They said that the children were thrown overboard.
Jayb,
Thank you for confirming my suspicions on that.

Jayb wrote;

“As regards the Children Overboard. I was talking to a Navel Officer & a couple of Sailors one ANZAC Day about that incident. They were involved in the pick up. They said that the children were thrown overboard. The rest was a political mind game played out between the Greens, LNP & the ALP. They were paraded on the Deck of their Ship & told to deign it happened, something about International Relations.”

Utter crap.

Here is a report for TVNZ;

“Christmas Island residents alleged unidentified RAN officers had told them asylum seekers had not thrown their children overboard during a confrontation with the frigate HMAS Adelaide last month.

Two anonymous residents had been told by different officers from the ship the refugees were in the water because their vessel had already started to sink, The Australian newspaper reported.
"Whatever you hear - the asylum seekers did not throw their children overboard," one man was reportedly told.”
So do we believe jayb or Christmas island residents? Pretty easy one would have thought.

The over riding political directive from the PM's office was that no material was to be publicised that would 'humanise the asylum seekers'.

That is why pictures like these were only made available to the public through the parliamentary inquiry.

I think those aboard the HMAS Adelaide did a sterling job rescuing those on board the sinking Orlong, a job they could be rightly proud of and one the public should have been made aware of then and there. Instead this directive meant pictures like this were never broadcast.
http://www.safecom.org.au/images/pink-baby.jpg

The mental damage to the sailors aboard those vessels having to turn around refugee ships to await unknown fates has been well documented. This is the maltreatment of our service personnel that seems to give posters here so much pleasure.

Shame.

Utter crap.
Steeleredux,
I have had the suspicion since day 1 & I even stated so here on OLO & I also stated that it suspected some ALP orientated Navy officers to get political mileage out of this to destabilize the Howard Government.
I can't help my gut feeling that that was so.
Your gut feeling may tell you the same , you just can't afford to admit it.

Dear Banjo,

If these boat passengers were doing something illegal, their
actions would be punishable in law.

Since seeking asylum is not illegal, it is not punishable
and if it's not punishable how can it be illegal?

The use of such language may be politically opportune but to
argue that claim is self-evidently baseless. It's to
ignore the wording of the very law on which the claims are
based.

Entering Australia by boat to seek asylum without the
necessary authorisation is not against the law. Seeking
asylum is not illegal. And as Artie Loughnan, an ARC post
doctoral fellow at the University of Sydney Law School
points out, "Illegality in criminal law is something
that is a punishable conduct." In civil law its
punishable by sanctions or damages.

Therefore again, "Since seeking asylum is not illegal, it is
not punishable." If it's not punishable, how can it be
illegal.

Foxy,
You have been around OLO for a long time so am sure you know the actual facts and are simply trying to combine entry with claiming asylum to confuse the issue. Your efforts are amusing.

Simple fact.

Any non-citizen who enters Australia without a valid visa IS breaking Australian law.

SteeleRedux:
Please stop playing the pipes for the Refugee Council and The ABC as both lack credibility on Refugee issues. The ABC is too ready to put Hanson-Young in our faces with her green Agenda. The role of Four Corners in the live cattle export drama was very damaging to the ABC after they fielded video collected by a vegan animal rightist. This has a lot of parallels in the refugee debate.
The Refugee Council is loaded with refugee Lawyers and civil libertarians who see nothing but the phantom of a perfect world.