Tomorrow marks the 50th anniversary of the execution of Ronald Ryan. Just before 8 o’clock on the morning of February 3, 1967, Ryan declined a sedative but took a sip of whisky and walked calmly to the gallows trapdoor at Pentridge Prison.
Ryan addressed his executioner directly, “God bless you, please make it quick.”
Ryan’s supporters and opponents of the death penalty observed a three-minute silence. Protesters assembled outside Pentridge Prison in vigil.
The circumstances of his death at the hands of the state have led to great myth-making about Ryan. He has been variously painted as a bit of a larrikin, driven to crime by circumstance and little worse than a kite flyer (passer of bad cheques).
The truth is he was a career criminal and his crimes before his penultimate arrest, included what we would call today aggravated burglary and robbery in company.
His arresting officer on that occasion was Bryan Harding. I’ve known Harding for many years. He was an outstanding police officer and at various times headed up the Fraud and Homicide squads in Victoria. Harding is retired and now in his 80s; he remembers Ryan as a hardened criminal who showed little or no remorse for his crimes and gave nothing away under questioning.
Full column here.
God, sometimes Shorten and his mob really disgust me. Tony Burke takes the cake.
Some of us are monarchists, some are not.
Turnbull stood up to congratulate the queen on her 65th anniversary. It is a remarkable achievement in anyone’s book, regardless of whether you approve of the Commonwealth or not.
Shorten’s mob, laughed, guffawed and ridiculed Turnbull throughout his short speech.
Even the Speaker was disgusted.
Might have something to do with the fact Turnbull headed up the Republican push. Stop looking for reasons to be outraged.
No, the Labor side of the HOR just have no class. You would be in good company there Dismayed. The Queen, and anyone showing respect to her should be given respect, whether you are a Monarchist or a Republican.
Sir Raleigh:
It has been an amazing reign that certainly deserves the formal recognition of the Australian parliament. Doesn’t matter whether you are a monarchist or a republican.
Now stop being silly, pick your cape up and piss off! Go and have a cup of tea or a pinch of that tobacco stuff with JB.
Que? I was replying to the Dismayed one amongst us.
Although I am a Republican and want our own Head of State as soon as possible, I am a big fan of the Queen and the wonderful work she does and more importantly how she has held the Royal Family together whilst her brats have tried their best to destroy it!
She’s amazing, Bassy. Like oil on troubled waters all her life.
Gosh – a sinkhole has opened up around the corner from Malcolm’s mansion ………………….. a sinister omen perhaps?
Jach the Insider .
You been the crime expert , me been the reader, what is with this story today Victoria now the crime capital up 12%last year with murder highest in the country ,3000 new police on order,2 billion now spending on this today featured in the Murdock Press. They mention African police won’t work with female police in information seminars, with potential applicants .The Victorian website seems to be agitated over all this confusion with “eyewatch” facebook pages somehow adding some disgruntle reports.
The murder rate has jumped in VIC and that is always significant. In Victoria it has jumped from 54 to 66 in a year. But these Murder Capital of Australia headlines don’t touch on the fact that rates of murder and Victoria have been in decline since the 1980s. I’ll put it this way, if any person tries to argue there’s a crime wave going on in VIC, introduce them to the crime rates and murder rates in VIC and Australia, too, for that matter in the 1920s. Crime in Victoria has risen in the last five years, probably, but the statistician has changed, too and this may account for some irregularities in the data. There is no crime wave in Australia.
Could the extra Police numbers in most states and more Police media units have something to do with the media “reporting” increased crime? I don’t believe there is a big increase by the way. I do recall you doing an article a couple of years ago on Domestic Abuse, I think it was, and I do remember copping flack for suggestion that crime had actually declined in NSW. I do believe there is more Policing though which to me says there should be a higher rate of apprehension or intervention. I actually think “Media” outlets need to examine their integrity and consider why they must saturate with constant negativity and fear mongering. You only have to look at this blog when ever some deranged or mentally unwell individual creates an incident we see an immediate knee jerk response. Probably led by screaming and constant headlines of “Breaking News” which then saturates the waves for interminable lengths of time. I say report it once on the hour or half hour then give no more oxygen until investigation have been completed.
