"Parting the fuel divide," by Lauren Gumbs, November 2014.
Temporary pain for long term gain. But try telling that to the masses. Jokowi's popularity dips after instigating price increase of RP2,000.
The Indonesia Institute's Senior Vice President, Mr Simon Leunig, recently met with DFAT Deputy Secretary, Mr Paul Grigson to talk about the Indo-Australia relationship and co-operation with the Indonesia Institute (II).
The following points were made by Mr Grigson:
He is interested and positive about the work of II .
Agreed to speak at a joint II – AIBC function in Perth at a future time..
Aware of visa issues such as difficulties to acquire study and holiday working visas..
Has an interest in facilitating research links where relationships can be enhanced.
The Indonesia Institute also congratulates Mathew Satchwell on his new post as President of the Australia Indonesia Youth Association (AIYA) - WA Chapter and farewells Natrisha Barnett who previously held the role. II has a close relationship with AIYA and plans to host joint events in the future. In the meantime, check out AIYA's screening of Jalanan by Daniel Ziv at AIYA's HQ in Perth. Get your tickets here.
And finally, Colin Singer, our Social and Political Director, attended the launch of the new SUR Journal. Read his comments here.
Extra reading:
The ABC's Dateline agenda set in the Indonesia news after airing a piece called 'Sex Mountain' (Gunung Kemukus). This ritual that sees strangers sleeping with each other for financial good luck was followed up in Tempo a couple of days later and has since created more Indonesian coverage. Officials were predictably evasive on the matter.
I attended an interesting presentation at Universitas Parahyangan (UNPAR) in October. It was titled “SUR Journal Launching and Public Seminar: Indonesian Foreign Policy making, the role of civil Society Organisations (CSO) in mainstreaming Human Rights.
This was the launch of the 20th Edition, and this excellent journal is produced in English, Portuguese and Spanish, available online or in print. It was jointly arranged by KONTRAS, CONECTAS (Brazil), Universitas Parahyangan (UNPAR), the Indonesian Institute of Sciences – Center For Political Studies (LIPI) also provided a speaker.
The general feeling was not optimistism but hope that Jokowi-Kalla will address human rights issues. Many of these organisations however, are not confident they will. They note that Jokowi has made no specific mention of Human Rights as a priority or a matter of concern.
The overarching shadow of Megawati and her composition of Jokowi’s cabinet further makes it unlikely. They noted that the Defense Minister, Gen Ryamizard Ryacudu, within Megawati’s inner circle has a record of serious human rights abuses especially in Aceh and East Timor.
They also talked about how Hendropriyono, the former ex head of Badan Intelligen Negara (BIN), and suspect in the death of the human rights activist Munir remains a key adviser, and his son-in-law is the new head of the Presidential Guard. Sjafrie, another suspected war criminal has been proposed as the new head of BIN.
The new government will apparently be much more nationalistic and it is likely that things like the Lombok Treaty will be re-assessed and maritime boundaries will be a key area of discontent and potentially prove unsettling and an area of conflict with Australia.
Colin Singer
Chairman, Foreign Relations Committee and Social and Political Director, Indonesia Institute
Australia’s
Immigration Minister Scott Morrison recently announced a new and harsher policy aimed at stopping even more asylum seekers
from reaching Australia, but it comes at the cost of setting diminished human
rights precedents in the region.
Last year the catchphrase that won Australian Prime Minister
Tony Abbott the election was the polarising ‘stop the boats’.
Now it has evolved into ‘stop the refugees’.
Under new laws, those who registered for asylum after 1 July
2014 will no longer be eligible for resettlement in Australia.
Australia currently takes 400-600 refugees per year from
Indonesia however the intake quota has been reduced to no more than 450.
At this rate it would take more than 6.5 years just to
resettle the 3,000 children waiting in Indonesia, 1,000 of whom are
unaccompanied minors.
