The Tampa affair had led the government to adopt stricter border protection measures to prevent unauthorised arrivals from reaching Australia by boat.
The Australian Senate Select Committee for an inquiry into a certain maritime incident later found that no children had been at risk of being thrown overboard and that the government had known this prior to the election.
The government was criticised for misleading the public and cynically "(exploiting) voters' fears of a wave of illegal immigrants by demonising asylum-seekers".
A minority dissenting report, authored by government senators on the committee, described the inquiry as driven by a "misplaced sense of self-righteous outrage [felt] by the Australian Labor Party at its defeat in the 2001 federal elections".
[9][10] Michael Scrafton, a former senior advisor to Peter Reith, revealed on 16 August 2004 that he told Howard on 7 November 2001 that the Children Overboard claim might be untrue.