On 26 August 2001 the Captain of the MS Tampa, a Norwegian tanker, rescued 438 asylum seekers from a sinking vessel near Christmas Island.  The vessel had been making its way from Indonesia before it encountered distress on the open seas.  When the Captain sought to bring the MS Tampa into Christmas Island with the 438 rescued asylum seekers, he was refused entry by the Australian Government.  What ensued was a diplomatic stand-off in which neither Indonesia nor Australia wanted to accept responsibility for the 438 asylum seekers.  On the night of August 29 2001, the government introduced the "Border Protection Bill 2001".  The Bill was retroactive and provided that Australian government had power to remove ships from Australian territorial waters in contravention of their human rights obligations to asylum seekers.  This Bill was rejected in the Senate.

Alternatively, the government passed legislation to excise many coastal islands from Australia’s migration zone, including Christmas Island.  The effect of this legislation is that an asylum seeker who does not reach Australian mainland will have no ground to apply for refugee status.  The asylum seekers of the MS Tampa never reached the Australian mainland and were instead moved to Nauru as part of the Pacific Solution.  They were held there indefinitely while their applications were being processed.