The rationale of the policy is to preclude asylum seekers
using Indonesia as a transit point and to concentrate resettlement efforts on
those waiting in first contact countries.
The flow of people to Indonesia, and subsequent ‘burden’ on
both Indonesia and Australia, would supposedly dry up and discourage people
smugglers from trafficking vulnerable people to preferable transit countries
for resettlement.
However the policy is hardly humanitarian and is leveled at
refouling refugees, not assisting them to find a safe haven.
In an official
press release, Minister Morrison was quoted as saying, “the Government does
not support asylum seekers travelling illegally to transit countries in search
of more favourable resettlement destinations.”
Yet there is no international refugee law that requires an
asylum seeker to apply for asylum in a first point country and as it is the
UNHCR that determines refugee status, Australia is clearly imposing its own
domestic politics on the selection process.
In fact it is unconventional
and unheard of in any other country to design a policy that asks asylum seekers
to apply from a first contact country as a prerequisite to resettlement in
Australia.
Nor do the majority of asylum seekers travel ‘illegally’ to
transit countries.
Most enter transit countries with a visa and from there some
travel ‘illegally’ to a destination country on a boat.
There are 10,500 UNHCR registered asylum seekers and
refugees in Indonesia and although Indonesia’s constitution recognises the
right to seek asylum, it is not a signatory to the Convention on the Rights of
Refugees and offers no formal protections or Refugee Determination Process.
This means that in Indonesia asylum seekers have few rights or
ways to make money and rely on under-resourced NGOs and a lone UNHCR processing
centre in Jakarta that services the entire archipelago.
Minister Morrison said the new policy is designed to reduce
the burden on Indonesia, but it predominantly supports Australia’s political interests
– to pacify a new and untested government while engaging in covert refoulement.
Indonesia has argued that being responsible for thousands of
refugees and dealing with Australia’s unilateral border control activities are
the real burden.
By selecting only those refugees for resettlement that are residing
in a country close to their home state, Australia is influencing the Refugee Determination
Process to conform to its border controls and immigration policy.
In that sense it is not only acting unilaterally, but creating
a regional precedent that sees refugees as a ‘burden’ and refoulment as an
acceptable convention.
Under a humanitarian policy, if resettlement eligibility was
annulled it would make more sense to increase the intake quota and to resettle
already processed, ‘legitimate’ refugees.
It is a cruel blow to reduce the quota for those people who have resisted the temptation to jump on an old boat and travel the dangerous journey to Christmas island. Their reward for doing the right thing see them languishing
in the ‘queue’ - in reality an abstract notion to describe a state of perpetual
suspension between statehood.
Suaka,
the Indonesia Civil Society Network for Refugee Protection, said the new policy
puts refugees in increasingly difficult conditions, especially as Indonesia
does not have adequate legal guarantees to protect refugees.
“This policy is clearly contrary to the international
obligations of Australia as a party to the 1951 Refugee Convention and
increases the uncertainty of the situation for refugees in transit in
Indonesia,” Chair of Suaka, Febionesta, said.
“Australia has breached its commitment to the Regional
Cooperation Framework under the Bali Process and ignored the recommendation of
its own expert panel on asylum seekers.
“The policy will surely increase the number of those waiting
in line for resettlement indefinitely, leaving them frustrated.”
Despite criticism from human rights groups and NGOs, the
policy has not registered much interest in the Indonesian media.
The media have been preoccupied with increased fuel prices
and new dynamics in domestic politics rather than the implications of another
unilateral Australian decision on asylum seekers.
Indonesia might welcome the ‘sugar finally being taken off the table', but it is also concerned
about another unilateral move by Australia to deal with a regional issue.
Indonesia should be concerned; even with the halting of
boats to Australia, the UNHCR in Indonesia recorded 3,200 new asylum seeker
registrations this year, 1,200 of which will never call Australia home.
As Indonesia has asserted time and time again, the situation
requires bilateral and multi-lateral co-operation; asylum seekers will continue
to flee as long as there is war and conflict and the queue will continue to
form on another neighbours’ doorstep.
