Downer’s perspective on assisting drunken idiot Aussies in strife abroad proves spot on

A FEW years ago former foreign minister Alexander Downer wrote what I regard as one of the best columns I have ever read in an Australian newspaper.

It was a brilliant piece of writing in that it was crafted in the bluntest everyday language by someone who had only just departed the euphemistic and evasive world of pollie-waffle.

It also read like a Peter Finch “mad as hell” moment, as if Downer was venting years of pent-up irritation, his lips having been sealed on account of the diplomatic requirements.

The impetus for Downer’s rant was the case of the socalled “Beer Mat Mum”, a Melbourne woman who landed in strife with Thai police after stealing a beer mat from a Phuket pub.

Beer Mat Mum followed the time-honoured tradition of those Aussies abroad who think different rules apply when they are overseas, and act in accordance with a three point rule: get drunk, do something idiotic, request government assistance.

“After about 10 minutes as foreign minister I was a little surprised to learn I was ‘responsible’ for miscreant Australians who got into trouble in foreign countries,” Downer wrote. “No, no, no, don’t get it wrong – drug traffickers, drunks, kleptomaniacs and fraudsters weren’t responsible for their own stupidity – I was. It’s about time that great nanny in Canberra, the federal government, turned around and told people they are responsible for their own decisions.”

The Beer Mat Mum – let’s not name her again, she suffered enough at the time – was in a behavioural sense an absolute paragon of discipline compared to the latest halfwit to hit the headlines.

Nicholas Carr, 26, from the South Australian Riverland, landed himself in a top-shelf pickle in Bali last weekend.

You have probably seen the footage – which is extraordinary – of this bloke karate-kicking an innocent Balinese man off his moped,