On Tuesday morning, I was woken to the great news that Shadow Foreign Affairs Minister Robert McClelland had committed a future ALP government to not only opposing the death penalty in all circumstances and in all cases, but to going so far as to forming a regional coalition in Asia to lobby for the complete abolition of the death penalty in our region.
I actually couldn’t imagine a better policy coming out of the alternative government, and when I was contacted by various media (including the Brisbane Times here) as convenor of Australians Against Capital Punishment, I roundly congratulated the ALP on this principled stand.
Within an hour of giving the interview, I heard the news that Kevin Rudd had come down on McClelland, first claiming the timing of speech – so close to the anniversary of the Bali Bombing, was insensitive, then not only reversing McClelland’s laudable position that our government would actively oppose capital punishment in all cases, not just when Australians were involved, but actually claimed there was no difference between the Liberal Party and ALP policy (here).
Yes, it was close to the anniversary of that awful tragedy and some of the Bali Bombers’ cases were in a crucial point in the appeals process, but it was also a critical point for the appeals of some of the young Australians facing execution in Indonesia over drug smuggling charges.
And that was McClelland’s point – that by turning your back on the death penalty for others, you have no credibility on the issue when you’re lobbying for your own. He wasn’t the first to point this out – another who has done so very thoroughly, is Philip Alston – the UN’s spokesperson on the Death Penalty (and brother of former Federal Communications Minister and haranguer-in-chief of the ABC, Richard – there seems to be a Tim Costello/Peter Costello good sibling/very, very, very bad sibling situation going on there, too). Philip Alston has spoken out many times on the Australian Government’s deliberate blindness, and even outright hypocrisy on the death penalty many times.
The ABC has a great piece on the McClelland saga, including comments from Professor Alston, and praise (which I still support) for McClelland’s stance -
Opponents of capital punishment say a Labor minister’s stance against the death penalty could help save Australians from death rows overseas.
The other reason the timing was appropriate, was that Wednesday was World Anti-Death Penalty Day. To commemorate it, there was a forum in Brisbane that was co-sponsored by Australians Against Capital Punishment, Amnesty International and Just Peace that I wrote about in this post. The World Coalition Against the Death Penalty has an online petition calling on the total abolition of the death penalty that you can sign here.
As a society we either think that capital punishment is unconscionable or we don’t. We can’t claim to oppose it, then turn a blind eye to it in cases where it would be inconvenient to make a fuss, or actively cheer it on, as our government did for the execution of Saddam Hussein, or as John Howard did yesterday in the case of the Bali Bombers. Again, in the face of evidence and opinion that doing so would directly harm the chances for Australians facing execution in the same country.
Howard’s hypocrisy, and now Rudd’s cowardice, are supporting state sponsored murder all over the world. In order to look tough on terrorism, they are condemning Australians, and others, to death. One of them is going to win an election on this kind of idiocy.
Texas reintroduced the death penalty in 1976 – the year I was born. In my lifetime, the state of Texas has killed 400 people in cold blood. As the 400th was being put to death about six weeks ago, the Bush administration was moving to restrict the rights of death row inmates to appeal. Because the death penalty is only a solution if people don’t think about it too closely.
0 Responses to “An Election’s No Time For Principle – Rudd”