Fed: Govt planned to board asylum boat months before Tampa- book
A book claims the HOWARD government planned for months to board a boat carrying asylumseekers to Australia before last year's federal election.
The Courier-Mail's national affairs editor PETER CHARLTON has told ABC radio he's convincedthe government was planning to turn a ship around and it just happened to be the Tampaat that time.
He says he has been told that was the thinking coming out of the prime minister's office.
Mr CHARLTON, who makes the claim in a new book about last November's election calledHoward's Race, says his SAS sources are absolutely spot on.
On Sunday August 26, the Tampa rescued 438 asylum seekers from a sinking boat nearChristmas Island at the request of Australian authorities, but was denied entry into Australianwaters.
Three days later, SAS troops boarded the Norwegian freighter.
Mr CHARLTON says the event enabled the government to divert attention from claims ofGST rorting by Queensland branches of the Liberal Party.
AAP RTV jph/daw/rsm
KEYWORD: BOAT CHARLTON (CANBERRA)
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