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DEATH PENALTY-AUSTRALIA: Political Parties Display Double Standards

Stephen de Tarczynski

MELBOURNE, Nov 12 2007 (IPS) - The high-profile cases of three Indonesian Islamist militants and six Australian drug mules facing execution in Bali have thrown the spotlight on this country’s “inconsistent” position on capital punishment.

”We cannot declare the execution of Australians to be barbaric and the execution of Indonesians to be acceptable. That now seems to be bipartisan policy,” said former chief justice of the Australian high court, Sir Gerard Brennan, in a speech at the 2007 Justice Awards in Sydney on Oct 31.

Both the government and the opposition Labour Party say they oppose capital punishment and that they would appeal for clemency for Australians facing the death penalty overseas.

Foreign minister Alexander Downer has previously appealed to Indonesia to spare the lives of the six members of the so-called ‘Bali nine’ facing execution – the three others have been sentenced to lengthy jail terms – for heroin smuggling.

Downer is expected to formally seek clemency for the group – who were arrested by Indonesian authorities acting on information provided by the Australian police – once all appeal possibilities have been exhausted.

Labour, for its part, has largely supported the government’s efforts. In 2006, the then-opposition foreign affairs spokesman, Kevin Rudd – who now leads the opposition – commended prime minister John Howard for his successful efforts in winning a reprieve for two Australians sentenced to death in Vietnam.

Rudd has also backed the government in its opposition to the death sentences given to members of the ‘Bali nine’ and paid tribute in 2005 to Howard and Downer for appealing to Singapore for clemency – albeit unsuccessfully – for the life of Australian Van Nguyen.

But what may appear to be a principled stand against capital punishment does not extend to intervention on behalf of condemned terrorists.

Howard says that he will not oppose the execution of the three ‘Bali bombers’. The men are awaiting the firing squad for their roles in the 2002 bombings on the Indonesian island which killed 202 people, including 88 Australians.

Downer echoed Howard’s sentiments in a doorstop interview in October. “The Australian government will not lift a finger to support these three people who killed 88 Australians in Bali,” he said.

While the government seems to be selective in its opposition to the death penalty, it has been Labour’s stance which has provoked controversy in recent weeks.

Kevin Rudd – hoping to become Australia’s next prime minister after the general election on November 24, with recent polls indicating that Labour remains a slight favourite to win – appeared to contradict his own party’s platform in October when he said that no government he led would apply diplomatic pressure “in defence of an individual terrorist’s life”.

This was in response to comments made several days earlier by Labour’s foreign affairs spokesman, Robert McClelland, who denounced the death sentences handed down to the Bali bombers. Rudd – who opposed the execution of former Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein – quickly reprimanded McClelland.

But McClelland’s comments appeared to conform to the Labour Party’s platform. This is seemingly unequivocal on this issue, stating that Labour opposes the death penalty “no matter what the crime”.

The platform says: “Labour in government will strongly and clearly state its opposition to the death penalty, whenever and wherever it arises and will use its position internationally and in the region to advocate for the universal abolition of the death penalty.”

“I think, unfortunately, that the leader of the opposition and the prime minister are both playing politics on the issue and they’re both essentially playing to the electorate,” says the president of the Australian Lawyers’ Alliance (ALA), Ian Brown.

With this month’s elections possibly being Labour’s best chance yet to end Howard’s 11-year reign in office, Rudd’s apparent contradiction of his party’s platform seems to have occurred with one eye on the election. Resentment towards the Bali bombers runs deep in Australia.

Brown says that the positions taken by Rudd and Howard towards the death penalty are “simply an exercise in attempting to drum up votes”.

“It waxes and wanes and is flexible according to whether or not there’s an election campaign on,” Brown argues.

A Labour campaign spokesperson responded to questions from IPS by saying that the party’s stance remains clear. “We are universally opposed to executions carried out in any jurisdication,” the spokesperson said.

The spokesperson added that a Labour government would pursue a campaign for the elimination of capital punishment, but that this would take place through the U.N.

But while Labour remains convinced of the clarity of its stance on the death penalty, civil society groups are not so sure.

“Having a position where you vocally oppose the death penalty for some people and not others, is certainly contradictory and disappointing,” says Michael Walton, a member of the general committee of the New South Wales Council of Civil Liberties (NSWCCL).

Walton says that it is the “inconsistencies” on both sides of Australian politics with regards to capital punishment is of concern to the NSWCCL.

These inconsistencies tend “to suggest that perhaps the policy is more a policy of rights for Australians rather than rights for human beings,” Walton told IPS.

He argues that the positions of the two major parties undermine efforts for clemency for Australians on death row in other countries.

Politicians “need to be consistent in their opposition to the death penalty, otherwise it does put Australia in a difficult position when it comes to seeking clemency for Australians held overseas,” says Walton.

Brown of ASA agrees. Australia’s position on the death penalty was “hypocritical in the extreme,” he told IPS.

“It seems, for example, the Indonesians will perceive that there is a strident opposition (in Australia) to the death penalty when there are a number of convicted drug mules awaiting a death sentence (the ‘Bali nine’), but not when the Bali bombers are similarly awaiting a death sentence,” Brown said.

“It means that Australia, from an international perspective, lacks any credibility on this issue,” he added.