I’ve written before about the Government’s moral flexibility when it comes to matters such as the death penalty and today legal experts have warned that this flexibility will undermine Australia’s efforts to spare Australians such as the Bali Nine from the bullet:

AUSTRALIA’S inconsistent attitude to capital punishment could undermine its attempts to save members of the Bali nine from execution, legal experts warn.

[...]

Criminal barrister Robert Richter QC said pleas for clemency were weakened because the Government had failed to oppose capital punishment consistently.

“There’s a complete sort of hypocrisy about this. We’re saying, ‘Fantastic, let’s execute Saddam Hussein,’ which weakens our moral authority in arguing about the Bali nine.”

[...]

Melbourne University professor of Asian law Tim Lindsey said the Government had “lost its leverage” on the issue.

“You can’t have it both ways — if you support the death penalty for terrorists then you can’t complain when it’s applied to other offenders,” he said.