'Everything' done for Bali Nine pair: Pyne

Authorities in Indonesia are finalising plans to move the pair from Bali to their execution place on an prison island off Java.

Education minister Christopher Pyne  (AAP Image/Lukas Coch)

Education minister Christopher Pyne(AAP Image/Lukas Coch)

The federal government has done "absolutely everything" in its power to try save convicted Australian drug smugglers Andrew Chan and Myuran Sukumaran from death by firing squad in Indonesia, Education Minister Christopher Pyne says.

Authorities in Indonesia are finalising plans to move the pair from Bali to their execution place on an prison island off Java, and a date for the transfer will be determined on Friday.

The Bali Nine ringleaders were sentenced to death in 2006 for trying to smuggle heroin worth about $4 million into Australia.

"The government has done absolutely everything it possibly could do," Mr Pyne told Nine Network.

"The Labor party has supported the government's actions all the way along.

"The problem with the way Indonesians see this matter is that they have five million ... drug addicts in Indonesia, they take a very very firm line on drug smuggling."

Mr Pyne said that while the government had done "all it can" for the pair, "at the end of the day Indonesia is a sovereign nation".

"They're their laws, we don't support them, we don't agree with them," he added.

"It'll be a great tragedy if those two young men face the death penalty."

Labor Infrastructure spokesman, Anthony Albanese, said there was no point threatening Indonesia over the issue.

"It's not going to be constructive, that's the truth," he said.

He hinted that the government had put pressure on the Indonesian government in private.

"Some things the Australian public know that the Australian government have done, there are other things that are better done with a bit of discretion," Mr Albanese said.

"I had a discussion one on one with (Foreign Minister) Julie Bishop last night, I'm certainly convinced that she has done the best she could do under difficult circumstances."

After Chan and Sukumaran are moved to Nusakambangan, known as "Indonesia's Alcatraz", they will be given 72 hours notice of their execution by firing squad.

Chan and Sukumaran's Australian lawyer, Julian McMahon, says his efforts on behalf of the pair continue, and on Wednesday lawyers for the pair sent to the Indonesian Administrative Court a challenge to President Joko Widodo's decision to refuse clemency to all 64 drug offenders on death row.

Chan and Sukumaran's Sydney families are in Bali, where they have spent the past three weeks paying daily visits to the men in Kerobokan jail.

Over the past decade they've been imprisoned there, Chan and Sukumaran have transformed into model inmates, who have helped scores of others rehabilitate and become drug-free.


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Source: AAP


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