> Back to the first and third: official Australia has been caught in a
> bit of a bind, having vociferously protested the application of the
> death penalty on persons charged with drug smuggling, but upset about
> the Bali bombers not all getting the death penalty. Also, previous
> protests about preventive detention, and silence on current
> preventive detention. This doesn't go un-noticed. All of which serves
> to buttress current regimes.
The simple answer is that there has been a change of govt since the last Australians were executed in Malaysia, which must be nearly 20 years ago. I was and am opposed to the death penalty, so I remember very clearly how _little_ sympathy there was among ordinary Australians, for Barlow and Chambers, at the time. I doubt that the present conservative govt would bat an eyelid at the death penalty for heroin smugglers, if it came up.