The genre-breaking inside account of the "Tampa", Australia's refugee crisis and the political campaigning that powered it, from two of the country's pre-eminent investigative journalists.
They put lives at risk. They broke the law and shattered conventions. They drew the Navy and the Army into the heart of an election campaign. They muzzled the press. They outwitted the courts. They defied the United Nations, antagonised our nearest neighbour and bribed poverty stricken Pacific States. They closed Australia to boatpeople refugees - and they won a mighty election victory.
This is the inside story of the "Tampa" crisis and the political strategy that powered it; of how John Howard, who was all but finished, seized on the issue of "border protection" to start a war on immigration and bring himself back from the political dead.
Award-winning writer David Marr and Marian Wilkinson, the nation's most accomplished investigative journalist, burrow deep into the world of spin-doctors, bureaucrats and the military to reveal the whole story, play by play - from the stricken asylum seekers' first sight of the red dot on the horizon that was the "Tampa" to John Howard singing the national anthem at his election victory celebrations: ". . . our land is girt by sea".
This book brings to light the manipulation of the public, the mutability of the press and the machinations of one government in its all-consuming lust for power. Written with originality and urgency, 'Dark Victory' is an enthralling, genre-breaking account of the most significant political event in Australia's recent history.
