‘We weren’t going to be lectured’: Howard revisits Tampa, 25 years on

DRIVING THE DAY

BIG BUSH BASH: Today’s the big day of News Corp’s annual Bush Summit, with the PM, opposition leader, One Nation Leader Pauline Hanson and Nationals Leader Matt Canavan all in Dubbo speaking. There’ll also be a roundtable featuring NSW Premier Chris Minns, SA Premier Peter Malinauskas and WA Deputy Premier Rita Saffioti.

Flashpoints: Expect fights over free trade and sovereignty, and AI and clean energy.

EU-Australia trade deal in the crosshairs: Yet to be ratified by the Australian Parliament, the deal is a particular source of tension. Canavan issued a skeptical statement Wednesday (he’s already called it “the worst deal ever”) and, as previewed in Playbook yesterday, Angus Taylor is becoming vocal too, telling AFR he’s prepared to walk away. If that happens the Greens will be needed to save the landmark deal in the Senate.

Dubbo’s federal MP Jamie Chaffey (Nationals) is also feeling the heat: his seat is at risk from One Nation, which scored 14 percent of the vote in 2025, well ahead of the national average. DemosAU polling in December and March put One Nation in the front seat.

What other political stories can we expect? Past Bush Summits have been effective in turning regional grievances into national political tests. The effect is to generate funding announcements to calm the mood, like $100 million for the Reef HQ attraction in 2024 and $1 billion in low-interest loans for farmers in 2025.

Yes, but: Labor funding announcements won’t silence a party fighting for its life (the Nationals), nor the party looking to crush them (One Nation).

Albo’s best bet: Lean into that dynamic — find a way to make the Nationals and One Nation fight, and save the dollars for an election campaign.

THE PLAYBOOK INTERVIEW

JOHN HOWARD — 25 YEARS AFTER THE TAMPA AFFAIR

“We weren’t going to be lectured by those sanctimonious Scandinavian countries”

Finn McHugh spoke to Howard by phone. This interview has been edited for length and clarity.

What stands out to you 25 years on?

Australia set a standard for dealing with unauthorized arrivals.

We were condemned at the time for being heartless and insensitive, but with the passage of time other countries have adopted the Australian approach.

It demonstrated that if you wanted to maintain public support for a reasonably strong immigration program — in other words, a high number of migrants — you needed to demonstrate a willingness, as well as a capacity, to control the migrants who came to your country.

Take us into your mind in the first hours of the crisis. What were the key decisions you made?

To threaten — and to implement — the use of military force to prevent the Tampa coming to Australia and those on board, therefore, being given the opportunity to obtain some kind of residence in Australia. Simple as that. I knew it would be controversial, but I knew it had public support, and I knew it was right.

Did it have uniform support within the cabinet?

Well, yes. Very strong support.

How much do you think it defined the upcoming 2001 election?

My view is that we’d have won that election without either the political impact of Tampa, or of the 9/11 attacks. But probably our majority would have been a bit smaller.

We had a by-election in Victoria — in the seat of Aston on the 14th of July of that year — and we won.

On long-term legacy: Were you validated by Rudd walking away from the decision to scrap offshore processing?

They made a terrible mess of immigration. They pretended beforehand that they would be like us, but they weren’t. They thought they could have their cake and eat it.

They thought they could bow before international criticism of our policy, yet not really change our policy. Well, he couldn’t do that. You had to be willing to stick to your guns, and we did. They didn’t. And the fact that they eventually capitulated indicated that we’ve been right from the beginning.

The crew on the Tampa was concerned about the medication conditions of the asylum seekers.

We were suspicious of that. Most of the information we got was that that had been exaggerated. We weren’t going to be lectured by some of those sanctimonious Scandinavian countries.

So you had no moral qualms about your decisions?

There are always moral qualms. One of the pieces of morality in all of this is forgotten: It’s queue jumping. A lot of people waited very patiently in Indonesia to have their claims for asylum assessed, and if we had bowed [to the Tampa people], we’d have just run roughshod over the interests of those people. There’s a lot of morality in that.

Do you see the Tampa affair and 9/11 two weeks later as keys to a Howard Doctrine?

They were separate. I didn’t link the two. Australia’s always had a strong migration program, and I hope we always do; 9/11 reshaped the world’s attitude towards terrorism.

BY THE NUMBERS

INFLATION

3.5 percent: Headline inflation dropped slightly from 3.8 percent. But core inflation, which the Reserve Bank watches closely, remained steady at 3.6 percent in the year to July.

GUNS

50 percent: The DROP in firearms handed in throughout New South Wales in the six months after the Bondi massacre: 1,769 were handed in between July and December 2025 under the existing amnesty scheme, and then only 884 were handed in from January to June 2026 after new laws were passed, per NSW Police data.

TOBACCO

40 PERCENT: The increase in Australian nicotine consumption between 2017 and 2025, according to the Australian Bureau of Statistics.

75 PERCENT: The fall in tobacco excise revenue.

Newsflash: Australia has an Illicit Tobacco and E-cigarette Commissioner.

