The Role Of The Australian Government

Soon after Schapelle Corby’s arrest and during the early part of her trial, the Australian government found itself impaled on the hook of public opinion when many commentators pointed out their failure to protect her against disturbing legal and human rights abuses

The government will almost certainly have been well aware of the real issues behind the Schapelle Corby case, but in the pragmatic world of international politics, they eventually adopted a pragmatic approach. Essentially, the importance of their strategic relationship with Indonesia trumped Schapelle Corby’s human rights. For the government, the only two aspects that really mattered here were that key relationship and the vagaries of public opinion.

Subsequent to the events on the ground at the airports, therefore, this political reality framed most of what transpired in Australia. This embraced possible complicity at every level: from the AFP’s activities and the supportive statements by politicians, to the media’s smear and opinion management campaign.

These matters are illustrated by the following aspects:

Lack of Assistance
Given the high profile nature of the case, the legal and human rights abuses [23] to which Schapelle Corby (an Australian citizen) was subjected were patently clear to the government. Yet they failed to intervene. Equally, they failed to use routes such as the Mutual Assistance Treaty to press the issue of testing the drugs for country of origin, for example.

Opinion Management
It is suggested that to extract itself from the hook of public opinion the government enabled (even encouraged) the grotesque media smear campaign against Schapelle Corby’s family.

The government clearly understands the media itself and the process of opinion management. They are politicians and they know, by trade, when people are being influenced and how to influence opinion. That is their world on a daily basis. It is their day job.

They thus knew what was transpiring with respect to the media, but at the generous end of the scale, they did nothing to stop it. At the less generous end, they encouraged it and orchestrated it. [4].

Direct Commentary
Politicians even intervened via carefully issued statements of an extremely damaging nature. For example, via the ministerial statement of support for AFP Commissioner Keelty’s extremely harmful comments whilst the Indonesian legal process was in motion (see above) [22].

The issue of these damaging comments was in fact raised at a Legal and Constitutional Legislation Committee Senate meeting. When Keelty was pressed on why he made them at that point in time and on what basis, the Minister for Justice and Customs (Senator Ellison) intervened with “I would say to the committee that this is a matter which is before an Indonesian court which is listed to hand down its decision this Friday. It is at a very sensitive stage of the hearing and I think that the committee should exercise due care in the way it deals with this issue, having regard to the fact that this matter has now reached the stage of proceedings that it has” [27]. Yet presumably it was perfectly fine for his subordinate, Mr Keelty, to make his hugely damaging comments publicly just a few weeks earlier?

Shortly after the sentence was announced, Foreign Affairs Minister, Downer even defended the show trial, with all its clear legal and human rights abuses: “Just because courts are in Indonesia isn't a reason to conclude that their courts are somehow completely corrupt and unacceptable.” [23].

He later stated: “It's been said the AFP provided information leading to the arrest of the Bali Nine and they should have done more to help Schapelle Corby. My argument is simple. We need to work with the Indonesians to stop the drug trade. And the moral of the Bali Nine and Corby stories is simple: don't traffic in drugs, it's a hanging offence in Asia.”. Why would he go out of his way to specifically mention Schapelle Corby by openly inferring her guilt in a statement to the media?

Confiscation of Book Royalties
Royalties from sales of Schapelle Corby’s book were intended to help soften some of the terrible pain of certain aspects of an ordeal in a foreign prison: for example, fund visits by her mother from her native Australia. However, in January 2007, Australian Justice Minister, Chris Ellison, suggested that the proceeds from the sale of the book could be confiscated under the proceeds of crime act. A few months later, in a closed court, government solicitors were granted an order that froze the accounts where the money was deposited. In addition to increasing her hardship, the Australian government was again effectively signaling that Schapelle was guilty of a crime, despite all the facts of the case, including the demonstrable legal and human rights abuses.

Ongoing Complicity
Finally, there is the question of what they have done to help her over the passing years. They have all of the above information, and yet she is still there. It is sometimes argued that every day she remains there is essentially another day of national complicity.


Next: Other Aspects

Return to Main Propositions Page