Australian Tourists May Shun Indonesia if Drug Convicts Executed

Feb 14, 2015 08:19 AM EST

(Photo : REUTERS/Stringer ) Australian Myuran Sukumaran (L), a member of the "Bali Nine" drug smuggling group, waves to photographers with other Indonesian prisoners through broken windows at Kerobokan prison in Denpasar in this file photo taken February 24, 2012.

Australians might stay away from Indonesian tourist spots if Jakarta carries out the execution by firing squad of two Australian drug traders, warned Australia's Foreign Minister Julie Bishop.

Indonesian authorities are pushing through with plans to move Australians -- Myuran Sukumaran and Andrew Chan -- from Bali to an execution site on a prison island off the island of Java, but they have yet to set a date for the transfer.

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On Friday, the Australian foreign minister said relations between Canberra and Jakarta are "tense" with the expected execution of the two drug smugglers.

Speaking on 3AW radio, Bishop said Australians would show their disapproval of the execution by making decisions about where they would go on a holiday.

For his part, Indonesia's Foreign Ministry spokesman Arrmanatha Nasir doubted Australia's top diplomat made the thinly veiled threats on tourism in Indonesia. Nasir said if Bishop advised Australians not to sell illegal substances in Indonesia, then he would support her.

An Indonesian court sentenced to death the Bali nine members in 2006 for attempting to slip heroin from Indonesia into Australia.

Bishop has been seeking leniency for the two convicts, insisting their execution will hardly solve the drug scourge in Indonesia. She vowed not to do everything in her power to stay the executions of the Bali nine members.

Former Australia High Court judge Michael Kirby echoed Bishop's warning that holidaymakers might now look to other places if the drug convicts are executed.

Although Canberra apparently ran out of options in saving the two men from the firing squad, Kirby said there could be another chance.

He said the Australian government, with the support of the Australian people and the opposition, could make representations with Jakarta, right to the very end.

Indonesia's trade with Australia is valued at over $5 billion a year, based on data from Austrade, and tourism makes up a big chunk with over a million Australian tourists visiting the archipelago from 2013 to 2014.