No, nothing to do with that. Sometimes reporting might increase but the offending stays more or less the same. For example, around 20 years ago we saw a spike in sexual assaults. This was because women felt more comfortable reporting the offence to the police. However, it now transpires that that experience for women – being dragged through the courts, cross examined, their intimate details made public etc is now deterring women to report instances of sexual assault. Reporting of DV might be going through a similar trend. The stats show the reports of it remain stubbornly high. It may be there are more instances of it or more likely that there is more reporting of it due to more community discussion, advertising campaigns etc.
Tim Priest has done more than anybody to alarm the people in Western Suburbs with exaggerated crime facts. He blames it all on Muslims. the Lebanese.
A rallying cry to join us one and all from me Ronald Tramp member no 2 – spots filling fast. Member no 10 wins a movie ticket (funds permitting) Viva our shining leader Cory whatshisname!
http://www.conservatives.org.au/
Bassman.10:04pm
Cory Bernardi you ask? a” rodent”?
Well…our underground community of rodents decided to venture out for an aboveground feed of cheese when shock set in. We were told by reliable sources after seeing Cory goes past with “extended “whiskers greater then ours ,having a small package in his mouth. Some rodent told us it was Ratsak enclosed with Cory heading down towards Malcolm’s turf . Yes ,the drama of never ending sagas continues in the world of politics .
A sinkhole, or stink hole, are apt metaphors for Malcolm Turnbull.
I would say that technically, it was a ‘slump’. It certainly isn’t a sink hole.
Smartarse! And please don’t explain the difference, unless in Haiku.
Letter to our noble Mercury today applauding Trump’s move to impose tariffs if US car manufacturers move over the border.
His message to Toyota and Holden is: “pretty simple – if you want to sell them here build them here”
Just one problem – unions make it too difficult to build anything here.
Well pray tell me. How much should a car manufacturer/production line worker be paid? Can you please inform us all? Please list the various skill levels and the rate of pay for each you think they deserve…keeping in mind some of the designers have Masters and PhD degrees.
Cory Bernardi defection seems to have dragged out these sloppy spurious ranting egotistics like crazy Pyne after been warned straying away from public means dangerous times ahead.
Portraying Bernardi as nothing but a rat , actually turns out that a smart rat jumps off a sinking ship. Labor should protect Malcolm comes to next election after all his leanings are Labor orientated .Resentment is exploding on Mal being literally stupid seeing the rise of the Pauline Express now leading a interrigation charge towards the Libs battered and bruised locked in their own carnage they themselves created intalling a weak Turnbull .How the hell can you unscramble this dodgy lot who stabbed their own elected leader 2013 winning by 35 seats, beats me.
Abbott may have won by 35 seats Rodent, but he was on course to lose by 35seats! There was not much doubt about that. Something the Abbott fans seem to have forgotten.
As things have turned out that may have been the better way to go. Lose the election, appoint a new leader properly, and set about winning the next one.
But as is the MO these days, it’s say and do/promise anything to stay in power – regardless of whether it’s feasible or not.
And the voters seem to fall for it.
In the party room ‘the aftermath’ of the election, the Looter campaign manager (Ton y Nutt who was being given hell by the right wing) said their own internal polling showed that if Abbott had taken them to the election they would have lost by over 30 seats as you say.
Hee hee…er what selection of cheese have you in mind for this Rat?
I actually think Turnball like Rudd saved seats for the government. I think if abbott had led the coalition to an election we would have seen one of the biggest turn around’ s in this country at elections. Similar to Queensland. abbott was and remains toxic.
Its a battle of the Aussie Right Wingers, Mr Insider, as they go head to head to grab the “Redneck” vote and it appears that there are quite a few liking what they see from the Far Right, amazingly. I do remind them that the great Aussie PM John Howard always advised to govern from the Centre. Are we perhaps entering uncharted waters in Aussie politics?
http://tinyurl.com/zen3zwb
We may soon have Cory’s Tories!!! I hope i’m first with that one!