The Australian
Ambassador to Indonesia, Mr Greg Moriarty, was called into the Indonesian
Foreign Ministry last Friday and Asia-Pacific Division Director Yuri Thamrin conveyed
Indonesia’s strong concern over Australia’s unilateral policy.
The
Australian reported that Mr Thamrin called for Australia to return to
dealing with asylum-seekers as a regional problem, through the multilateral
Bali Process.
In 2011 Australia and Indonesia agreed to a treaty known as
the Regional Co-operation Framework or Bali Process which outlines joint
co-operation on people smugglers and asylum seekers.
This agreement has at its core, the assumption that both
countries will share the burden of responsibility.
Banning resettlement from Indonesia is contrary to the
spirit and purpose of the Bali Process and it will only induce asylum seekers
to use Malaysia or other ASEAN states.
If Australia had
opened its doors wider it may have been able to encourage Indonesia to get on
board and sign onto the refugee protocols, maybe even to open a processing
centre so asylum seekers do not need to be intercepted and taken to Nauru or
Manus Island to cost Australian taxpayers $1 billion a year
or half a million dollars per asylum seeker. Australia has been very effective in 'stopping the boats'. Having achieved his electoral promise, Mr Abbott and his immigration minister could have offered help to countries such as Indonesia, by increasing its refugee intake from the current level of 13,750 to say, 20,000. This would have been a smart political move, but more importantly it would have reinforced the view that those who seek asylum by going through the correct channels (as opposed to jumping on boats) will be treated promptly and humanely.
However instead of being a leader in human rights, and a good neighbour, Australia
has taken a hard-line stance when it comes to immigration and by banning
resettlement of mostly genuine refugees from Indonesia, undermines the opportunity to work constructively with Indonesia
through a framework it already shares.
Lauren Gumbs is Director of Social Media at the Indonesia Institute. She holds a Master in Communications and is studying a Master of Human Rights at Curtin University.
By Yohannes Sulaiman There was a collective shrug in Indonesia over Australia’s decision
to stop accepting refugees who are waiting in Indonesia to be resettled
in Australia.
Australian Immigration Minister Scott Morrison announced on Tuesday
that asylum seekers who registered with the United Nations High
Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) in Indonesia on and after July 1,
2014, would no longer be eligible for resettlement in Australia.
Morrison asserted that the Indonesian government was well-informed of
this decision. But Indonesian Foreign Minister Retno Marsudi said that she was still trying to figure out the implications of the new policy.
While the Australian media reacted strongly, putting the new policy
on the front page, it attracted little media coverage in Indonesia.
Preoccupied with domestic concerns
Indonesian media showed little interest because they were preoccupied with rising fuel prices as a result of a government subsidy cut. This dominated the headlines in Indonesia.
A day before Morrison’s announcement, Indonesian president Joko
Widodo’s administration announced that the government would increase the
price of subsidised fuel the next day.
With the Indonesian media and population in general preoccupied with
the politically sensitive issue of fuel prices, the last thing on their
minds was Australia’s change in immigration policy.
Besides, immigration is not considered a big issue in Indonesia. Yes, the government is concerned about the influx of asylum seekers and illegal immigrants in Indonesia, especially when they are perceived to be contributing to increasing crime rates.
But it is not seen as a serious national problem that would force the
government to devote significant resources to a solution.
After all,
the Indonesian government’s resources are already stretched thin. They
even faced problems dealing with illegal fishing.
Impact on Indonesia?
Still, the question remains: what are the implications of the new policy for Indonesia and refugees in general? Morrison argued that the policy aims to prevent people smuggling. It
is doubtful, however, that the policy would stem the number of
Australia-bound asylum seekers passing through Indonesia by boat.
While
many refugees hoping to resettle in Australia register through the UNHCR
office in Jakarta, a lot of others are intent on travelling to
Australia by boat.
