In the aftermath of the 2001 election, Wilh Wilhelmsen, proprietor of the Norwegian shipping line that owned the MV Tampa, wrote to John Howard. After congratulating him on his re-election, Wilhelmsen suggested that Howard owed him a case of fine Australian red for his role in Howard’s dark victory. He received no wine, and no reply.
Wilh Wilhelmsen was not the only one to miss out. At the Liberal victory party on election night, there was an unexpected appearance by another key player—the Race Card. As the Race Card (aka one of the satirists from the ABC TV program the Election Chaser) was escorted out of the room to frosty silence, he yelled: ‘I’ve been with him the whole campaign and now you’re kicking me out. No respect. I tell you what, they just use you.’
A year later, Howard farewelled his Departmental Secretary, Max Moore-Wilton, who was retiring after six and a half years of service, and who had been a conspicuous participant in Howard’s celebrations at the Liberal victory party on election night. Howard praised Moore-Wilton for his years of loyal service, and his determination to make the public service ‘responsive to the wishes and the goals of the elected government’. Moore-Wilton had led the purge of the public service in 1996. His approach to the Westminster tradition of an apolitical public service, able to offer ‘frank and fearless’ advice to government, was summed up in his comment: ‘there are a number of people who have confused frank and fearless with just being a bloody nuisance.’ He left Canberra to become executive chairman and CEO of the newly privatised Sydney Airport Corporation.
They say God is in the detail. So too is the truth about the Tampa. It has taken 18 months for journalists David Marr and Marian Wilkinson to piece together the tale of how a sinking fishing boat became the pawn in a campaign that converted a likely loss of power into a conclusive election victory in a little under three months. Thorough research, careful composition and a deft use of light and shade turn what is an inherently fascinating story into a gripping, ripping yarn—alive with detail and rich in analysis. And the authors would be the first to recognise the irony: that the book’s release is likely to be overshadowed by the War on Terror—the crucible that, in the course of those highly charged days and weeks,