On 26 August 2001, the MV Tampa rescued 433 people, asylum seekers bound for Australia, and of mainly Afghani background, from their wooden fishing boat.

During the proceedings, Amnesty International and the Human Rights and Equal Opportunity Commission intervened in the case, generally supporting VCCL and Vadarlis.

The various Government parties were represented by a team of lawyers including the Solicitor-General of Australia, David Bennett AO QC.

Both VCCL and Vadarlis argued that the court should immediately make an order preventing the Government from removing the Tampa from Australian waters.

The court reconvened on the morning of 1 September, but while proceedings were underway, Prime Minister John Howard announced the Pacific Solution, under which the asylum seekers on the Tampa would be transferred to Nauru and New Zealand.

Over the night of 1 September, VCCL, Vadarlis and the Government agreed upon a statement of facts for the case, so that the proceedings could run faster.

North sent the parties to mediation, and that evening an agreement was reached, which allowed the Government to transfer the asylum seekers to the Manoora.

He found that the Government did indeed intend to control the rescuees, by directing the Tampa where it could go, by closing the port at Christmas Island, and by making decisions about what would happen to them without consulting them.

North added that "the presence of 45 SAS troops, armed and in combat fatigues, is likely to have led the rescuees to the conclusion that they were bound to do as they were told.

They argued that North had made incorrect findings of fact, and that in truth: They also argued that North erred in finding that the Government did not have a prerogative power to prevent the rescuees from entering Australia, and the complementary power to detain the rescuees for the purposes of expelling them from Australia.

He said that the question was whether the Act "evinces a clear and unambiguous intention to deprive the Executive of the power to prevent entry bypreventing a vessel from docking at an Australian port and adopting the means necessary to achieve that result".

He said that "to the extent that the Commonwealth prevented the rescuees landing on Australian soil it closed a possible avenue out of a situation in which they had been placed by other factors.

"[5]: para 212  He also found that just because travelling to Nauru or New Zealand under the Pacific Solution was the only real exit from the situation for the rescuees, that did not mean the Government was responsible for detaining them.

Ultimately, Black decided that the Migration Act, which provided "for a very comprehensive regime" about the entry into Australia of non-citizens, was exclusive and did displace any remnant of prerogative power that remained on the subject.

This conclusion is all the more readily drawn having regard to what I have concluded about the nature and the uncertainty of the prerogative or executive power asserted on behalf of the Commonwealth.

On 26 September 2001, the Parliament of Australia passed the Border Protection (Validation and Enforcement Powers) Act 2001,[8] a retrospective law which gave statutory authorisation to the actions of the Government in detaining the asylum seekers on the Tampa.

[10] The detainees also sought the issue of writs of habeas corpus, but the Supreme Court found that the detention scheme under Nauru's Immigration Act 1999 was valid.