Launch of Australian Strategic Policy Institute (ASPI) Strategy Report on Indonesia
27 May 2008, Parliament House, Canberra
Major-General Peter Abigail, Executive Director of ASPI. Thank you for that kind introduction and thank you for
inviting me to launch ASPI’s latest Strategy
Report.
The authors of the report, Professor Andrew MacIntyre and Dr
Douglas Ramage, my Parliamentary colleagues, ladies and
gentlemen:
I welcome very much the publication of this report.
Publications of this calibre not only reflect well on the authors’ scholarship, but further enhance ASPI’s reputation for producing timely, high quality research, that promotes the intelligent discussion of regional and international affairs in Australia.
Work of this kind will do much to help Australians better understand the very special nature of the connection between Australia and Indonesia.
Australia’s relationship with Indonesia is crucial. Geography alone makes that so. But many other elements today underpin the centrality of the relationship to our national interest.
Our shared experiences are many and varied, from the early days when Australia supported the then fledgling Indonesian independence movement, through our cooperation in regional forums, and the pain of bombings in Bali and Jakarta.
Today, our relationship is in excellent shape, as my counterpart, Foreign Minister Wirajuda and I both warmly acknowledged when we met in Perth earlier this year to sign and bring into force the Lombok Treaty, a Treaty under-appreciated in its significance.
The Lombok Treaty establishes the modern framework for cooperation between Australia and Indonesia in a range of key areas: defence, law enforcement, counter-terrorism, maritime security and emergency disaster response.
The Treaty gives us the opportunity for cooperation across the broad spectrum of areas. We intend to use this actively and constructively with, we hope, substantial benefits for both our nations.
As well, we extended for three years the Memorandum of Understanding between Australia and Indonesia on Combating International Terrorism.
I have no qualms in saying that the Government inherited from the previous Government a relationship with Indonesia that was in good shape. That was not always the case, but the relationship we inherited was a good one, albeit one which Australia and Indonesia both want to take to a new and better level.
This was reflected for example by the fact that the Prime Minister’s and my first overseas trip was to Indonesia in December last year. The strength and warmth of the bilateral meetings between the Prime Minister and President Yudhoyono and the bilateral meeting between me and Foreign Minister Wirajuda in Bali and subsequently in Perth underlined that.
Both our nations and both Governments are committed to working together to take the relationship to a new level, a genuine partnership on a shared understanding of what is important to both our countries.
That means, for example, working with a democratic Indonesia in regional and global forums for our mutual benefit.
It means focusing on deepening the people-to-people exchanges which this Report rightly identifies as a, if not the, priority.
Both governments recognise the need to intensify exchanges between Australians and Indonesians to improve our understanding of each other.
We both believe that these people-to-people links will help ensure that Australians are better placed to see Indonesia through new eyes, and vice versa.
This is particularly so in my view in the area of education and educational exchanges. Our cooperative work in education is of very considerable importance.
Australia itself has 2650 secondary schools. In Indonesia, Australia is working to build or extend 2000 secondary schools across 19 provinces, with the aim of creating 330,000 new places for students by mid-2009, including in some of the country’s poorest and more remote regions. The aim is to help Indonesia achieve its goal of nine years of basic education for all Indonesian children.
Dr Wirajuda shares this view on education, and the importance of education as an exchange between our two countries. Earlier this year he visited the modern day successor of my old high school in my electorate in Perth where he had a conversation in Indonesian with young Australian year 10 students learning Bahasa Indonesia, all this in front of Metro TV cameras.
There is considerable scope for our two countries to cooperate further in the field of higher education and research.
It’s already the case that our universities and research bodies such as Australian Centre for International Agricultural Research work with counterparts in Indonesia on agriculture, where we now need major new efforts to lift productivity in response to rising food prices and lack of food security.
What’s also needed is not only greater exchange between our academics, but also greater numbers of young Australians studying Indonesian and studying about Indonesia.
Deeper people-to-people ties are vital and education arguably represents the most productive field through which this can be pursued.
The Report also demonstrates clearly the significant and important ways in which the Indonesian nation has changed.
Indonesia’s impressive leadership has achieved a great deal in the last decade. The country has emerged as a vibrant democracy, the world’s third-largest democracy after India and the United States, a country of vigour in its political debate, a lively media, fundamental pluralism and underlying ethnic and religious diversity.
In an open society, it’s natural that there will be loud voices on the extremes of public opinion. But we should not mistake volume for influence. Indonesia remains, at heart, a pluralistic, society where, just as Australia embraces diversity and multiculturalism, the diversity of Indonesia makes it all the more exciting as a country with which to engage.
As the report makes clear, the Indonesian Government continues to grapple with its reform priorities, including improved governance and poverty reduction.
President Yudhoyono inherited deep-seated structural challenges, and in a populous and geographically diverse country. It’s not surprising that there is still work to do.
Jakarta knows it can count on Australia to assist.
It’s unambiguously the case that Australia’s interests are served by a democratic, prosperous, stable and united Indonesia. That’s why we remain committed to working with Indonesia on social development issues.
Since 2003, Australian aid to Indonesia has trebled, growing to an estimated $460 million next year. We are the largest bilateral donor to Indonesia and the Indonesia program is the largest Australia has anywhere in the world.
Our assistance is targeted in education, health, infrastructure and governance, all of which this Report rightly identifies as critical.
Being such close neighbours, and so closely involved in a range of political, economic and social exchanges, it’s inevitable that Indonesia and Australia occasionally have differences of opinion. The key is how you manage these differences together.
Managing the difference together means knowing that the fundamentals of the relationship are more than strong enough to absorb and withstand any such differences. I believe this understanding has been a significant advance in our relationship in recent times.
What has also become clear is the scale of our cooperation in responding to common challenges. Indonesia’s authorities have demonstrated great competence and skill in cracking down on terrorist and extremist elements. Australia is pleased to have played a supporting role and have welcomed the now nearly 200 arrests and convictions.
Indonesia emerged from the financial crisis of the late 1990s with an economy that has returned to strong economic growth, and now plays a more active and positive role in regional and world affairs.
We very much look forward to working regionally and internationally with Indonesia, based on our shared commitment to democracy and our belief in the efficacy of regional and multilateral initiatives on issues like climate change.
We welcome Jakarta’s strong voice in ASEAN and other regional forums. Our relationship with Indonesia sets the tone for our relations with ASEAN.
We welcome Indonesia’s highly positive and constructive leadership on the many issues affecting the Asia-Pacific region.
As Indonesia is emerging from its difficult political and economic transition of the past decade or so, our relationship too is maturing and evolving into new areas of mutual interest.
This is no longer a relationship between a donor and a country in difficulty, but a partnership of great potential between two robust democracies increasingly seeing the world in similar ways.
Conclusion
This Report helps inform the Australian public about important and fascinating changes that have occurred in Indonesia. And it provides very thoughtful insights into future directions for our bilateral cooperation.
That cooperation, that partnership, will involve both nations and both governments working to build on common interests and common values. This will be in areas as diverse as international security, climate change, promoting better governance in our region, or simply deepening all-important ties between our respective students and teachers.
The opportunities are many and Australians should be very optimistic about them.
Certainly the Australian Government is.
Thank you.