U-turn

THREE years ago, in what is likely to remain a symbol of his prime ministership, John Howard ordered armed troops to ward off the Tampa, a Norwegian cargo vessel that had rescued 438 mainly Afghan asylum-seekers from the sea off western Australia. He declared that none would ever set foot in Australia and consigned them to what he described as a “Pacific solution”: Australian-built, high-security camps on the islands of Nauru and Papua New Guinea. The Tampa affair, followed by the terrorist attacks on America in September 2001, helped Mr Howard win his third election a few months later.