Therefore, the policy would do little to reduce the number of people
who are already committed to attempting to get to Australia by boat,
rather than wait for resettlement through the UNHCR in Indonesia.
The best way for to reduce the numbers of asylum seekers coming
through Indonesia using boats is to prevent them from reaching Indonesia
in the first place.
But this is easier said than done. As mentioned
above, Indonesia’s resources are already stretched so thin that it could
not effectively police its own borders.
The vice-commander of the national police admitted that the Indonesian police force has only about 1000 patrol boats.
That is just a drop in the ocean when one considers Indonesia’s
95,181-kilometre coastline. The police force also has other
responsibilities than preventing asylum seekers from coming to
Indonesia.
Indonesia’s obligation?
Finally, there is a question of why Indonesia has not ratified the UN Refugee Convention. By ratifying the convention, Indonesia could expect international
help in dealing with refugees.
More importantly, Indonesia could also
determine on its own the refugee status of asylum seekers, thus making the Jakarta office of the UNHCR redundant.
The most compelling reason not to ratify the convention is that Indonesia could, in turn, be swamped by refugees.
Even though Indonesia is the largest economy in southeast Asia, as a
developing country it is still struggling to lift its population from
poverty. The country’s GDP per capita in 2013 was US$3475, nearly 19
times less than Australia’s US$64,468.
By not signing this convention, Indonesia thus could buck-pass the
refugee problems to someone else, such as Australia, that has a greater
capacity to help. But Indonesia doesn’t seem to care if its neighbour
wants to help out less.
Yohannes Sulaiman is a Lecturer in International Relations and Political Science at Indonesian Defense University. His article originally appeared 21 November in The Conversation.
Indonesia is going to save a massive A$9 billion in 2015, by
increasing diesel and gasoline prices RP 2,000 per litre (18c).
That’s $9 billion that can be allocated to poverty
alleviation, health and infrastructure out of around $22 billion that is spent
on the subsidy each year.
It keeps petrol at half the market price, RP6,500 per litre
(66c), and other types of fuel similarly low.
To an Australian who pays around $1.50 a litre, a fuel
subsidy is a fiscal profligacy that could not be justified as it reduces the cost
of living for the wealthy and middle class at the expense of the poor who are
left without adequate spending on things like health and education.
While Australia has its share of dubious tax breaks and
schemes that favour high income earners, it would be unimaginable to provide
concessions for private vehicle owners, encouraging more cars on the road and
perpetuating import and fossil fuel dependency.
Indonesia is actually an importer, not a producer, and the
expense of subsidising fuel has left the country with an account deficit for
the past two and a half years.
Many Indonesians are heavily invested in cheap fuel and fear
not just inflation of the cost of living, but corruption; savings they might
never see translated into economic outcomes.
Fuel subsidy is a popular program for obvious reasons –
using a vehicle is cheap, using a generator is cheap, doing business is cheap -
and this does trickle down to the cost of living, but it is also an
unsustainable program that disproportionately benefits the well off.
The price of subsidised fuel is not a ‘true’ price, it
distorts the cost of resources and contributes to over consumption without
actually adding value to the economy.
Fuel subsidy, like electricity subsidies, is a luxury
concession and far outweighs spending on health, education, defence, social
security or the environment.
Even in 2011 it was reported that in Indonesia the top 40 percent of income earners
make up 70% of gasoline consumption and in countries with fuel subsidies, on
average, the top income earners consume six times as much fuel as the bottom
quintile.
In addition, the top five percent of households consume 82
litres of subsidised gasoline per month, whereas the bottom five percent
consume only 1.7 litres.
Jokowi inherited a budget from his predecessor but has since
acted on an election pledge to reduce the fuel subsidy, allocating RP443
trillion (AUD $41.8 billion) for 2015-2019.
He did not need parliamentary approval this year but he will need the
legislature to sign off on the budget next year, which dominated by his
opposition, will pose a challenge.
