‘If these same set of circumstances would happen tomorrow, we would make exactly the same decision,’ he says. Phelan is not trying to defend the AFP’s decision, one that has not only divided dinner parties but also prompted four of the Bali Nine’s families to take the matter to court. He just sees that decision as part of the job. The AFP’s role was to fight drugs, and to take the fight as far up the ladder as it could, and it wasn’t able to do that without the vital information swaps that occur between Australia and countries across the globe. The AFP has sixty-five officers in thirty-one cities in twenty-six countries. Fighting drug smuggling, and people smuggling and terrorism and all sorts of other transnational crime, is big business, and without intercountry cooperation, few networks could be closed down. ‘We are putting a lot of our efforts into forward engagement and stopping the crime at its source before it reaches Australia,’ Phelan says. That means dealing with all sorts of different cultures, intelligence levels and criminal justice systems.
