Australians are reacting with growing fury to the hypocrisy of their government and the immorality of the Australian Cricket Board.

The board followed England's lead in sending a team to the World Cup tournament in Zimbabwe next month.

Both government and sportsmen are acting with the same lack of courage, the same shoddy disregard for human right as their British counterparts.

What has really focused Australia's attention on the problem has been the murder of a 27-year-old Australian holidaymaker at Zimbabwe's Victoria Falls.

He was robbed and stabbed to death as he came out of the nearby rainforest.

Letters pages in Australian papers have been inundated with protests about supporting Mugabe's violent regime in Zimbabwe by sending a national team to play cricket there.

Now they are also concerned about the difficulties of ensuring the safety of any Australian nationals visiting the wretched country.

It is a problem of which we should all be ashamed.

Governments in Britain, Australia and New Zealand are all behaving in woefully inadequate fashion by passing the buck and calling on the International Cricket Council (ICC) to cancel matches in Zimbabwe in protest against Mugabe's state terrorism.

The sportsmen are gutless, ducking their moral responsibilities and claiming it is up governments to make such political decisions.

It is laughable for British ministers to advise English cricketers not to shake hands with Mugabe.

It is sickening the Blair Cabinet will only advise, not order, a boycott.

Of course, for the ICC to have included Zimbabwe in the World Cup venues in the first place was an incomprehensible misjudgement.

Strange, is it not, that at the height of apartheid in South Africa, where a white regime was oppressing black people, sportsmen and entertainers had no qualms about boycotting that country?

Athletes did not visit, theatre companies did not tour and TV companies could not sell any productions to South African television.

What is it about murderous black African dictators that throws white governments into paroxysms of inactivity?

Genocide, mass torture, rigged elections, murder, land grabbing - it all gets reported but white governments barely raise an eyebrow.

The standard response is to say the people of a country would suffer even more if the regime was attacked in some way.

But any short-term suffering caused by an effective boycott - or even stronger measures - would be preferable to the long-term agonies caused by allowing a despotic leader to continue ruling.

Of course Mugabe is not confining his murderous activities to whites. As a member of the Shona tribe, he is unleashing unspeakable horrors on other black tribes in Zimbabwe, especially the Matabele.

As far as cricket authorities and players are concerned, these obscenities do not seem to matter.

It is really disappointing that the Australian prime minister John Howard, who has a more robust and courageous reputation, is saying it would be "quite unfair" to interfere in Zimbabwe's business.