Senate Inquiry
A Senate select committee inquiry, composed mainly of non-government senators, found that no children were thrown overboard from SIEV 4, that the evidence did not support the Children Overboard claim, and that the photographs purported to show children thrown into the sea were taken after SIEV 4 sank. In response, Howard said that he acted on the intelligence he was given at the time.
A minority dissenting report, authored by government senators on the committee, described the inquiry as driven by a "misplaced sense of self-righteous outrage by the Australian Labor Party at its defeat in the 2001 federal elections". An appendix to their report documented cases where passengers aboard other SIEVs had threatened children, sabotaged their own vessels, committed self-harm and, in the case of SIEV-7 on 22 October, thrown a child overboard who was rescued by another asylum seeker.
Read more about this topic: Children Overboard Affair
Famous quotes containing the words senate and/or inquiry:
“We have been here over forty years, a longer period than the children of Israel wandered through the wilderness, coming to this Capitol pleading for this recognition of the principle that the Government derives its just powers from the consent of the governed. Mr. Chairman, we ask that you report our resolution favorably if you can but unfavorably if you must; that you report one way or the other, so that the Senate may have the chance to consider it.”
—Anna Howard Shaw (1847–1919)
“Trial. A formal inquiry designed to prove and put upon record the blameless characters of judges, advocates and jurors.”
—Ambrose Bierce (1842–1914)