Leaky Boat

Leaky Boat is a compelling and challenging account of one of the most controversial moments in recent Australian history: the 2001 drama of the Tampa, and the Naval campaign to stop refugee boats from arriving on Australian shores that followed.

On the 10th anniversary of these dramatic events, and with the issue of refugee boats as contentious as ever, this timely film offers an incisive and thought-provoking account. Students will gather detailed information from the film and they will be personally challenged by the questions it poses.

On the last Sunday of winter in 2001, far off Australia's North West Coast, a fishing boat was sinking. A Norwegian tanker, the MV Tampa, alerted by Australian Search and Rescue, went to its aid. The tanker sailors pulled more than 400 men, women and children out of the little boat. Refugees. The refugees promptly confronted their rescuers and demanded to be taken to Christmas Island, an Australian territory 140 kilometres away – otherwise, they warned the captain, they would go crazy. As the captain set course for Christmas Island, the Australian authorities radioed. They threatened to seize his ship and throw him in prison if he entered Australian waters. The order had come from the very top: this ship, the MV Tampa, would not be allowed to land.

That night triggered ten of the most dramatic weeks in our history. In one of the most aggressive responses to refugee boats in the world, the Australian government sent the major warships of our Navy to confront refugee boats. Some extraordinary dramas followed: parents were said to have thrown their children overboard, a boat called SIEV X sank taking 353 people to their deaths and refugees wrecked and burnt their boats with deadly results. And as the refugee boats came towards us, many carrying Muslims, the Twin Towers came down. It felt like the world would never be the same.

We've rarely felt so strongly about our politics. But we've rarely known so little of what was actually happening. Ten years on, the people involved recount these events first hand in Leaky Boat. They include then Prime Minster John Howard, Minister for Immigration Philip Ruddock, Minister for Defence Peter Reith & Leader of the Opposition Kim Beazley. They also include Navy admirals and sailors, SAS commandos, Afghan farm boys and Iraqi school girls. And there are also the pollsters who took careful note of how the rest of us responded as the events unfolded.

Leaky Boat goes beyond that traditional territory of oral history documentaries though, and draws in a most unusual final character: us. The decision to stop the Tampa was one of the most popular ever taken by an Australian government. The film is underpinned by the premise that perhaps the most enduring meaning of the events of 2001 is not so much a study of John Howard's Government or Kim Beazley's Opposition, but of the Australian people they represented: our values, fears, and wishes. The film is very much about us – and the old dance of democracy between the people and our leaders. And it's a fundamental puzzle – who is leading and who is following?

A decade later that puzzle and the issue of refugee boats are both still very much in play: as a country, we are still grappling with the scenario of refugee boats arriving, and still struggling to find a way to square the tricky issues of security, compassion and orderly migration. By revisiting the events of 2001, Leaky Boat offers its audience the chance to see these issues, and perhaps themselves, in a new light.

Leaky Boat could be utilised within senior secondary classes in:

• History
• Politics
• Society and the Environment
• English
• Civics and Citizenship/Values Studies
• Religious Education
• Film and Media Studies
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