GLOSSY MAG INSANITY

Every Sunday night or Monday we get the promo blurb for the glossy magazines about their latest savoury and unsavoury offerings. And they usually offer an interview with somebody who talked to somebody who knew Michael Jackson. Or some such earth-shattering exclusive.
Yesterday’s headline grabber was from New Idea. ‘Top Australian psychiatrist warns. Bring Schapelle home or she will die’. And I thought here we go again and ignored it.

 The boogie board drug smuggler has had more media coverage than any crim since Ned Kelly. Books, articles, exclusive interviews, TV programs, court cases, libel actions. And through it all, even though caught red-handed, Corby has never said ‘I did it’.

The last I’d heard of her was only a week ago when one of her most ardent supporters emailed me to say she was keeping her distance because ‘I’ve offered more help to that family than you can poke a stick at… but this is just now getting out of hand’. This was after Corby supporters on the Net suggested she go on a hunger strike.

I’d love to ignore it all today but the ‘bring Corby home’ campaign is off and running again. The Corby family hired a Melbourne psychiatrist to spend a couple of hours with the prisoner in jail in Bali and Professor Jonathan Phillips wrote a 20-page report. He says if she remains in jail it will ‘destroy her’. Says she is ‘hanging on by a thread and is effectively insane’.

Mitchell strode into it this morning saying ‘Australia has got a responsibility here. We must be compassionate. Australia must try to save Schapelle Corby’s life’.  Mitchell says it’s the ‘only decent thing to do and Kevin Rudd is the man who must try to do it’.

(After all, when he was in Opposition and diving into every issue Kevin Rudd requested the Indonesian president pardon the drug smuggler).

Mitchell and Phillips peppered their interview today with emotive lines like
 ‘she’s one of us’ and ‘ she’s an Australian citizen, remember’. True, and I believe her sentence was at least 15 years too long even though Corby knew drug sentences in Indonesia are draconian if you get caught. Australian heroin smugglers are on Death Row. If they’re depressed should we campaign to free them too?

 I wish some of this fervent compassion was directed at other Australians overseas. The ones held captive for committing no crimes or jailed and waiting interminably to face the courts in places like Dubai.

People like  Queensland photo-journalist Nigel Brennan who has now been held captive by rebels in  Somalia for more than a year. Three months ago, the last time he was heard from, he sent a message saying ‘I've been shackled for the last four months. My health is extremely poor and deteriorating rapidly due to extreme fever. I implore that my government help me as a citizen of Australia’ .

And Harry Nicolaides spent months in jail in Thailand for inadvertently insulting the Royal Family in a novel that sold seven copies.

People like them deserve your support and compassion.

Tuesday,August 24, 2009

© Copyright Derryn Hinch 2009