On insight program

A few days ago I saw on TV the SBS "Insight" Program from Jakarta and I would like to make some comments to both you, your readers and the others involved in the Insight Program.

Thang Nguyen's argument that Australians are racists referring to Arthur Calwell's quote "Two wongs don't make a white". This was a bad joke; many of our politicians have been known to offend while trying to be funny.

Your audience as well as a large percentage of our population would not be familiar with the name Calwell. Nguyen implied that this was a recent comment and representative of Australian thinking in this time.

Calwell is long dead and that comment was made when he was minister for immigration, which was back in 1945-1949. He was a strong supporter of the White Australia Policy, and it, like Calwell, is also dead.

We have come a long way since then and as the world knows we have embraced many cultures and religions. Nguyen with his knowledge of our past history could have commented. In spite of the white Australia policy, in 1909 the people elected to our upper house and parliament a Chinese man with Chinese values.

Referring to the reaction of so much support by Australians for Schapele Corby, it is not, as some on the program claimed, because "she is young and pretty" -- there have been other young and pretty Australians who have been charged with drug crimes but whom the Australian public have not supported. The difference is we can identify with Corby's case.

We have a history of corrupt police, politicians and criminals along with a drug trade which flourishes. Airport baggage handlers have been shown on surveillance cameras intercepting passengers' luggage.

We ask, is it beyond reasonable doubt that Corby's unlocked luggage could have easily had drugs planted in it that were meant to be off-loaded at Sydney International Airport? Certainly people in the highly paid drug trade will exploit any person and any situation for their benefit. Unfortunately there is no proof.

There was also no proof for the ordinary couple who reported after arriving at their hotel in Bali that they found an addition to their luggage. A parcel containing what they presumed was a drug.

The Australian Embassy then advised them not to report it to the police and to instead flush it down the toilet. There was no proof they would have been able to offer, therefore they could have been accused of being drug dealers.

IRENE FRASER Ryde NSW, Australia