I wrote the following when the 43 West Papuans arrived. I still think it makes sense.

To me, this episode in the ongoing efforts to bring attention to the plight of West Papuans, has probably been orchestrated by unelected individual non West Papuans.
With the potential to drop the whole country into the proverbial bucket of **, I query the rights and responsibilities of these people.
I am with them if they lobby our Government or make it an election issue to confront the Indonesians over their handling of West Papua, but not if they knowingly stir up trouble for the whole nation.
I have no problem with individual activists generally, but when their actions reach a certain level of national importance then I think they must take a different path, the democratic one.

There are so many things wrong with this article. I had to read it a few times to determine whether it was a piece of satire.

James McConvill's comments regarding the judges must be close to being defamatory. His comments on Indonesian Government and judiciary will probably do more damage than latte drinking civil libertarians.

What a narrow minded, cliche driven, piece of hyperbolic drivel. And here I was thinking that this place had some interesting articles.

McConvill is a serial self-promoter, and as we can see from the articles he has written on OLO, something of a provocateur.

His departure from Deakin University School of Law was preceded by his failed tilt at the top job there. He extensively documented the application himself in his now-defunct blog http://www.observationdeck.org/

Fortunately, a couple of his detractors were kind enough to preserve some of the content of his blog, for the purpose of illustrating their comments:

http://larvatusprodeo.net/2006/05/31/its-deakin-cup-time-place-your-bet-folks/

http://catallaxyfiles.com/?p=945

http://catallaxyfiles.com/?p=1054

Since his departure from Deakin, McConvill has had time to concentrate on his “think tank” http://www.corporate-research.net/index.php and to work on his autobiographical entry in the Wikipedia http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/James_McConvill

McConvill is still young, and you’ve gotta wonder what his mum thinks of all his antics. With up to forty years’ working life ahead of him, I suspect he’s going to have plenty of opportunities to regret the hateful and ill-considered words he’s given us here.

McConvill, Rouge, Leigh and others should learn one thing - when and if they are ever in serious trouble it will be the dreaded civil libertarians who will help them out and defend them and hold their hands.

Hicks, the Bali 9 and others know very well that the government will not.

Guess what the liberty part of libertarian means? It means liberty, freedom. Freedom from false imprisonment, freedom from vilification and freedom from the death penalty.

The attitude of Col Rouge is one I find particularly disturbing - blame the dealers because a dumb "f...k" puts needles in his veins.. yeah that's really smart. Most of the junkies I know would inject anything and not one of them were ever forced to do it.

How dare you day that these young people should be put to death? The AFP were totally out of line and this adds to their dodgy behaviour in foreign countries that we should be looking at.

1. they were using the Indonesia police to set up phoney people smuggling operations, stealing from genuine refugees, having them incarcerated in rat hole Indonesian prisons without charge, putting holes in the bottom of boats and then pleading ignorance to the senate.
2. Allowing citizens like Joseph Thomas to be tortured and incarcerated without lawyers in places like Pakistan.
3. Now turning young people in to the same Indonesian police who put holes in the bottom of refugee boats knowing they could be murdered by the state.

We do not and should not ever accept this type of police force in a democracy so the dreaded Civil libertarians still have work to do.

James, I sincerely suggest that you give up the law as you just don't have a clue.

If Indonesia's Judges are no more than political puppets, then why the hell are Australian authorities putting Australian citizens at their mercy. Surely even the most moronic and criminal amongst us deserve better. I still cannot come to terms with the concept of a country which prohibits the legal execution of its citizens at home yet allows its officials to convey information which could see them executed elsewhere.

Fester - I think you have hit the issue on the head, for me at least. Why isn't this question being asked and discussed more? Instead we have McConvill pointing the finger at civil libertarians. Shouldn't we be questioning instead the decision of the AFP?