Malcolm Turnbull (Wentworth, Liberal Party, Minister for Communications) Share this | Hansard source

I rise to support the motion moved in the House by the Prime Minister, as have all the members who have spoken on this motion. The Australian parliament calls on the government and the President of Indonesia to extend clemency to Sukumaran and Chan. We recognise that the crimes they have committed and were sentenced for were very grave ones—very grave indeed. But we as a nation do not believe that the state should kill people as the end of a judicial process. We do not support the death penalty. We do not condone the crimes that have been committed, but we argue that no state should take the life of its citizens as the consequence of a judicial process. Appropriate terms of imprisonment are, of course, available to the Indonesians. As the foreign minister said in her motion, that is what we recommend should be accorded to them.

Having said that, we respect the Indonesian republic. We respect the Indonesian government, we respect its president, and we respect its laws. We make this plea to them humbly, recognising that Indonesia and the Indonesian people are entitled to manage their own affairs. But the Indonesian government, for example, regularly makes a plea for clemency in respect of its citizens who have been sentenced to death in other countries—most notably, and as is well-known, in Saudi Arabia. To ask for mercy is an important, honourable and loving action; but to grant mercy is the absolute and ultimate expression of love—honourable and strong love. That is what we are asking the Indonesian president to do. We are not asking him to be weak or to back down; we are asking him as a friend, as a dear friend, not to take the lives of these men—who, as I said, have committed terrible crimes—who have sought to rehabilitate themselves. Nonetheless, what we are asking the President to do is to be strong, to be so strong that he can say, 'My love of life overwhelms, trumps, the desire for vengeance, the desire for retribution.' So we are asking the Indonesian President to show love. Some might say that these two men do not deserve it, that they do not deserve to be shown any clemency. The greatest love is that which is shown to those who least deserve it.

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