CAMERON MILNER: Why are we freeing the Bali Nine during a cost-of-living crisis? It won’t win votes

Bintang, bombings and the disgraceful drug smuggling Bali Nine. We certainly have a complex relationship as a nation with one of our nearest neighbours.

You can add the murder on Kuta Beach of a Balinese policeman by a couple of Aussies and probably the dumbest convicted drug smuggler, Schapelle Corby, caught taking drugs INTO Bali.

But busting out the surviving Bali Nine is a whole new level of stupid, even by Anthony Albanese’s standards. Our PM just organised a jailbreak for convicted drug smugglers, wasting our money and scarce international political capital with Indonesia.

Albanese somehow thinks this is what voters wanted him doing in the midst of a cost-of-living crisis: spending time freeing a gang of heroin smugglers. They were caught, convicted and should’ve been left to serve out their sentences in the Kerobokan jail.

Drug smugglers are a scourge on society, but especially of the life-destroying drug heroin. Sure there are the reform stories of dealers who become directors general, but for every one of these is the human waste and tragedy of heroin addiction, drug related crime and the tragedy of 453 Australians who lost their lives to this drug in 2023 alone.

The Australian Federal Police at the time confirmed that the smuggling operation the nine were caught for in 2005 had most probably been preceded by another in October 2004. These people were repeat offenders dealing in death and destruction of victims’ lives and of their grieving families.

Yet Albo wants bouquets. He wants the adulation of a grateful nation. He’s tripping badly if that’s his grip on political reality.

It’s symptomatic of a guy who decided to stay and play tennis even after one of the worst terrorist acts had occurred with the firebombing of the Adass synagogue in Melbourne.

Just as Australia leading the world in settling Gazans without security checks (nearly 3000 so far compared to the US’s intake of just 17) this is a Government that has all its priorities completely arse about. The common link is Tony Burke, who has overseen the details of both of these deals.

Yesterday, the PM rightly attended the 10th anniversary of the Lindt Café siege, another act of an Islamist extremist.

But securing the Bali Nine’s freedom will be spun by Albo and the Hamas-supporting Penny Wong as some act of diplomatic genius. It actually just says that Labor is soft on hardened criminals.

For many Australians, Bali is a place of happy memories and place to spend up big with a strong exchange rate while you wear flip flops and new Bintang beer singlet while ageing disgracefully.

Bali is also a place of spiritual connection and a place to eat, pray and love. The spas of Ubud and beyond provide a place where the pace of Western life can be set aside for a period of all too brief quieter reflection.

For many Australians, their thoughts of Bali also extend to the 2002 Bali bombings, in which Islamic extremists deliberately targeted for destruction bars frequented by international tourists — chiefly Australians.

Eighty-eight Australians died. It remains the highest Australian casualty toll in any act of terrorism.

In all, 202 people died and a further 209 were injured from the bombs detonated at Paddy’s Bar and the Sari Club. The work of Dr Fiona Woods as she treated 28 Australians with some of the worst burns imaginable makes us all proud to be Australians. There was such incredible bravery of so many after those Bali bombings.

Bali though was also the scene of a co-ordinated drug bust in 2005 of what became known as the Bali Nine, who are now the Bali Five after one finished their sentence and three others died.

In recent days we’ve learnt the Prime Minister thought the remaining Bali drug smugglers also needed our Government’s assistance and receive a get out of jail free card.

They didn’t even return in leg irons and cuffs to be serve out the rest of their sentences in Australia’s prison system. Instead they’ve been flown to Darwin and handed their passports.

No doubt there will be some who see this as a compassionate act for a silly youthful mistake. But these guys weren’t shoplifting, they were drug smuggling massive quantities of heroin into Australia.

Politics is about the power to make choices and prioritise and Albanese chose the surviving Bali Nine over the cost-of-living crisis faced by 27 million citizens as his priority.

As a nation we need to have more respect for the work that Border Force and the AFP do to disrupt, bust and imprison those who want to bring harm to Australians with drug supply.

We are either serious about drug smuggling being a very serious crime or we aren’t.

Despite their public denials, Albanese, Burke and Wong have done a deal with Indonesia and spent Australia’s political capital giving these guys a leave pass to re-offend again in Australia if they so choose.

Australians doing it tough this Christmas can now see the Government’s priorities and it sure isn’t them or their lives in the middle of a cost-of-living crisis.

Playing tennis instead of dealing with terrorism. Turning a blind eye to baby being airlifted from Alice Springs with a head injury while its mother is an alleged victim of rape. Alice Springs is a war zone, yet drug smugglers’ freedom was the priority.

Australians see with their own eyes us abandoning Israel at the UN.

And they now see a Government spending precious time freeing convicted drug smugglers rather than making our lives easier back in Australia.

The political geniuses, the Albanistas, thought handing free passes to convicted felons was a greater priority than Australians going hungry or even without a roof over their head this Christmas.

Australians don’t have long now until they get to pass judgment on all of the Albanese mis-judgments. The election is only months away.

Politics is about the power to make choices and prioritise and Albanese chose the surviving Bali Nine over the cost-of-living crisis faced by 27 million citizens as his priority.