Never have the three letters S O S caused such an international storm. But last Sunday when the crew of the sinking Indonesian ferry KM Palapa painted the distress signal on the deck of their ship as it drifted stricken in the Indian Ocean little did they know they had just sparked a massive diplomatic dogfight which would involve half-a-dozen international governments, not to mention the United Nations and a string of some of the world's biggest human rights organisations.

The stricken ferry had set sail for Australia from western Indonesia earlier that day. It was manned by an Indonesian crew and was taking an estimated 460 mainly Afghan refugees to Christmas Island, the nearest piece of Australian soil, where they hoped to claim asylum. The voyage was probably organised by an international people-smuggling gang.

Shortly after the SOS was scrawled in red paint on the ship's deck on Sunday an Australian coastguard plane spotted the vessel around 150km off Christmas Island and radioed to the mainland for help. Australian Search and Rescue in Canberra put out a distress call for any passing ships to offer immediate assistance.

There were three ships in the area, but the Norwegian freighter MV Tampa was closest, having set sail on Saturday from the Australian port of Fremantle for Singapore where it was to deliver a consignment of Australian exports.

Its captain, Arne Rinnan, rushed his vessel to the Palapa and rescued its contentious cargo late on Sunday. Complying with international maritime practice, Capt Rinnan immediately set sail for the nearest port, a four-hour sail away in Indonesia. But when the refugees heard they were being taken to Indonesia, Capt Rinnan would later explain, they began acting aggressively and threatened to go overboard.

"We thought the situation was getting out of control," he said. He asked Australian Search and Rescue what he should do. They replied that he must decide. So he turned his ship around and headed for Christmas Island 10 hours away.

The Australian Prime Minister, Mr John Howard, who was in Canberra, was informed of the events in the Indian Ocean and decided his government would not take the ship's cargo. Through port authorities he told Capt Rinnan he was being refused permission not only to dock at the island but even to enter Australian waters.

Mr Howard insisted that because the refugees were rescued by a Norwegian ship in Indonesian waters they were an issue for the governments of those countries to resolve and nothing to do with Australia.

He said the "flood" of illegal immigrants from Indonesia had been too much in the preceding two weeks, when 1,500 boat people had arrived on the tiny island. It was time he took a stand against the people-smugglers and finally showed them Australia was not a soft touch, he said.

Within another 24 hours the Australian and Norwegian governments had played out a frosty and public exchange over the matter, with Norway warning Australia not to adopt a heavy-handed approach with the Tampa's Norwegian crew.

The Indonesians had already become embroiled in the controversy in refusing, just like Australia, to take the Tampa's human cargo. They would later threaten to dispatch their navy to deal with the Tampa if the Australians forced it back towards Indonesia.

The new Indonesian President, Ms Megawati Sukarno putri, refused to receive a diplomatic mission to Jakarta by the Australian Foreign Minister, Mr Alexander Downer, and the Immigration Minister, Mr Philip Ruddock.

Both men wanted to talk to her about her country's role in resolving the issue and also about the manner in which people-smuggling gangs targeting Australia seemed to be operating at will from Indonesian ports. She dismissed them, saying it was not a convenient time for her or her ministers.

But it was early on Wednesday that the real drama began. Capt Rinnan radioed Australian authorities to tell them some of the refugees were seriously ill and he was coming in to dock at Christmas Island whether the Prime Minister liked it or not.

Within minutes 30 armed Australian Special Air Service soldiers had left the island in power boats and hurtled across the waves to the approaching Tampa. They boarded and demanded that Capt Rinnan stop the vessel, which he did about 8 km off the island. They have remained on board ever since, making sure none of the refugees jump overboard and the ship has not moved.

Meanwhile, Mr Howard on Wednesday tried to rush through emergency legislation which would have allowed the forced expulsion of the ship from Australian waters. But after a debate in the Senate which lasted until nearly 3 a.m. on Thursday morning the Bill was defeated.

And now, on the 7th day of the Tampa refugee crisis, Afghanistan's Taliban regime, the governments of both New Zealand and East Timor, and Mr Kofi Annan, the UN Secretary-General, not to mention the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, Mrs Mary Robinson, have all in one way or another become involved.

The Taliban want their people helped, while both the East Timorese and New Zealanders at different stages said they might take some of the refugees. Kofi Annan simply agreed to help Mr Howard in any way he could, but from Durban Mrs Robinson condemned the Australians.

"It's very, very worrying that a country with a fine tradition like Australia would find itself unable to reach out in appropriate terms and established practices to these people," she said.

Today the eyes of the world remain fixed on the refugees still sheltering from the tropical sun under tarpaulins on the deck of the Tampa. Little is known of them, save to say they are mostly Afghans fleeing the brutal and oppressive Taliban regime in their own land.

But it now looks as if their fate is linked to political shadow-boxing between Australian political parties in this, an election year.

Before the Australian government tried to rush through the emergency legislation on Wednesday night the Prime Minister had enjoyed bipartisan political support on the issue.

But after Wednesday that all changed when Labor leader Kim Beazley said his party no longer supported the government's handling of the situation.

"[A forceful removal of the Tampa] is not a solution. The solution is to get them somewhere to go," Mr Beazley said on Thursday. But away from his spat with Labor, Mr Howard has found another more valuable political allay.

Mrs Pauline Hanson, leader of Australia's far-right One Nation political party, was on a radio talk show when she was told of the 460 refugees heading towards Christmas Island on the Norwegian freighter.

When asked what should be done about the human cargo she replied that the ship should be given supplies, towed to international waters and sent on its way. The refugees, she claimed, were simply not Australia's problem.

Yesterday Mrs Hanson was back on the radio. This time it was to congratulate Mr Howard for his unflinching iron-fist approach to the crisis through the week. She praised him for holding firm while the United Nations and just about every international government was dumping on his administration for its refusal to accept the refugees.

Mrs Hanson's words may prove crucial to Mr Howard in his bid to hang on to power for a third term. Her party is a bit player in Australian politics, but she commands a significant base of support in rural working-class communities. These are exactly the group Mr Howard needs to win over.

If Mrs Hanson instructs her supporters to give their second preference votes to Mr Howard's coalition government, it will be returned to office sometime later this year.

And that is what this crisis has been all about for the last week. The sub-text of all of the debate in Australia has been the impact of the Tampa crisis on the government's electability.

The Prime Minister may not be flavour of the month with the international community, and the Norwegians, in particular, may not be falling over themselves to shout him a beer. Even the Australian media are firmly divided on his handling of the events of the last week, but among ordinary people he is viewed as having taken a strong stand on an impossible issue.

A look at opinion polls and radio talk-show data in the last week shows that while the tough stance on the stranded refugees became slightly less popular as the week wore on he is still supported by the majority of Australians this weekend.

The Australian media-monitoring service, Rehame, said yesterday that the Tampa problem was one of the biggest talkback issues of all time. Its analysis of 1,799 calls from Sunday to Thursday morning found 61 per cent negative to the asylum-seekers' attempt to get into Australia and only 21 per cent positive. The negative calls had peaked at 78 per cent on Monday: by Thursday they were down to 51 per cent.

If the crisis is resolved without Mr Howard losing face, that number is expected to climb again. In an election year it's all about the numbers.