The Children Overboard affair was an Australian political controversy involving public allegations by Howard Government ministers in the lead-up to the 2001 federal election, that seafaring asylum seekers had thrown children overboard in a presumed ploy to secure rescue and passage on 7 October 2001. Although reports indicated that the strain of being towed was the proximate cause of the asylum seeker boat eventually sinking, Australian Prime Minister John Howard asserted that the asylum seekers "irresponsibly sank the damn boat, which put their children in the water".