudo intellectualism and puke it forth ala an ongoing chunderous projectile stream through the media to try and hook and enrage the racist, prejudiced and intolerant underbelly of Australian society, and in that regard, on this issue in the past they have been very successful.

Whilst these sorts of tactics are acceptable in some places, I would hope with the advent of video on demand and Knowledge Nation info servers, that increasingly the consciousness of this country will be elevated to the extent of individuals choosing to caste their votes to other than proponents of same.

Grim, I don’t know where you get your facts from, but why do you say the SIEV 04 was demonstrably unseaworthy? The RAN made the boat good twice over after the SUNCs sabotaged it. Read the eyewitness report and stop making things up! Twice the RAN declared the vessel seaworthy.

Left-wingers like you, Sens Cooke, Falkiner and Bartlett have tried to pillory the Howard Govt. and the RAN for party political gain. You now know the truth and I have posted the references so wise up and stop making up porkies.

I object when the left-wingers attack the RAN. It is unimaginable that any Australian seaman would stand by and let another mariner perish. You are offensive to the RAN when you suggest that you don’t trust them. Surely you have seen photos of brave Australian sailors from the HMAS Adelaide in the water assisting the SUNCs after they jumped overboard following the scuttling of the SIEV 04.

The ABC used this footage to illustrate the fate of the 350 SUNCs who were lost in Indonesian waters when the SIEV X sank. The ABC purported to show the deaths of these people and suggested that the RAN stood by watching as they drowned! They had the gall to use footage from the SIEV 04 to illustrate the drownings of the passengers on the SIEV X and that report cemented in to the folklore of you people that the RAN and the Australian Govt. watched unfortunates drown and failed to assist them.

The left shamelessly used this tawdry tactic for political means to tarnish the reputation of one of the best govts this nation has ever had! Since you are always the first to claim the high moral ground in any political argument, why do you always lie to make your moral points? The ALP does it again and again. The ABC had done it twice in the last twelve hours (Q&A and this morning’s news. The Libs have a policy on boat people and it is unchanged from the last govt.

Geoffrey Kelley

Geoffrey

Initially you said "I know the children were thrown overboard because I have met the eyewitnesses, senior sailors who were there."

Now you say "I have personally met a senior sailor from the HMAS Adelaide who told me he saw some adults trying to throw children overboard and into the RHIB."

So your one witness also said no child was thrown overboard. And I also find it hard see to why it's a terrible for a parent on an unseworthy boat to put a lifejacket on their child and try to get them into the RHIB (Rigid Hull Inflatable Boat).

Note Commander Norman Banks from HMAS Adelaide also categorically stated in evidence that "by 10 October, and certainly by 11 October, it was clear to the Commanding Officer Adelaide, Commander JTF 639 and the Maritime Commander Australia that no children had been thrown overboard and that no children had been recovered from the water."

Yet it appears you are prepared to continue to suggest that the Chief of Defence and Comander Banks were untruthful under oath. You are the one attacking the RAN and their credibility by continuing to insist they were lying and by backing the totally discredited falsehood enthusiastically propogated by Mr Howard et al.

As for your attack of Grim regarding the comment that the refugee boat was unseaworthy, it is worth noting the statement of the Commander of HMAS Adelaide that "The vessel was only ever marginally seaworthy" and "Given the vessel sank 24 hours later, you could conjecture that the vessel’s capacity to remain seaworthy abated with time."

And I don't "take issue with yuor description of the Iraqi nationals as “illegals” because I consider it to be politically incorrect." I take issue with it because it is factually wrong and deliberately misleading.