Source: By Ross Peake - National Affairs Writer - Canberra Times

Prime Minister John Howard was criticised yesterday for waiting too long to appeal for clemency when Australians overseas faced the death penalty.

A lawyer for Bali Nine member Scott Rush, John North, said Australia's last-minute "frenzied diplomatic moves" were too late to save drug smuggler Van Nguyen from execution in Singapore two years ago.

"The Prime Minister appears to want to withhold full-on requests for clemency until all appeals are exhausted," Mr North said.

"With the election imminent, we are very interested to hear from both sides of politics that there will be unequivocal opposition to capital punishment from whoever wins and that all endeavours will be trade at a political and diplomatic level to try and save those six members of the Bali Nine facing the death penalty."

Mr North, a past president of the Law Council of Australia, spoke to The Canberra Times as Rush's parents lobbied politicians at Parliament House.

Last month, a panel of Indonesian Supreme Court judges upheld the death penalties for three members of the Bali Nine heroin ring.

The trio included Matthew Norman, the youngest of the gang, who turned 21 this week on death row. Rush and the two ring leaders, Andrew Chan and Myuran Sukumaran, all face death by firing squad.

They have also launched challenges, arguing Indonesia's Constitutional Court should scrap the death penalty because the nation's constitution defines life as a basic right.

Rush was 19 when he was arrested two years ago by Indonesian authorities, who acted on information supplied by the Australian Federal Police.

He was the only one of the four "drug mules" arrested at the airport to be sentenced to death.

Mr North said Rush's legal team was keenly waiting for the ruling from the Constitutional Court.

"The primary purpose the Rush's are meeting the parliamentarians is that the [Australian] diplomatic and political response seems to be to wait until all avenues of appeal are exhausted," he said.

"We firmly believe this will be too late to save six Australian lives.

"Frenzied diplomatic moves proved to be too late in the case of Van Nguyen's execution and we don't want to find our client in that situation.

"We would like the Government to change their minds in this regard." Christine and Lee Rush met Justice Minister David Johnson yesterday. The meeting was attended by senior advisers from the Department of Foreign Affairs and the offices of the Prime Minister and Treasurer Peter Costello.

They also met Opposition, Democrat and Greens politicians. They presented petitions containing 210,000 signatures to Queensland Liberal senator Russell Trood. This week in Vietnam, another Australian received a death sentence for drug trafficking, despite continual warnings of the consequences.

Tony Manh pleaded guilty during his one-day trial in Ho Chi Minh City on Tuesday. He was arrested in March after security officers at Tan Son Nhat airport found the drugs hidden on his body as he was about to board a plane to Sydney.

Three more Australians were due to face trial yesterday in Vietnam on drug trafficking charges, with the possibility they will face the death penalty if convicted.