Tony Abbott held one-on-one talks with Indonesian president Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono this week, the first meeting between the pair since the fallout following the spying revelations.
The bilateral meeting was an important milestone and a first tentative step towards easing tensions. With the Indonesian ambassador Nadjib Riphat Kesoema also now back at his desk in Canberra, it looks like we’re turning a corner. But are things really looking up for the relationship between our two countries?
What is certain is that the coming months are pivotal to ensuring the Australian-Indonesia relationship is left in good standing before Indonesians vote for their new president.
The outcome of the election has a lot of importance for Australia. President Yudhoyono has always prioritised a close relationship between both our countries, but current Indonesian sentiment towards Australia may make it difficult to get the relationship back on track.
Indonesians have yet to warm to Abbott and the incoming president, either Joko “Jokowi” Widodo or Prabowo Subianto, is unlikely to be as accommodating as Yudhoyono. How Abbott plays his hand will determine whether the relationship fails before it even gets started. The election is a rare opportunity to set a new tone for relations between Australia and Indonesia.
Both presidential hopefuls, Widodo (favoured in the opinion polls) and Subianto, have been clear on what they are going to do from a domestic standpoint, but little has been said in relation to foreign policy. Political commentators have noted that although Widodo lacks international experience, his pragmatism is expected to help rebuild the relationship with Australia. Widodo recently announced his running mate Jusuf Kalla, who like him is business-oriented, but has a strong international relations background. This could prove a good balance. Subianto on the other hand has been dogged by allegations of past human rights abuses and could make the bilateral relationship much harder if elected.
But aside from government relations and the issue of drug and people smuggling, there are other initiatives that could go a long way to improving the relationship.
A recent research summit hosted by the Australia Indonesia Centre in Jakarta this month, one of the centre’s first initiatives to help boost trade and industry links, was attended by Nadjib Riphat Kesoema, his Australian counterpart Greg Moriarty, and business leaders and academics. With a commitment to strengthen research and education ties between the two countries in sectors such as food, agriculture, energy and infrastructure, the centre will drive solutions to shared national challenges, something that has proven difficult for governments in the past.
There is also a growing recognition within Australia of the distance Indonesia has travelled, from a dictatorship to one of the largest democracies in the world. Only last week, Abbott’s mentor and predecessor, former prime minister John Howard, spoke at the World Business Forum in Sydney, remarking that Indonesia had not got the credit it deserved for the way it had navigated the last few years.
If Australia wants to profit from an economy that will be the double the size of its own in ten years’ time, it now needs to consider Indonesia as more than just a place to sell products and services for the benefit of businesses back home in Australia. From our company’s perspective as an Indonesian paper exporter doing business in Australia, one such step should be to reduce the administrative burden of importers of Indonesian products into Australia.
In the coming months, it is crucial that Australia improves the present relationship with its closest neighbour in a way which ferments positive Australian sentiment, and feeds into the polls.
As two new governments find their feet over the coming months they have a unique opportunity to reset relations for a positive future. For Australia’s government a clear demonstration of its commitment to this cause would be by encouraging Australians to buy Indonesian.
Steve Nicholson is the CEO at Solaris Paper, the Australian affiliate of Asia Pulp & Paper.