The fact that a decade passed between the apprehension of the Bali Nine - 10 years that was largely spent following a convoluted appeals system - and last week's executions has been seized upon by opponents of the death penalty as evidence of cruel and unnecessary punishment, to use Tony Abbott's words. Australia's opposition leader said his country was disgusted by the "futile execution of these two young Australian men." This was not justice, he said. It was the "senseless waste of two good lives".
Mr Shorten might have considered the countless good lives that would undoubtedly have been senselessly wasted had Chan, Sukumaran and the others got through the airport in Bali and escaped detection in Australia. Four kilograms of heroin would have damaged a lot of Australian lives, and possibly killed some of those who would have eventually become Chan and Sukumaran's customers. Those Australians would have faced a death sentence of their own, in return for providing these two men with the wherewithal to maintain the lifestyle they coveted.
Those potential victims were lost sight of completely in the clamour to spare these two drug runners, and to extol them as symbols of virtue now that they have received the desserts some would say they deserved, and which the Indonesian authorities promised would be theirs long before they chanced their arm. The truly appalling tragedy was not that Chan and Sukumaran were executed, but that some people are prepared to destroy the lives of others simply to make money.
It should also be noted than these two men were not the first Australians to be executed abroad. There have been others - ever heard of Van Tuong Nguyen? He was a convicted drug smuggler who was executed in Singapore in 2005 - and they won't be the last. But they have set a whole new benchmark in terms of Australia's apparent conviction that the lives of its citizens are sacrosanct, whatever they might do, and whatever the laws of other countries might be.
It even reached the stage last week where an Australian politician called for an investigation of the police role in alerting Indonesia to the Bali Nine, and so delivering two of them to almost certain death. (The other seven are serving life prison sentences).
Should the Australian police really look the other way when they have information regarding serious criminal offending by Australian nationals overseas? Apparently so. Despite the fact that the victims of this enterprise would themselves have been Australian. Drug dealers clearly deserve more consideration than do the addicts they create and feed, and send to early graves.
And of course the executions have breathed new life into the faction that would have it that executing criminals does not reduce crime, and in Indonesia's case will not reduce its drug problem. How anyone can argue that with a straight face defies explanation. There is no way of knowing how many people might be deterred from criminal offending by the possibility of receiving the death penalty. And the extent of Indonesia's drug problem is such that the government can be excused for adopting what might be regarded in some quarters as extreme measures to fight it. The irony in this case is that the heroin was bound for Australia; Indonesia undoubtedly did that country a favour when it arrested the Bali Nine. It might have expected a little gratitude.
To be fair to the critics, the Indonesians are not above displaying a double standard. By all accounts they work hard to persuade other governments to show mercy to their people on death rows around the world, although details of their offending aren't known. Some countries impose the death penalty for much lesser crimes than trading in heroin, so one should not rush to judgement.
Even the Australians have conceded that Indonesia, and by association other countries that practice punishments that the West generally considers barbaric, has the right to decide how it will deal with criminals, even if it stands accused, as Indonesia does, of not following its own judicial rules, however. The best advice it could give its citizens is to avoid such countries when indulging in criminal activity, while it will no doubt continue to work at a political level to have the death penalty banned.
Good luck with that. It will be a cold day in Hell when Indonesia agrees with Australia, New Zealand and other more liberal societies that the death penalty should be abolished, but genuine diplomacy would offer greater hope than the crass attempts by the Australians to persuade Joko Widodo to spare Chan and Sukumaran. Those efforts reportedly included threatening to reduce the A$650 million ($675.8 million) Australia gives Indonesia in aid every year, while Mr Abbott even reminded them of Australia's response to the Boxing Day tsunami of 2004. Some people in Aceh reportedly responded to that with a whip-round to give Australia its money back.
But if Tony Abbott's protests were based on political expedience, so too perhaps was Joko Widodo's refusal to intervene. Eighty-six per cent of respondents to an opinion poll in March agreed that Chan and Sukumaran should be executed regardless of what Australia said, while 57.8 per cent were happy to see diplomatic relations severed with any country that failed to show respect for Indonesian law.
Some in Australia and New Zealand have argued that Chan and Sukumaran had already served life sentences (in Australasian terms, if not Indonesian), so executing them represented a double penalty. Be that as it may, drug dealers who ply their trade in Indonesia know what to expect if they are caught, and those whose loved ones would become their victims might be grateful if that harsh reality deters at least some others from taking the risk.