Playbook pro tip: Last week might have been a good time for them to enter the national debate.

MELONS

CANBERRA MEETS WORLD

OUR UNIS COLLABORATE WITH BEIJING LABS ON MILITARY TECHNOLOGY: China Aerospace Studies Institute, an Alabama-based and U.S. Air Force-affiliated think tank, has compiled details of how Sydney University, UWA, ANU, RMIT and UNSW are “collaborating with Chinese defense institutes which develop advanced military warfare for Beijing,” in fields of study including missiles, anti-jamming systems, ballistics, submarine technology and advanced materials, Andrew Greene reported.

INDONESIA IN TOWN … AFTER JOINT MILITARY EXERCISES WITH CHINA: Australia signed the Australia-Indonesia Treaty on Common Security in February, mandating regular leader dialogues over security and allowing closer military interoperability.

While Jakarta is officially non-aligned, Canberra wasn’t expecting to be repaid with Indonesia conducting joint military exercises with China, or with Indonesian Defense Minister Sjafrie Sjamsoeddin calling for more last Friday.

Sjamsoeddin and Australian counterpart Richard Marles were joined by Foreign Minister Penny Wong and Indonesian Foreign Minister Sugiono for an annual dialogue.

There was no dialogue with media afterward, however, so we don’t know how frosty the behind-closed-doors chat was. “We build on our strong ties and deepen cooperation across the full breadth of our partnership,” Wong said on social media.

SPARE A THOUGHT: for Labor MP and rabid Western Bulldogs fan Tim Watts. He had to make nice with Collingwood’s Darcy Moore as Wong hosted Sugiono at the MCG. Really, Penny? Two days before the Bulldogs face off with Collingwood for a spot in the finals?

Given that Moore is fluent in Bahasa and Watts is Indian Ocean envoy, the pair does make some sense. As Watts admitted to Playbook, Moore speaks “very knowledgeably about Indonesia.”

SOLOMON ISLANDS TREATY SPEEDS UP: China’s collaborations with Indonesia are a reminder that every potential target for Chinese influence in the Pacific needs attention. The goal: sign a Solomons treaty by the end of 2026. More from Ben Packham.

WHAT’S THE COLLECTIVE NOUN FOR KEVIN? Former PM and Xi Jinping expert Kevin Rudd delivered a wide-ranging address on China at the ANU last night. But we’re told it was Ben Hillman, director of ANU’s Australian Centre on China in the World, who put forward the most outlandish proposal: “We want to produce more Kevins.”

Got the moves: Our spies in the room tell us local custodian Paul Girrawah House also got Rudd onstage with rhythm sticks, as House played the didgeridoo.

BUSY MAN: Rudd has at least five speaking engagements over the next two weeks in Australia, including three in Canberra. Next up: Eumundi Writers Festival Sept. 5).

AIIA ACT dinner (Sept. 9), National Press Club (Sept. 10), USI-ACT dinner (Sept. 11).

A message from Amazon:

EMBASSY ROW

LIU BLOW: Just hours after China’s proposed ambassador, Liu Jinsong, circulated comments to media around his arrival in the country, DFAT issued a reminder to all missions to avoid commentary that “creates the impression” they’re already behind the desk. You aren’t an ambassador until the governor-general accepts your credentials.

STATE OF THE NATION

KEN’S KOALA INTERVENTION: Former Treasury Secretary Ken Henry will use the keynote at the Northern Rivers Regional Leaders Summit today to call on the Greens not to block the Improved Native Forest Management method. “Surely this can’t be happening again, but it can,” Henry plans to say, referencing the Greens’ 2009 decision to block the carbon emissions trading scheme.

“The reason our native forests are so degraded is that everything in them, everything that can be made from chopping down a tree, has been monetised. The only thing that has not been monetised is forest protection.”

MILLION DOLLAR BUREAUCRATS: The Remuneration Tribunal received just seven submissions to its inquiry into the million-dollar pay packets collected by Australia’s top bureaucrats. The independent body is digging into whether the big bucks it awards are “fair, transparent and aligned with contemporary expectations” after Labor and the Coalition shot down a proposal by independent Senator Jacqui Lambie to cap salaries at $430,000.

Reminder: The country’s most senior public servant (Steven Kennedy) collects $1.035 million, up from $803,000 in 2016.

Nothing to say here: The inquiry received input from former Public Service Commissioner Andrew Podger and former Defence First Assistant Secretary Paddy Gourley, both of whom have been vocal on this issue in past forums. Both have made detailed submissions about how pay packets could be calculated more fairly. No ministers, MPs or secretaries themselves had anything to add.

NATIONAL CABINET TAKEAWAYS

EVERYONE GETS A SWEETHEART DEAL! If you’re going to give WA a sweetheart GST deal, of course others will demand their own carveouts. The latest: Queensland will have the right to use fossil fuels to power data centers, after the Commonwealth caved in on its demand that only renewables be used. Premier David Crisafulli described the concession as a “good win” for his state.

