 However, due to the uneven nature of the swing, as well as the Coalition's large majority going into the election, Labor came up eight seats short of making Beazley Prime Minister.Beazley did, however, manage to slash Howard's majority by more than half, from 19 seats to five.In mid-2001 Labor was well ahead in the opinion polls and seemed set to win the election due at the end of the year, but in August the Tampa affair occurred when the Howard government refused to allow the , a Norwegian freighter, to set down on Australian soil at Christmas Island several hundred asylum seekers whom the crew had rescued from an unseaworthy boat in international waters.