Wednesday, June 01, 2005

Schapelle Corby Story - The Sad Truth of Aussie Support

A couple of days ago I saw on TV one of Corby’s Australian lawyer saying words to the effect that Schapelle Corby was confident of her appeal when she has 92% of Australians right behind her. Obviously Corby was referring to a TV Channel’s interactive documentary on her a week before the verdict.

In that documentary, a selected audience participated by utilising a ‘worm’, a TV interactive device to enable the audience to electronically express approval or disapproval as the documentary progressed. The TV show ‘concluded’ from the indication of ‘worm’ 92% of Australians supported the belief that Corby has been innocent of the crime.

As I remarked in an earlier posting, I was surprised that it was not 100% considering the way the documentary went. Derryn Hinch, also a participant in that TV documentary, threw in his usual frank but now-notorious comments that earned him severe rebuke and hate mails from many Australians.

Perhaps it has been such TV and media bias that had somehow misled Corby into believing somehow the wishes of the Australian people could supercede or circumvent the Indonesian justice system. When it finally dawned on her that was not the case, she was utterly demoralised. The Sydney Morning Herald learnt from people inside the jail that Corby was upset with her family and lawyers because they had not delivered what they kept telling her - that the Aussie people were right behind here and she would be released soon.

She would have been equally utterly shocked to learn that in a survey (of a small sampling) conducted by the Canberra Times, only 1 in 8 people supported her innocence! That’s only 12.5% support with the sole Corby sympathiser believing that old fallacy that Indonesian law presumes the accused guilty until her innocence could be proven. Admittedly, Canberra is not your average Aussie town – the average Canberran is fairly well informed and well read.

A final year student of the Australian National University law graduate programme wrote a legal article on why Corby’s defence couldn’t hold water in Australia as well.

2 comments:

  1. Have you heard the new Aussie slang for a $20 note?

    A "Schapelle!"

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  2. I can only hope for Schapelle's good that it stays at most on 20, and hopefully less; I hate to see the bio-agent scare at the Indon Embassy having severe WMD fallout, making the "Schapelle" into an AUD$50.

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