Some Australians - including a clutch of actors, who yesterday urged the Prime Minister to make an 11th-hour mercy dash to Jakarta and, in effect, grab Widodo by the lapels - have accused the Government of not doing enough to save Chan and Sukumaran from the firing squad.
But insiders say Foreign Affairs Minister Julie Bishop, in particular, has expended considerable time and energy in high-level diplomatic efforts - which continued yesterday, with Bishop pleading in back-to-back interviews for a stay of execution until legal avenues had been exhausted.
She also hinted at the Government's sense of impotence, revealing that Australia asked Indonesia not to announce the 72-hour countdown on Anzac Day - a request it ignored.
Yesterday afternoon, the visibly upset families of Chan, 31, and Sukumaran, 34, travelled to the Javan prison island of Nusakambangan for what they believed was their final visit. Also with them was Chan's new Indonesian wife, Febyanti, whom he married in prison on Monday. Adding to the distress of the men and their families was Indonesia's refusal to allow the pair to have their chosen spiritual advisers - in Sukumaran's case, a Melbourne pastor and long-time friend, Christie Buckingham, in Chan's a Salvation Army minister and family friend, David Soper - with them when they died.
In an online video, Australian actors including Geoffrey Rush, Joel Edgerton and Bryan Brown pleaded for mercy. Actor Brendan Cowell urged Abbott to "get over to Indonesia and bring these two boys home, show some balls".
Bishop said she and the Prime Minister had been counselled by Australian diplomats not to take that course. "If there was any indication that being in Indonesia would help, of course we would be there," she said. "But that's not the advice we've received."
Far from not doing enough, according to Associate Professor Greg Fealy, an Indonesia expert at the Australian National University, the efforts of Abbott and Bishop were "unparalleled in Australian diplomatic history".
During the sustained lobbying campaign, Australia has - all to no avail - offered Indonesia a prisoner swap and funds for a drug rehabilitation programme, pointed out Indonesia's efforts to save its own citizens on death row overseas and reminded it of Australia's generous aid effort following the 2004 tsunami.
The plan to execute citizens of Brazil, Ghana, Nigeria and the Philippines, as well as the two Australians and one Indonesian, provoked an international outcry. An appeal by Chan and Sukumaran against Widodo's refusal to grant them clemency has yet to be heard by the Constitutional Court, while claims that their trial judges offered lenient jail in exchange for bribes are still being investigated.
Dave McRae, an Indonesia expert at Melbourne University's Asia Institute, said Australia needed to "do more than simply expressing condemnation" and consider suspending aspects of bilateral co-operation.
Last words
One was dubbed "The Godfather". The other, "The Enforcer".
Whether those tags ever fitted Andrew Chan and Myuran Sukumaran is debatable.
When they were arrested in Bali in 2005 over an attempt to smuggle 8.3kg of heroin, worth around A$4 million, they at least looked the part. Chan, 21, had a shaved head, gold earrings, tattoos and a smug veneer. Sukumaran, 24, loomed a head above him, silent and defiant.
Chan was known as a hard worker at Eurest, the catering company for the Sydney Cricket Ground. Sukumaran was a university drop-out and mailroom worker.
By 2010, when the SBS programme Dateline visited them in Kerobokan jail, the pair's defiance had vanished. By that stage, they had admitted their criminality and stupidity. They had changed.
Sukumaran was studying for a degree in fine arts and had become an accomplished painter. Chan had found a home in the prison chapel and kitchen. They are the finest examples of Indonesia's capacity to rehabilitate - a priest and a painter.
- AAP
