What about our lost Christmases, PM? Parents of overdose deaths slam Bali Nine special treatment

The Prime Minister on Friday said the families of the Bali Nine smugglers had suffered enough Christmases without their children. But for parents who have lost their children to the drugs those men were peddling, the grief and the loss never ends.

John Keeble lost his son John to a heroin overdose in 1999. He is pictured in front of the 1993 Holden ute he bought his son in the mid-90s. Picture: Liam Mendes

Parents who have lost their children to drug addiction and overdose have slammed Anthony Albanese’s move to bring the Bali Nine heroin trafickers home for Christmas, as criticisms swell over the royal-like treatment the smugglers received returning to their home states.

Four of the five remaining Bali Nine – Matthew Norman, Michael Czugaj, Martin Stephens and Si Yi Chen – landed in their home states on Friday to spend their first Christmas as free men in a top secret operation that saw some get special protection from the AFP and other privileges from other authorities, including tarmac treatment.

It brought back raw memories for John Keeble, who lost his son – also named John – to a heroin overdose in 1998 after falling in with the wrong crowd.

The Prime Minister on Friday defended his government’s deal with the Indonesian government to bring the five home, saying their families had enough festive seasons without them.

“Their families had their loved ones in jail for 20 Christmases and that was enough, and I thank again President Prabowo for his act of compassion and I thank him for delivering on what he said he would when we had dinner,” Mr Albanese said.

But Wednesday will mark the 27th Christmas Mr Keeble won’t spend with his son, a talented gymnast who he says he was “disappointed in” after he was found dead at a Gladesville home, aged just 21.

It is also the eighth year he won’t spend Christmas with his beloved wife of 46 years. He believes their son’s demise led to her early death.

Mr Keeble, who did not know his son was taking heroin, blames him for the choices he made that led to his sudden death, but believes that had the drugs not made it onto the streets in the first place, he would still be alive.

Martin Stephens is helped into a car after arriving at Sydney airport, treatment usually reserved for heads of state. Picture: John Feder

And he cannot understand why Mr Albanese would go to lengths to help five men who tried to smuggle the very drug that ruined his family.

“Its not fair,” he said with a sigh. “The main thing is to stop people taking the bloody stuff … I’d sort of half-forgotten the whole story. They were trying to bring the heroin here. How many people would that have killed?” Mr Keeble said from his bushland property in Bilpin, west of Sydney.

“To me, it should be a life sentence. Our so-called prime minister organising their return, its just crazy. He should have nothing to do with it,” he said. “They should have thrown away the key.”

“Albanese shouldn’t have had anything to do with it. He should get on with running the country and not messing up the country … I’m not sure who he’s trying to please,” he said.

He hopes that now the remaining five are free, that they will “talk some sense to people that want to go on the drugs”. Six of John’s friends from kindergarten also died of overdoses around the time John died. “He was just a normal kid. He was quite happy until he got involved with all that shit,” Mr Keeble said.

John Keeble died of a heroin overdose in 1999.

Peter Richardson, board member of the Drug Advisory Council of Australia, has also seen his family fall victim to drug addiction. His stepdaughter Ash started taking ecstasy when she was partying which led her to a meth addiction that “got hold of her in a big way”.

He said that as the parent of an addict he did not have “a lot of sympathy” for the time the Bali Nine spent in prison, and believes that the government should not have put so much effort into bringing them back to Australia. “I do have a problem with our government lobbying so hard to get them released. I don’t think that the general public would have had an expectation of our government doing the lobbying they did to get them released,” he said.

Bali Nine members Matthew Norman and Si Yi Chen arrive in Melbourne on Friday morning. Picture: Luis Enrique Ascui

Mr Richardson said that if the members of the Bali Nine had successfully smuggled the 8.3kg of heroin out of Indonesia, “undoubtedly there would have been deaths from it”.

But like Mr Keeble, he hopes that the members of the Bali Nine might have their own “role to play” in telling their story as “a cautionary tale”. “Maybe they should be encouraged to do that. Maybe that’s the debt that they should be paying,” he said.

Kerryn Redpath, who was addicted to heroin before a near-death hospital visit saw her turn her life around, said that she was “not angry with the government” for orchestrating the Bali Nine’s release as they have “done their time”, but she’s worried about the government’s approach to drugs.

Bali Nine member Michael Czugaj arrives in Brisbane on Friday morning. Picture: Liam Mendes

“They’ve paid the price, which they had to pay, but a pretty severe price. A lot more than they pay in our country … our country’s probably too lenient. We do a slap on the wrist and let everyone go again,” she said.

“The country has welcomed them back and paid for them to come back and set them free, it would be really good if they showed their appreciation by turning around what they did wrong for something good.”

She said that if smuggled heroin had arrived in Australia it would have created more addiction, probably killed people, and the Bali Nine “deserved to pay the price for that”.

“I feel that they have, and I’m just hoping and believing that they will want to turn their lives around and make a difference.”

But Ms Redpath also sees the perspective of families who may have lost someone.

“I understand a parent who lost a child to a drug overdose may feel differently,” she said.