I watch yet another ugly Schapelle Corby scene on the television news: she’s being released from prison and bundled into a car surrounded by dozens of photographers and journalists. There is near hysteria. Not only hysteria by the way, but the journalist son of a former Labor Foreign Minister, Mike Willesee. It’s all, well, rather tasteless to say the least. We have other Australians in Kerobokan jail. There are, for example, the Bali Nine who were convicted for smuggling heroin out of Indonesia. A couple are on death row. Their appeals for clemency have been rejected. Both are men: Andrew Chan and Myuran Sukumaran. The one woman among them, Renae Lawrence, has been sentenced to 20 years behind bars, the same sentence Corby received. No one in the media seems to care about any of them. Mike Willesee isn’t interested.

Which makes thoughtful people wonder why there is such an obsession with ‘our Schapelle’. Rhetorically, the media may wish to uphold the highest standards of non-sexist neutrality but the brutal truth is obvious: Schapelle Corby is good-looking and the others rotting away in Kerobokan are not. Sexism is alive and well in the world of commercial television. Why bother with judges and juries, prosecutors and defence lawyers? Acquit the pretty and convict the ugly.

I’m asked by everyone I meet whether I think Corby is guilty. I won’t answer that question. I’m not a judge. I didn’t sit through the trial. DFAT didn’t proffer a view. But two things stick in my memory. During a visit to Jakarta soon after Corby’s conviction I asked two Australian Federal Police officers based in Jakarta what they thought. They laughed. ‘It’s pretty obvious she’s guilty, Minister.’ Then some time later I was told there were 42 journalists covering her trial. At the end of the trial they conducted a poll among themselves: all 42 thought Corby was guilty. Journalists are texting me and ringing. They want my verdict. Never, I say! Over and over again. Those AFP officers could be wrong. Journalists certainly could be. But…

I regale my friends with tales of the visits to my office by the Gold Coast businessman ‘Crazy Ron’ Bashir. He was accompanied by a local lawyer. They launched into me. ‘Minister, don’t you know anything about Indonesia?’ I mumbled something about having made a few visits as Foreign Minister… and before that. ‘Well,’ yelled Crazy Ron across the soft leather sofa of the ministerial suite, flecks of saliva arcing onto the glass top table, ‘everyone knows this is how these schemes work. Everyone but you.’ I blushed a little: he was right. I was unfamiliar with the scheme. ‘The Indonesians do it the whole time. The baggage handlers at Denpasar stuff the marijuana into the bag with the full knowledge of customs and the police. The customs officers then open the offending bag and pass the victim on to the police. The police then demand a huge payment and once the payment is made, they release the victim. The baggage handlers, customs officials and police share the money. That is what’s happened to Schapelle,’ he bellowed. He had the smug expression of Hercule Poirot pulling off another improbable solution to a crime. I had to summon all my courage to ask the one bloody obvious question. Did the police ask Schapelle for money? I hadn’t heard they had. ‘No,’ he admitted. Need I go on?

Crazy Ron and his mate were back a couple of weeks later with a brand-new theory. The baggage handlers in Queensland had stuffed the marijuana into the bag and it was supposed to have been taken out by their brothers in arms in Sydney as the bag transited through on its way to Denpasar. But they forgot to take it out. ‘Don’t you understand anything, Minister’? yelled the aptly named Crazy Ron. ‘This goes on the whole time.’ I turn to sarcasm. Witty remarks aren’t coming to me. ‘Of course it does.’ But, I ask, displaying my childlike innocence, ‘Why couldn’t you just load the marijuana into the boot of a car and drive from Brisbane to Sydney. Wouldn’t that be simpler?’ After all, I point out, ‘there hasn’t been a customs post at Tweed Heads since 1901.’

I’ve often wondered whether the marijuana belonged to Corby’s younger brother who was, I recall, travelling with her at the time. Maybe, maybe not. Anyway, the Corby family and supporters thought she would be released if everyone in Indonesia in authority was abused. Especially the judges. There’s a lesson there. The very people they needed to get on side they attacked and alienated. As Tom Playford liked to say, you catch more flies with honey than vinegar.

There are claims Channel 7 has offered Corby $2 million for an exclusive interview. Or maybe a bit less, according to the son of the former Labor Foreign Minister. To make huge sums of cash out of a criminal conviction seems unethical, and in Australia it’s illegal. Could this be the very last ugly chapter in a saga replete with errors and misjudgements?

The biggest mistake of all is to think Indonesia or any other country should have special laws for Australians. The age of colonialism is over. They make their laws themselves and, if you don’t like them, don’t go there. It’s as simple as that. And it is unimaginable that Indonesia or any other country would apply its laws more leniently to foreigners than to its own people.

I try to watch the Channel 9 drama on Schapelle. I’m played by Francis Greenslade. He’s not as handsome as I am, I decide — quite objectively. A court would acquit me and convict him. It’s as simple as that.