1	death penalty

A significant piece of legislation passed the Australian Parliament this week. The new law prohibits the death penalty from being re-adopted by any state or territory government in Australia, and also made also forms of torture illegal under Australian law.

The initial significance of the legislation lies in what it will prevent, rather than what it will make happen.  While the last state execution in Australia was carried out in the 1960s, and the last state formally abolished the death penalty more than two decades ago, there has been nothing to stop any state and territory government from re-introducing it.

Occasional calls are made from people in the community, and some in the political arena, for this to happen.  Indeed, just a couple of weeks a go, the new leader of the federal opposition, Tony Abbott, tried to have an each way bet – saying he opposed the death penalty, but none the less thought that there were some crimes so heinous that the death penalty was an appropriate response.

The longer-term benefit of the legislation will be to strengthen Australia’s credibility when it seeks to persuade governments of other nations to follow the same path. Many countries in our region still have the death penalty, although some use it more frequently than others.

With three Australians currently on death row in Indonesia for drug smuggling offences, there is likely to be ongoing reminders of the death penalty debate in Australia. The visit of the Indonesia President to Australia this week will have engendered a lot of goodwill in Australia. The final appeals of the three on death row against their sentences are currently being heard by the Indonesian Courts. If these are unsuccessful, the last hope is for the President to use his Presidential clemency powers.

I’m sure if he were to do this, it would also engender significant goodwill in Australia, particular in respect to Scott Rush, whose death sentence seems an anomaly, given he played the same courier role as others arrested with him who did not get the death penalty. The other two on death row appear to have played much more of a central organising role.  Whilst in my view no one should ever be executed by the state, it is doubly wrong when a death sentence is inconsistently applied.