SIEVX is the acronym for 'Suspected Illegal Entry Vessel X' (the X stands for 'unknown'). It is the name by which we have come to know the dilapidated, criminally overloaded Indonesian fishing boat that sank en route to Australia's Christmas Island in October 2001 with the loss of more than 350 lives, most of them women and children.

There are many questions that have yet to be satisfactorily answered about the sinking of SIEVX and until they are resolved through a full powers independent judicial inquiry, doubts will always remain about the culpability of Australian authorities in this matter.

• Is there a relationship between the sinking of SIEVX and Australia's People Smuggling Disruption Program (PSDP) that was operating in Indonesia at the time the vessel foundered?

  This question was raised eleven months after the sinking in September 2002 in the dramatic finale to a series of three short speeches by Senator John Faulkner, Labor Opposition Leader in the Senate. Faulkner revisited this subject in July 2003 in a speech to the Fabian Society, asking further questions posed by David Marr & Marian Wilkinson's Dark Victory.

• Why was people smuggler Abu Quassey, who organised the deadly SIEVX voyage, able to return home to Egypt after a short prison term in Indonesia for unrelated offences and a few months in immigration detention?

  Where does this leave the repeated pledges by Australian Justice Minister Ellison to pursue Quassey relentlessly until he could be called to account over his part in the SIEVX sinking? These pledges followed the Senate motion calling for the Australian and Indonesian governments 'to undertake all actions necessary' to ensure that Quassey was immediately brought to justice on his release from Cipinang prison on 1 January 2003.

• How could an Australian Senate Inquiry convened to investigate a cover up fall victim to another cover up?

  The Select Committee on A Certain Maritime Incident (CMI) which was tasked to investigate the cover up and misrepresentation of evidence in regard to the 'Children Overboard' allegations, itself succumbed to another cover up when it turned its attention to SIEVX.

• Why is it that the Royal Australian Air Force (RAAF) surveillance map of the day the SIEVX survivors were rescued by passing fishing boats does not show a rescue boat within 27 nautical miles of the rescue coordinates, when it appears that the RAAF Orion flew directly over the survivors as they were being plucked from the water?

  This question was first explored in an article that appeared originally on this site and later in a newspaper article that was published in the Canberra Times in July 2003.

• Why is Australia still cruelly punishing the SIEVX survivors and their families living in Australia?

  Australia is denying permanent residency to survivors living here unlike other countries who provided secure residency to those who survived SIEVX. On the eve of the second anniversary of the sinking, Democrats Leader, Senator Andrew Bartlett moved a motion in the Senate, which included a request to the new Immigration Minister Amanda Vanstone to grant permanent visas on humanitarian grounds to the SIEVX survivors and those who had close family members who drowned on SIEVX. So far this request has been met with resounding silence.

• When will the AFP make public the list it holds of SIEVX victims and survivors?

  The AFP has admitted that it has this information but is refusing to release it despite a Senate motion moved by Greens Leader Senator Bob Brown in October 2003 requesting its immediate release.

• When will the Australian Government respond to the repeated calls for a judicial inquiry into the people smuggling disruption program in Indonesia and the sinking of SIEVX?

  The Senate has four times called for a full powers independent judicial inquiry into these matters - firstly in the CMI Report tabled in Parliament in October 2002 (p.xx); secondly in a Senate motion moved by John Faulkner in December 2002, thirdly in October 2003 just before the second anniversary and more recently in another Senate motion moved by Andrew Bartlett in June 2004. The government is yet to respond...