The Guardian | 06.05.2018
At the height of the Tampa crisis, Australia turned to a US bureaucrat and asked for advice
Ben Doherty
In August 2001, at the height of the Tampa crisis – 433 rescued asylum seekers on board a freight ship seeking landfall in Australia – the Australian government made a call to an American bureaucrat, then in Geneva, and asked him to the embassy.
Years earlier, the bureaucrat had been a key architect of America’s policies towards boat-borne asylum seekers seeking protection in the US, and it was this experience Australia wished to mine.