I agree Champas, particularly re. the Schappelle Corby business, which I have found particularly disturbing. Today's 'Australian' featured a number of opinion pieces on this affair:
1. A critical review of the Indonesian and Australian judicial systems - by Ronald Sackville (Federal Court justice and chairman of the Judicial Conference of Australia),
2. A surprisingly unflippant (for the most part) summary of the flimsy nature of Corby's defence - by Emma Tom,
3. An account of how the media-fuelled pro-Corby campaign is actually working against her - by Paul Kelly; and
4. An assessment of the pro-Corby campaign as the triumph of emotion over reason - by Janet Albrechtsen.
And guess what? This may be the increasingly right-wing 'Australian' we're talking about here, but all these contributors had points of significant merit to make. Yes, even the usually frothing-at-the-mouth Albrechtsen. Well, she did put her usual unpleasant 'compassion junkies' spin on it, of course, but she made the indisputably valid point - among several others - that 'an Australian court would very likely have found her guilty just as the Bali court did.' Not quite what the pro-Corby campaign would have us believe.
So, credit where it's due - well done all the above. And perhaps even more pleasing, in my book, was that many of the contributions to the letters page on this subject were similarly sensible and considered, raising alarm at the latent xenophobia inherent in the pro-Corby stance, and only very few failing to appreciate that while Corby may be young, female, photogenic, on trial overseas and prone to crying on camera, none of these necessarily exclude the possibility that she may actually be guilty. I can only conclude that while many Australians have got swept up in this 'outrage', many others haven't. Cause for a degree of optimism, perhaps.