Jokowi was unable to convince former President Susilo
Bambang Yudhoyono (SBY) to reduce the amount before he left office to make room
for Jokowi’s reform programs.
It was unlikely SBY would acquiesce his last budget to enable
Jokowi’s reforms and shoulder the blame for price hikes, especially as he had
been down that road before.
Over the past five years SBY spent RP 713 trillion (UD $67.3
billion) on fuel subsidies alone.
Yudhoyono increased fuel costs last year (some may remember
lines extending kilometres from the local Pertamina as people rushed to fill up
cars and containers after gasoline went from RP4,500 to RP6,500).
Increased fuel prices are predictably accompanied by fierce
protests because many Indonesians believe the subsidies will not be properly
re-distributed.
Fuel subsidies are a direct discount that can be felt in the
wallet and benefits like infrastructure and poverty alleviation programs could
be years into the future - if they ever materialise at all.
In a country facing endemic corruption in resource and
service delivery, losing such a concrete concession program seems an
unconscionable risk to many.
The reality is that the ones who benefit the most from the
subsidy are also those who can afford to absorb an increase, but because fuel
subsidies look so much like a benefit, most people believe they are being
short-changed.
Students and workers have been particularly riled at the
impost and staged protests around the country when Yudhoyono introduced cuts in
his final term. They are vocal once again as President Jokowi introduces the new
price increases.
Yet such a move so early in the game could make him deeply
unpopular and really create a frenzy – IMF mandated fuel subsidy cuts were part
of Suharto’s final undoing, resulting in riots that eventually overthrew him.
Jokowi however, has stuck to a clear platform to address
poverty and overhaul the economy and he is determined to phase out fuel
subsidies across his four year term.
He said he would tackle poverty, he said he would upgrade
infrastructure, he said he would improve the economy and he has logically gone
after the most obvious example of misplaced funds that will free up the budget
to implement real, nation changing reform programs.
Jokowi now faces stiff resistance from those who have the
most to lose from a redistribution of luxury concessions but also from those
who believe it is cheap fuel that keeps the cost of living down.
The hard part is getting people to understand that fuel
subsidies are not normal and are contributing to the wealth divide that drives
the rich/poor polarity.
An increase in the price of fuel will have immediate
effects, it will push the price of food and other commodities up, but this will
level out as funds are redistributed.
After all fuel subsidies made up 55 percent of total
subsidies in 2011, a mind boggling amount that should be spent on pulling
Indonesians out of poverty, and savings from cuts can be used to stall inflation
in the aftermath of a fuel increase when there is some upheaval while the
market settles.
But is Jokowi’s plan any different from Yudhoyono’s and will
he have success in eroding fuel subsidy dependence?
SBY was hesitant to take the plunge but in 2013 lawmakers
voted in favour of a revised budget and, amid violent protests, fuel increased
33 percent.
SBY set aside $900 million for cash hand-outs to poor
families but Jokowi said he will not do this because the money is spent frivolously
on things like phones
and phone credit rather than saved.
Instead he wants to encourage people to bank their money, so
he will make funds available for withdrawal from banks using a welfare card.
Jokowi will use the $9 billion in savings to support farmers,
fisherman and workers and to build roads and establish basic infrastructure
like irrigation.
Not only will programs like this assist productivity, it
will make transportation and doing business in Indonesia much more efficient –
and society far more fair.
Spending money on programs that improve people’s quality of
life and ability to become productive will allow for greater social mobility, a
less prominent wealth divide and ultimately a stronger economy.
If Jokowi is to achieve a market based rate within four
years, he will need to reduce dependency gradually, during low inflation
periods, while at the same time making sure savings are distributed to
transparent reform programs with tangible benefits.
If the Indonesian
people can see what they are getting and where the money is going, Jokowi can
rebuild public trust and administer a budget that adds value not just to the
economy but to people’s lives.
Lauren Gumbs is a postgraduate Human Rights student and Director of Social Media at the Indonesia Institute.
