Drug mules a salutary lesson

The return from Indonesia on Sunday of the five remaining members of the Bali Nine gang – Matthew Norman, Martin Stephens, Si Yi Chen, Scott Rush and Michael Czugaj – draws a line under what has been, as Amanda Hodge reported, a “running sore” in our relationship with Jakarta. In doing so, however, it is imperative not to lose sight of the hard lessons that must be learned from their almost 20 years of incarceration, the execution by firing squad in 2015 of ringleaders Myuran Sukumaran and Andrew Chan, and the fate of the other two – Renae Lawrence, whose sentence was commuted in 2018 when she was deported to Australia, and Tan Duc Thanh Nguyen, who died in 2018 from stomach cancer.

It would be difficult to think of a more stupid, more mindlessly immoral or misguided enterprise than their abortive attempt to smuggle 8.3kg of heroin into Australia. By doing so they ruined their lives and betrayed their families. Had their conspiracy succeeded and the heroin reached Australia, they would have ruined more lives. No one will deny the happiness of their families in being reunited with them. But after spending half their lives in prison, their fate, as part of the Bali Nine, is a telling metaphor for all that is utterly evil and just plain idiotic about those who involve themselves in the trade in drugs.

Hopefully, the five who arrived back on Sunday have learned the lessons of their stupidity. They have much to thank new Indonesian President Prabowo Subianto for, after his decision to submit to requests from successive Australian governments and allow the five to fly home as free men, without even having to serve further jail time in Australia.

It remains unclear why Mr Prabowo, a tough former general not normally noted for acts of compassion, decided to allow them to go after his predecessor, Joko Widodo, declined all appeals for clemency. It will be unfortunate if the Albanese government persists in its refusal to disclose the terms of the deal done to cover their repatriation. The return of the five is unlikely to differ from the general rule that in international diplomacy there is no such thing as a free lunch.