Was the PM rolled? SA Premier and Albo backer Peter Malinauskas insists no. “Having been in the discussions today, I just don’t think that would be an accurate characterization,” he told 730 last night, without clarifying what the more accurate description would be.

Biding their time: In line with Andrew Barr‘s message to Playbook yesterday, Paul Sakkal and Shane Wright report for SMH that premiers together plan to pressure Albanese to make the most expensive feature of the WA deal — the no worse-off guarantee — permanent. That would ensure no state gets less GST funding than under the old rules.

AT LEAST SOME AGREEMENT: The premiers did see eye-to-eye on some gun laws, agreeing to limit licenses to Australian citizens (with some exceptions) and ban 3D printing of guns.

WA — SECRET HARBOUR BY-ELECTION PREVIEW

The result will test whether One Nation’s national polling surge translates into a seat in a suburban Labor electorate. Saturday’s by-election follows the retirement of long-serving Labor MP Paul Papalia, who has represented the area in state Parliament since 2007.

State of Play: Labor won the newly created seat by 11.5 percentage points in 2025, but recent polling has Labor and One Nation running neck-and-neck.

The main candidates are Labor’s Georgia Tree, One Nation’s Luke Herdegen and Liberal Ryan Robertson.

Why it matters: Secret Harbour overlaps with parts of Andrew Hastie’s federal seat of Canning. One Nation is targeting Hastie personally, while the contest has exposed a split in the WA Liberals over how aggressively to confront Pauline Hanson’s party.

What are the local issues? Housing pressure, road and rail infrastructure, a proposed Kwinana Freeway upgrade and the delayed Karnup METRONET station — a metro stop Labor first promised in 2013. More in The Australian.

What the Liberals are doing: WA Liberal Leader Basil Zempilas has described One Nation’s rise as an “opportunity not a threat.” Hastie disagrees. “We should be fighting to win in every contest we enter, or we shouldn’t enter the contest,” he told ABC 7.30.

Albanese says the Liberals have “essentially folded themselves into One Nation,” because they’re “running dead” in the contest.

How to read the result: It will show whether that is an effective Labor attack, or whether One Nation has become the main conservative vehicle in outer-suburban WA.

ONLY IN AUSTRALIA

Federal MP Luke Gosling resigned from his role as the government’s Special Envoy for defense, veterans’ affairs and Northern Australia, after attending a cricket match.

Wait, what? Gosling, who represents part of Darwin in the Northern Territory, has been charged with assaulting the territory’s administrator (effectively its ceremonial governor), David Connolly. The alleged offense carries a maximum penalty of 14 years in prison.

The court hearing is Sept. 30, and Gosling has been continuing his duties as an MP while on bail; he vigorously denies the charges and Labor folks consider them to be politically motivated.

One of Gosling’s bail conditions is to give 48 hours notice and stay at least 15 meters away from Connolly at any public events. Gosling has been charged with breaching his bail conditions by attending a cricket test match in home city, where Australia played Bangladesh.

AGENDA ASSISTANT

PARLIAMENTARY HEARINGS

Playbook Feedback

WE NEED YOUR HELP: This team photo from the National Cabinet confused Playbook greatly. What is happening with the heights and angles? Is this a protocol thing? Will National Cabinet now be packaged up and marketed as a limited edition Russian Doll set?

PARLIAMENTARY PROTOCOL

LOCAL CANBERRA

LIP SYNC EXTRAVAGANZA: Prime Minister & Cabinet and the Attorney General’s Department, in collaboration with Treasury and the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade, will be “hosting Canberra drag royalty” and raising funds for queer youth-focused Wear It Purple. Friday, from 5 pm to 8 pm at Double Drummer.

WINE TIME: The Federal Government’s Cellar Doors grant program is now taking new applications. The most recent funding winners from Canberra District wine region are Nick O’Leary Winery, Heywood, Eden Road Wines, and Clonakilla

COMMUNITY CORNER

AUSSIE’S in Parliament House is now selling Redbrick coffee pods, drip coffee and steep coffee.

MOVES AND APPOINTMENTS

MOVING: A bittersweet moment at Government House as Royal Australian Air Force Aide-de-Camp Flight Lieutenant Danie Bunting completed his year supporting the governor-general and passed the aiguillette to Flight Lieutenant Simone Watts.

BIRTHDAYS

Sen. Jana Stewart (ALP); Justin di Lollo, ANACTA special counsel; Gary Weaven, former unionist and key architect of the superannuation system; New York Gov. Kathy Hochul; former Austrian Chancellor Sebastian Kurz.

A message from Amazon:

Thousands of businesses in Australia sell on Amazon — helping turn local products into global brands. Lash Therapy began in Melbourne with three friends: Emma, Lauren and Jessica.

Frustrated by products full of nasty chemicals, they decided to stop complaining and make their own — testing sample after sample until they had a clean lash serum that actually worked.

Then came the hard part: reaching customers. Amazon helped their small business reach people all over the world. Today, customers in the US, UK and Canada get Lash Therapy products with fast, next-day delivery — thousands of kilometres away, in the blink of an eye. Learn more about how businesses in Australia grow on Amazon.