The Indonesian President, Joko Widodo, is not a
shirtfront type-of-guy. The Javanese-born leader is everything that regular
Indonesia commentators would define as ‘classic Javanese’: conservative, quietly
spoken, non-confrontational yet determined, and religious. The latter is about
the only thing he had in common with our recently deposed PM, Tony Abbott.
Given the bumps in the bi-lateral relationship prior
and since the coalition took office, a ‘warrior-style’ leader such as Mr Abbott
was never going to become close mates with President Jokowi as he is known
through Indonesia.
Once Malcolm Turnbull settles into his new office, along
with foreign minister Julie Bishop, he will need to reflect on the difficult
relationship both countries have endured over the past few years.
Notwithstanding that under Bishop’s leadership Australia’s foreign policy is
generally in good shape, there are some simple lessons that the new PM could embrace
when dealing with our giant and near neighbour.
Australia has seen a number of lost opportunities in
which to achieve the broad outcomes we wanted whilst still maintaining a good
relationship with Indonesia. Consider just two examples: The turn-back-the-boats
policy was a clear winner for the Abbott Government. It took courage and
determination to implement such a forceful policy given the protests from human
rights groups and our regional neighbours. The policy has worked, and in doing
so the flood of Middle Eastern asylum seekers transiting through Indonesia enroute
to Australia slowed dramatically. This represented a solution for both
countries, but a significant loss-of-face for Indonesia.
At the time there was an opportunity for Australia to inform
Indonesia that whilst we would enforce the turn-back policy, we were prepared
to work with Indonesia in order to process some of the (roughly) 10,000 asylum
seekers suddenly stranded in Indonesia with nowhere to go. Given that some of
these people were refugees, it would have been relatively easy for Australia to
accept a small number of them into Australia.
Arguably, a sensible and fair gesture.
More recently, Indonesia has been keen to remove the
USD$35.00 Visa-on-Arrival (VoA) fee that every one of the one million
Australians each year must pay when arriving into Bali. The VoA is actually a
tax, not a visa fee, and it causes additional costs to inbound tourists whilst
adding considerable processing time at Bali’s International Airport.
Indonesia asked Australia if we could reciprocate to
make it easier for Indonesians to visit Australia; not a bad idea given Australia’s
need to attract tourists and Indonesia having a huge emerging middle-class with
money to spend on tourism-related travel.
Australia was never going to offer Indonesian visitors
visa-free access to our country, but we could have offered a face-saving and
practical alternative given that it costs a Balinese family of four, for
example, $520 to just apply for a visa to holiday in Perth plus pages of
application forms rather than online access afforded to Singapore and Malaysia.
There was the opportunity for a compromise.
Sadly, in both these examples the ‘Nope, nope, nope’
hard-line approach prevailed, resulting in the Indonesian foreign minister
announcing that the VoA for Australians would remain, and ill-feeling about
boat turn-backs cemented in their political memories. To Indonesia, Australia’s
attitude was: ‘Be reasonable, just do it our way’.
Our new PM does not need to revert to the unrealistic
and patronising, ‘Less Geneva, more Jakarta’ approach adopted when Mr Abbott first
became PM, but rather recognise that there are practical initiatives available
to both countries, including the removal of red tape to allow the exchange of
young people more freely.
During the tumultuous events surrounding the
executions of Myron Sukumaran and Andrew Chan, Mr Turnbull demonstrated how a
considered non-combative style could be used effectively when dealing with
Asia.
Whilst Mr Abbott was reminding Indonesia that we
donated over A$1 billion to the Aceh tsunami appeal, and therefore they owed us
a favour by pardoning Chan and Sukumaran, Mr Turnbull (on the ABC’s Q&A)
reminded Indonesia that as they fought for their independence from foreign rule
in 1945, only one western country stood-by and supported Indonesia as a friend:
Australia.
It was a powerful yet subtle statement. Some may argue
that it didn’t stop the execution of these two Australians, but Turnbull’s
comments – had he been PM – would not have polarised opinion in Indonesia that
Australia was threatening their sovereignty and nationalism as did Mr Abbott’s comments,
and in doing so putting back the ongoing debate within Indonesia about the death
penalty by ten years.
As the Jokowi government continues to be far more
nationalistic and inward-looking, despite Jakarta’s preference for Mr Turnbull
as PM we should not expect a sudden boost in the relationship. But in reviewing
our approach to Indonesia, a recent comment by former army chief, Professor Peter
Leahy that Australia needs to ‘stop seeing Indonesia as a potential enemy but rather
as a potential ...partner’ maybe a good starting point for our recently refreshed
government.
Getting the broader Australian community to embrace
this view however, may prove to be much harder.
Ross
Taylor AM is the President of the
Indonesia Institute Inc. @indorosstaylor
This article originally appeared in The West Australian 28th of September 2015
