PNG has laws that make it illegal to put a dodgy boat to sea and kill people. Savages.
Tuesday, 20 August 2013
First up I don't know anything of the circumstances of the sinking of the Rabaul Queen.
I don't know Peter Sharp. The first I heard of this matter was tonight.
If the assertions set out in the indictments that Mr Sharp faces are true - then don't we have a bit to learn from PNG in the blindness of justice and the respect for human life capers?
Australia's government ruthlessly enforces its irrebuttable presumption against punitive measures for people identified by Sarah Hanson-Young as beautiful and very much in need of our protection.
Translated, that means that while a bloke who's careless at the marina with a bit of 2-stroke will feel the full force of the marine authorities - asylum seekers who blow up their boat, kill and maim, then lie about it are immune from prosecution.
I have never run a government so I don't know much about that troublesome feeling that a bit of home-grown insurrection might be on the way. I have run businesses a lot - and I know that if you offer a better deal to a prospective customer than you are currently offering to your contracted customer base, then things often get ugly.
To cut to the chase. How can the confluence of actions that lead to 1400 deaths on the sea go unpunished in Australia? I think PNG's savages might need a stern talking to about their priorities.
Here's the ABC's take on developments in PNG, including the automatic ABC upgrading of charges in the headline (presumably because Mr Sharp is Australian and unloved by The Greens).
PNG police lay murder charges (sic) arrest Peter Sharp over sinking of ferry Rabaul Queen
Updated
The owner of a ferry that sank in Papua New Guinea, killing more than 140 people, has been charged with manslaughter and criminal negligence.
Peter Sharp was arrested in his office in east New Britain province this morning by the police task force that's been investigating the sinking of the Rabaul Queen.
Sharp, the managing director of Rabaul Shipping, was taken to the local police station.
Investigators say he was charged with manslaughter, criminal negligence, and taking an unseaworthy ship to sea.
Sharp, an Australian expat, is expected to appear in court tomorrow.
The Rabaul Queen sank off PNG's north coast in February last year.
The exact death toll is still not known because Rabaul Shipping did not complete a manifest.
A commission of inquiry found the ferry was unseaworthy, unsafe, overloaded and should not have been sailing in the rough conditions at the time.