Graham Perrett (Moreton, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I regret to inform the House that when I was younger I broke into a school, or at least I attempted to. Hopefully this confession will not generate too much interest from the Queensland Police Service or the members opposite. The attempted break-in occurred about 35 years ago when I was in grade 3 or grade 4 at St Patrick’s Catholic Primary School in St George, in south-west Queensland. I recall that the intended break-in target was colouring-in pencils and I was not alone in planning this crime. My accomplices, who I will not name here, and I were caught in the act by Sister Leonard. So the great heist was a stupid decision and we were caught red-handed. I think Sister Leonard has since forgiven my transgression. Coincidentally, she has ended up living a few doors up the road from me, even though 600 kilometres east, and she often gives me communion at mass on the weekend. But, back in the early 1970s, after she foiled our weekend transgression, Sister Leonard told the head nun all about our crime, and my partners in crime and I received a stern talking-to from the principal and our parents.

This Easter, the Easter just gone, I returned to St Patrick’s in St George for the 75th anniversary of the school. Thankfully my criminal past was not an issue. In fact, I was fortunate enough to be the master of ceremonies at the reunion dinner. The fabulous sisters of St Patrick’s had forgiven or forgotten—I am not sure which—my stupid action. But at the time I tried to break into St Patrick’s school I was perhaps a little troubled. My father had run off with another woman and left my mother to raise a tribe of kids by herself. Most days, my siblings and I would see our father drive past our home on his way to work and he would have the children from his new family with him; that was tough. Such an experience might have made me bitter and facilitated me running even further off the rails than I did, but I did not.

I tell this story about my criminal past for the benefit of two of my constituents, Lee and Chris. Lee and Chris also had a son who went to a Catholic school. I hasten to add that the big difference is that Lee and Chris stayed together and provided their son with a warm, loving family environment. Like every good parent, they nurtured, loved and had high aspirations for their son. Like me, Lee and Chris’s boy probably made many smaller, stupid decisions, but, knowing how way leads on to way, their boy eventually ended up being arrested at Ngurah Rai Airport on 17 April 2005. I remember that day well because it is the day my son was born.

Scott Anthony Rush was 19 when he was arrested carrying 1.3 kilograms of heroin. My son is now three. So Chris and Lee’s son, one of the Bali nine, has spent all of my son’s life in jail. On each of my son Stan’s birthdays, Lee and Chris’s son, their boy, has been able to regret his stupid decision. In fact, I am sure Scott has regretted his behaviour every single day that he has been in jail. Lee and Chris assure me that their son is sorry for the harm he would have caused had he successfully slipped through Customs with the drugs. I have read Scott’s webpage comments where he apologises to the people of Australia and, most importantly, he apologises to the people of Indonesia.

Scott Anthony Rush had his sentence upgraded to the death penalty in February 2006. I am speaking up about Lee and Chris’s son because a petition with 1,332 signatures was submitted to the parliament by the former member for Moreton, but unfortunately the document did not meet the requirements that enabled it to be tabled as a petition. So instead I am here to speak about this document in the hope that the Indonesian government and, most importantly, President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono will hear my plea on behalf of all of the people who signed this document to have Scott’s death sentence commuted. I have been ably assisted in this call for commutation, or forgiveness, by the efforts of Solomon Sabdia from the Islamic Council of Queensland, and I thank him again for his representations on Lee and Chris’s behalf.

I do not wish to cause any offence by speaking up in the hope that Lee and Chris’s son—their boy—will be shown pity by President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono. The mercy I humbly seek is that this young boy who made a very stupid decision be taken off death row. I beg, I plead, I implore, I request, please, please, please—and excuse my Bahasa pronunciation—silahkan, silahkan, silahkan, please, please, please, take this poor boy off death row.

Question agreed to.