The documentation I have seen describes login like so:

SuiteTalk (Web Services)
Platform Guide
December 6, 2011
Version: 2011.2.0

a.
Locate the NetSuite service.

NetSuiteServiceLocator service = new NetSuiteServiceLocator();

b.
Enable support for multiple cookie management.
service.setMaintainSession( true );

c.
Get the NetSuite port.
NetSuitePortType port = service.getNetSuitePort();

d.
Create a valid session by populating the Passport object and then invoking the login operation.

passport.setEmail( "username@netsuite.com" );
passport.setPassword( "mypassword" );
role.setid( "3" );
passport.setRole( role );
passport.setAccount( "TSTDRV96" );
Status status = port.login( passport ).getStatus();

e.
Implement your business logic. For example, create a new customer in NetSuite.

With either the 2012 or 2011 WSDL and the patched Axis 1.4 jar, this code doesn't compile as the getStatus() call returns a StatusDetail[] array that seems to be empty.