A CAPITAL IDEA

There’s a former Victorian Supreme Court judge who must be feeling mightily disappointed right now.

I talked to Judge George Hampell – now Professor George Hampell QC --- on my radio programme this week. We were discussing the death sentence handed down by a panel of judges in Indonesia against Amrozi, the first convicted Bali bomber.

I was intrigued by what I see as the hypocrisy of our political leaders

(state and federal) on the issue of capital punishment.

They are all opposed to it. Howard, Crean, Bracks, Carr, Costello. But none had the guts to say that Amrozi should not face the firing squad. Crean came close. He said he would have “ preferred” Amrozi was sentenced to a long incarceration in jail but he would not attempt to intervene.

(I don’t know how he could seeing that Amrozi was found guilty of committing a murderous assault in Indonesia that killed 202 people and he was tried in an Indonesian court in a country, which has the death penalty).

Foreign Affairs Minister Alexander Downer also did say that Australians oppose the death penalty (when he should have said ‘some Australians”) and he has gone very quiet in his fishnets since John Howard invited renewed debate on the death penalty on 3AW.

The pollies run a real risk of racism by virtually saying that they don’t mind Indonesia killing Amrozi for the slaughter of 88 Australians but we are more civilised and wouldn’t execute Martin Bryant for killing 34 Australians at Port Arthur.

And Martin Bryant can live after his carnage in Hoddle Street.

In my debate with former Judge Hampell I confidently predicted that if a referendum on capital punishment for certain crimes were held in Victoria that vote would bring home a resounding YES.

I mentioned a figure of 70% to 30% and even suggested a 75-25 verdict. That’s when the judge said he would be “ disappointed”.

Well, we did such a poll over a 24-hour period Hinch-through Mitchell – through Hinch and the result made me look conservative.

By a margin of 93% to 7% listeners, aged from 18 to 80, voted in favour of capital punishment for some crimes.

So how can the Howards and Bracks of this world say they are representing the electorate and speaking for you?

It reminded me of a poll on the HINCH current affairs programme on TV back in the 1980s and I think we had a figure of 130,000 in favour of the return of the death penalty and only 4000 against. The reaction was so emotional and so spontaneous that it blew up the Telstra switchboard at Epping in Sydney.

I have said before: Don’t tell me the arguments against the death penalty. I used them myself for about twenty-five years. I was implacably opposed.

Then I started thinking. Why should Martin Bryant be still breathing? Julian Knight? The killers of nurse Anita Cobby who gang raped her and then cut her throat. The way one of them once sodomised and killed a sheep.

I don’t believe that the death penalty is a deterrent. Killers will kill. Crimes of passion will not be avoided. But dead killers don’t kill again.

I am also cognisant of the dangers of an innocent person being wrongly, disgracefully, put to death. The Evans-Christie case at 10 Rillington Place in England has been burned in my psyche for decades.

But you could have safeguards. There should be a final court of review made up of three High Court judges. They should not find on the grounds of “ reasonable doubt”. They should only decree the death penalty when there was no doubt.

Martin Bryant was physically caught at the end of his carnage leaving the burning house of two of his victims.

Julian Knight re-enacted his slaughter for police. To be brutally honest their guilt was far more explicit and proven than Amrozi’s in Bali.

In my mind these people have lost the right to live in this society.

I hope I am not a barbarian. I argue against callers who want to castrate rapists and tear killers limb from limb in a gladiatorial atmosphere.

I find Middle Eastern practices of people being stoned to death, or being decapitated in a public square, repugnant.

But death by lethal injection for a person who has murdered a couple of policemen doing their job, or a monster who has abducted raped and murdered a little girl, is fine by me.

Which brings me back to the big picture and our state and federal politicians.

I believe that any radio or newspaper poll will show that an overwhelming majority of Australians support the death penalty for certain crimes. As mine did with more than 90% in favour.

I believe that more than 70% of Australians support the compassionate idea of voluntary euthanasia. The Northern Territory Government brought it in. The Howard Government vetoed it.

By what right?

I increasingly wonder if, in their coddled, insulated, Canberra ivory tower, these people realise what is going on in the real world.

When you have a 24-hour radio poll that produces a figure of 93% for and only 7% against you have to wonder.

.©Copyright Derryn Hinch 2003