The Bernardi Pardy.
Soz Milt I beat you yesterday.
Doubly sorry, John. Noticed that when trawling through. Maybe I internalised it late last night. You must be a funny bugger too, but only quicker. Goes to show that humour is not overly troubled by ideology. Well in my case anyway!!
I think the whole world is entering unchartered waters, HB. Politics seems to be polarising that way – with nothing in the middle.
Jean Baptiste, earlier comment – “While your dog will eat you if don’t feed it, your human friend will at least agonise over the idea, and might not even eat you at all.”
First of all, the premise is faulty – it’s not the slightest bit certain that either of my dogs would seek to eat me if they were not fed. But assuming for the sake of argument that we’re talking about a random wild dog and your premise is correct: Your point seems to be that we laud one of our own for struggling with the idea of eating a fellow human (while we wouldn’t blink very hard if they killed a dog and ate it, especially in a situation of hunger). Whereas the dog will eat anything, whether it’s a human or another dog (although again, it’s a faulty premise because you don’t know what goes through a dog’s mind before it eats anything, especially in a situation of hunger).
I struggle to understand why that makes us the better beast. We discriminate in favour of our own, because we’re so special (says we), but have a far lower regard for other species who don’t discriminate at all? Seem to fly hard in the face of your otherwise non-discriminatory “progressive” views, does it not?
But getting right back to the issue of capital punishment – why would we (presumably, in the context of this conversation) not execute a human being who had visited torture and death on others but feel perfectly relaxed about swatting a fly that is annoying the hell out of us ? You seem to think that the very ability to think about the moral issues (but only, apparently when it comes to the other human, not the fly) acts as a pardon from death in all circumstances. John O’Hagan seems to think that it is the premeditated nature of an execution that makes it particularly egregious and no better than the original torture and murder, although again it only seems egregious where it applies to other people, not the fly.
Looks to me like a pretty strong bigotry in action.
I’ll jump on this one, Bowie rather than scroll down.
An interesting thread here on the life sentience versus the death sentience. We think it humane to put a sick dog down, or any animal for that matter, yet it is a crime to euthanize our mother in law or wife. Although i’m pretty sure we do this under the veneer of palliative care. We can’t sell chickens (to humans) that arrive dead at the abattoir, they probably get fed to other animals; they need to arrive alive so we can kill them. Whole swathes of animals who happen to be in the vicinity of say avian flu or mad cows disease get culled (now there’s a word, it is not a kiwi impersonation!) so as to protect humans from the disease, and also to protect our food source. Yet we have a system, that could be considered bizarre to an alien, in which we pronounce a “life” sentence to a person who has given the “death” sentence to one or a multitude of people. Perversely we consider this life sentence a punishment but at the same time a symbol of our superiority. We also provide the service of a suicide watch, if considered necessary!! Ostensibly Hitler could have lived into the 21st century – what a poster boy he would have made for civilised society.
As an aside, it is often the case that our serial killers start off with cruelty to animals in their formative years. Hard to tell whether they are moving up or down the food chain.
TBLS, actually people will eat people if they get hungry enough. Make em hungry enough and they sometimes wont wait until their dinner has passed away from natural means. There is plenty of evidence for that. The idea that your dogs wont eat you is, luckily for you, not one you will have to put to the test. But I think you can take it – from the overwhelming evidence – that yuo will make a tasty din dins in an emergency.
Also – and this is a no brainer – a human being is not the equivalent of a fly. Maybe you have had an overdose of mung beans or something but that is a ludicrous argument to make.
Incidentally, interesting fact; hanging a person doesnt kill them outright, even by the long drop method. Normally the heart continues beating for another 20 minutes or so, which is why the regulations stipulate the body is to hang for 1 hour (when they changed that to 15 minutes they found that they had to string a few people back up – broken nexks and all – to finish the job). That was confirmed by the nuremberg hangings, where each hanging was the subject of a special study on that form of execution, even going so far as to hook up a number of the executed with ECGs to monitor the heartbeats. Not quite like swatting a fly, eh?