Billy Adams: Who knows where Australia stands on death penalty

Executed drug traffickers Myuran Sukumaran and Andrew Chan. Photo / AP

An ambassador recalled, ill-tempered rhetoric and widespread demands for retribution. In Australia, the response to Indonesia's latest round of state-sanctioned killings has been as predictable as it is understandable.

But when the anger subsides, and memories of two reformed Bali Nine ringleaders start to fade, what legacy will these tragic men command?

Amid yesterday's despair, some glimpsed opportunity. In death, they said, Andrew Chan and Myuran Sukamaran could kickstart a global push to abolish capital punishment in the 58 countries that retain it. Human Rights Watch called on Australia to join with the European Union to form a "grand coalition" against the death penalty. Opposition Leader Bill Shorten said Australia should "stand ready" to lead in ridding the world of this barbaric practice.

For many, the executions sparked memories of another young Australian drug trafficker who was put to death in Singapore in 2005. Unlike Chan and Sukamaran, who faced a firing squad, Van Tuong Nguyen was hanged. In both cases, the public outrage matched not only the urgency of diplomatic efforts seeking clemency, but the sense that it was all too little too late.

Australia, in theory, should already be playing a leading role in the campaign to abolish capital punishment. Bob Hawke's Government ratified the Second Optional Protocol of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights a quarter of a century ago. Included in the weighty obligations is a commitment to lobby internationally against the death penalty. Foreign policy experts believe those efforts have been, at best, lacklustre.

Australia's politicians have been guilty of sending out mixed messages. Former Prime Minister John Howard was one of many who opposed the death penalty in principle and opposed the execution of Van Nguyen. But shooting the Bali bombers in the same way as the Bali Nine had their support.

When Robert McLelland, a federal Labor MP who became Attorney- General, argued against capital punishment - even for terrorists like Osama bin Laden - he was rebuked by colleagues. And few were more aware than the Bali Nine themselves how these inconsistencies played out in Indonesia - Australia seemed interested only in saving its own.

Just as Australian politicians played to a domestic audience demanding retribution over bombings that killed 88 of their countrymen, so too has a populist new Indonesian President elected on a pledge to inflict "shock therapy" against drug traffickers. It barely matters that Joko Widodo's argument that the death penalty is an effective deterrent falls over at the slightest scrutiny. Or that Indonesia has paid other Governments to grant clemency for its own nationals - including drug smugglers - facing execution overseas.

Of greater relevance to Chan and Sukumaran's plight would have been Jakarta's relationship with Canberra, which has deteriorated badly in recent years. From phone-tapping its leaders to turning back boatloads of asylum seekers, is it any surprise Widodo snubbed personal pleas by Prime Minister Tony Abbott and Foreign Minister Julie Bishop?

If Chan and Sukumaran are not to be forgotten, a much broader inclusive campaign against the death penalty wherever it falls has to begin now.

The death penalty

• 58 nations still enforce the death penalty.
• 7 use it for crimes committed under exceptional circumstances or military crimes.
• 133 countries either do not have the death penalty or do not enforce it.
• Australia: Killer Ronald Ryan was the last person executed, hanged on February 3, 1967. Federally the death penalty was not abolished until 1985, but states removed capital punishment at various points from 1922 to 1984.
• New Zealand: Killer Walter Bolton was the last person executed, hanged in 1957. The death penalty was abolished for murder in 1961 and for all crimes in 1989.

- AAP