Time for a reality check! For all of Tony Abbott and Julie Bishop’s lecturing of the Indonesian government over the planned execution of two Australian citizens, it is worth recalling that, as late as the 1960s, Liberal state governments in Victoria, South Australia and Western Australian were still carrying out ghastly executions by hanging.
* The clock strikes 8:00 AM.
* It is a hot Friday morning.
* The 3rd day of February.
* In the year - Nineteen Hundred and Sixty Seven.
* The State of Victoria hangs Ronald Joseph Ryan inside 'D' Division at Pentridge Prison.
* Australia falls silent ...
* Birds startled by the loud crash of the trap door suddenly fly off the roof of the prison cellblock.
* At the same time - a gust of wind from nowhere - slams shut the prison church doors with a loud crash.
* A crowd of 3,000 protesters outside Pentridge Prison - pause for a three minute silence.
Ronald Ryan was the last man hanged in Australia. It was 8:00 on Friday February 3, 1967 inside 'D' Division at Pentridge Prison in Melbourne, Victoria.
To this day, more than four decades later, the facts and serious doubts remain whether Ronald Ryan was guilty of murder beyond all reasonable doubt.
