Public Ignorance Key to Indo-Aus Tensions

By Rebecca Le May

PERTH, Oct 13 AAP - Tensions are inevitable between neighbours, but a lot more work needs to be done to manage the volatile and fragile relationship between Australia and Indonesia.  That's the view of Australia-Indonesia Institute chairman Tim Lindsey.

Professor Lindsey told a function in Perth on Tuesday that he hadn't met an Indonesian who didn't think the 40 per cent aid reduction was payback for the state killings.  "It doesn't matter whether that was intended or not - that's what it has become," he said.

   

Prof Lindsey said polls showed most Australians didn't realise Indonesia was a democracy, believed it sympathised with Islamic extremism and rated it more negatively than any other country with the exception of North Korea, Iran, Afghanistan and Saudi Arabia.

   

The shortcomings were on both sides, with the Indonesian public also ill-informed about Australia, but with much less hostility, he said.  "This is an appalling state of affairs. It is a catastrophically bad and that's why it's so difficult for the relationship to be managed," Prof Lindsey said.  "The key to the problem is this yawning gap between government-to-government enthusiasm for the bilateral relationship and this depth of public ignorance and hostility."

   

Another big problem was Australia not handling well the vast difference between Indonesia's highly diplomatic former president Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono and his successor Joko Widodo.  Prof Lindsey said Mr Widodo led an inward-looking....divided and (currently) dysfunctional administration that was generally uninterested in the country to its south.  

"The Coalition government in Canberra has not done well in dealing with the changed circumstances.  "If there was ever a time megaphone diplomacy and sending messages via the media or in parliamentary debate to Indonesia would be effective in the bilateral relationship, it is not under Jokowi.

   

"Rightly or wrongly, Canberra needs to be a lot more subtle, nuanced and smart if it wants Indonesia to look south."

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