The brain trust that is the nine young Australians who were jailed for four days after stripping down to Malaysian flag-themed budgie smugglers at the Sepang Formula One Grand Prix have had the charges dropped and were released.

The group - which includes Jack Walker, an adviser to federal Minister for Defense Industry Christopher Pyne - were brought into court in handcuffs earlier on Thursday to answer charges of being nine public nuisances.  Another defendant named Thomas Whitworth appeared to have fainted, dragging his co-defendants to the ground with him.  He was helped up and given water.  One of the accused read a letter of apology while the others sat grim faced, but that's when their luck changed.

Even if they were convicted, the charge calls only for a fine and no jail time.  As it stands, the court verbally reprimanded the Budgie Nine, discharged the matter, and no convictions are recorded.  Their families are working on getting them home, ASAP.

On Sunday, the men attended the car race in Sepang to cheer on Aussie driver Daniel Ricciardo.  When he won the Grand Prix, they dropped trou and revealed budgie smugglers emblazoned with the flag of the host country.  I don't know which of them had said, "Hey, you know what would be a great idea?  Going to another country and making people watch as we use their flag as meager coverage for our bums and dongers.  Yeah, that's a good idea."

Things could have gone much worse for the Budgie Nine because prosecutors were at one point considering more serious charges of insulting a national symbol.  And as Foreign Minister Julie Bishop told the TODAY show yesterday morning:  "The Australian government can provide consular support but as I constantly remind people, we can't bail you out if you get into trouble with the laws of another country.  We can't interfere with the legal proceedings of another country any more than a foreign government could interfere in our legal proceedings."