Bali five drug mules rehabilitating in Darwin

As a small crowd of reporters and camera operators on Monday gathered at Howard Springs hoping for a glimpse of five convicted heroin traffickers, it was all the talk at the local pub. Read what happened.

As the five remaining members of the Bali Nine heroin trafficking cartel revelled in their first full day of freedom, residents of the small Northern Territory locality where they are currently housed were generally supportive of their release, but with qualifications.

At the Howard Springs Tavern, about 2km from Howard Springs Accomodation Village, which was formerly an Inpex workers’s camp and Covid-19 quarantine centre, where the newly freed Indonesian inmates are believed to be staying, locals Rattles, Irish and Gaz reflected on the crime, punishment and ultimately freedom of the five convicted drug couriers.

Rattles at Howard Springs Tavern.

“They’d been in Bali for a long time,” Rattles said.

“They were in prison longer than they would have in Australia. Nineteen years is a long time.”

That said, he acknowledged the seriousness of the crime and potential impact on victims.

“It wasn’t dope, it was heroin and you just don’t that. Who knows how many people would have died from the drug if it had got into Australia.”

Gaz agreed about the drugs, but also the length of their sentence and the fact 19 years was a long time to serve for a crime that in Australia most likely would have carried a shorter prison term.

Irish questioned the process that saw the men returned to Australia and processed at taxpayers’ expense.

Irish wondered why taxpayers paid.

“They have families who could have paid for their own flights home and their accommodation,” he said.

“I don’t understand why taxpayers had to fly them home.”

Media has been gathering out the front of the Howard Springs defence facility since early afternoon Sunday when news Matthew Norman, Scott Rush, Martin Stephens, Si Yi Chen and Michael Czugaj, five of the Bali Nine drug mules, had landed in Darwin.

Howard Springs Accomodation Village.

Digital and print media giants and commercial television networks rushed camera operators and reporters to Darwin from Sydney in the hope of a glimpse of the men or a conversation with their families.

The Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade said the men were relocated to Howard Springs where they had voluntarily agreed to spend a short period of time continuing their rehabilitation.

It said during their Darwin stay the five would receive medical care and other supports and that ultimately, there were no legal grounds for their detention and “going forward”, they would be able to reunite with their families as free men.