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This website archives primary and secondary source material related to the SIEVX Affair and Australia's People Smuggling Disruption Program. It is also publishes occasional articles. SIEVX.com is solely owned and maintained by Marg Hutton. Marg Hutton has been a student of Australian history for more than 25 years. She has been independently researching the sinking of SIEVX since May 2002. This site is proudly independent, not connected with any political party, organisation or other individual. While many people have been active on the issues, both independently and within political parties, and some of their writing is archived here, no-one speaks for or represents SIEVX.com except its owner. The site has been online since June 2002. SIEVX.com is being preserved by the Pandora Archive of the National Library. How to reference this site If you use this website for your own research then attribution would be nice. When citing secondary material that has been copied on to this site, unless you have gone back and checked the original publication then it is wise to include the caveat 'online at URL'. For example: 'DIMA Intelligence Note 83/2001', 23 October 2001, provided to the CMI Committee, 18 September 2002; online at http://sievx.com/documents/DIMIAIntelNotes.html (date downloaded) If you are utilising analysis contained in original articles published on this site then attribution is essential, as for any published work. For example:
Marg Hutton, 'SIEVX & the DFAT Cable: The Conspiracy of Silence', sievx.com, May 2003; Acknowledgements The site is grateful to everyone who has donated documents or audio tapes to this collection and transcribed articles and sound recordings. Special thanks are due to those who have generously given up their valuable time to translate articles and sound recordings, including: Helen Brooks, Jennifer Clarke, Kurniati Shinta Dewi, Claire Harding, Made Hood's students, Petra Mahy, Ghassan Nakhoul, Helena Nyman, Margaret Pollock, Tom O'Lincoln, David Parkin and Rachel Robson. I believe that the truth about SIEVX will not be revealed until a full powers judicial inquiry is held into this tragedy and the people smuggling disruption program operating in Indonesia at the time and hope that this archive may help in some small way to achieve that purpose.
Marg Hutton
SIEVX.com is a independent site that grew out of a web-log that I began earlier this year (2002). Because of the importance of the issue I decided that it would be best to set up a separate site devoted entirely to the SIEVX Affair. The site started out primarily as a research tool for myself in order to make sense of the CMI Inquiry. I began cataloguing all the articles I could find about SIEVX from the time the boat sank right through to the Inquiry. I've indexed all the testimony related to SIEVX. The chronology is a work in progress. The site has no connection with any political party or organisation. It is purely independent. Why the interest in SIEVX? The SIEVX tragedy has captured my attention for two reasons. Firstly, when Australia started to turn around the asylum seekers boats and tow them back to Indonesia I can remember thinking that it is only a matter of time before there is loss of life on a major scale. And then a few days later news broke of the sinking of the boat that has become known as SIEVX. I was astonished at the time at how easily the Howard Government could shrug off such a disaster so close to and so intimately connected with Australia. When Tony Kevin's questions surfaced in March and Margo Kingston began covering the case in May, I was rivetted. The second reason for my fascination and absorption in the SIEVX Affair is its historical significance. There is no doubt that the SIEVX Affair will be written about and debated for years to come. As the Petrov Affair captured the imagination of a generation of Australian historians, so too will SIEVX. Senators Brandis and Faulkner exchanged banter about the 'grassy knoll' at a recent sitting of the Inquiry (CMI 1914). Unless there is a full judicial inquiry into SIEVX, I believe that the questions and theories about what really happened to SIEVX will continue to grow and fester. Tony Kevin has written that SIEVX could be our Watergate. I fear that it may become our Warren Commission.
Marg Hutton
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