Editorial: Death is too big a penalty to pay

The idea of ending everything a functioning, sentient being is, is so abhorrent it requires a shutdown of civilised and humane values, writes Andrew Bonallack. Photo / Getty Images

If any society is to consider itself civilised then the death penalty should not be a part of it.

Two of the "Bali Nine" criminals have been executed in Indonesia this week for their role in attempting to smuggle more than $4 million of heroin from Indonesia to Australia, 10 years ago.

I am a great believer of consequences. The convicted men attempted their crime because the payout was enormous. It was basic greed, an endeavour to gain large profit for little effort, in an industry that brings misery to thousands and breeds a chain reaction of crime.

The risk was well established - the death penalty if caught. If you attempt such a crime, with that kind of knowledge, your sympathy vote is not going to be high.

What I'm endeavouring to do is to look beyond the crime and consider the basic idea of killing someone. The idea of ending everything a functioning, sentient being is, and everything they could be, is so abhorrent it requires a shutdown of civilised and humane values.

This isn't a murder, where a criminal makes their own terrible choice to kill someone. There were times when we were a lot more "biblical" about murder - an exchange of lives if caught. The death penalty is a situation where someone has been given permission to kill a person. It is precisely what the military are told to do. You are given a weapon, and told that it is okay to fire it at an enemy. You're paid to do it. This situation is arguably out of necessity, but in no way can war be considered civilised.

The death penalty is a unique situation because its purpose is extreme deterrent. As far as protection for your country goes, there's really no difference between the Bali Nine incarcerated for life and being dead. They are, effectively, out of the loop. And it's not much of a deterrent if people keep attempting to smuggle drugs.

Choosing to kill a person is wrong as a fundamental abhorrence against nature. Drug smuggling can't be so destructive to Indonesia that they need to kill people over it.

Andrew Bonallack is editor of the Wairarapa Times-Age.