Australia and Indonesia - Boats, cows and grass

Trying to move relations beyond the old bugbears

IN HIS election campaign Tony Abbott, Australia’s new prime minister, promised “more Jakarta” (focus on Asia and bilateral ties) and “less Geneva” (historic Western links, multilateral bodies). So it was important that he fulfilled his promise to make his first foreign trip in office to Indonesia, Australia’s closest neighbour. He also probably needed to do so before attending the annual meeting of the 21-member Asia-Pacific Economic Co-operation group in Bali on October 7th-8th. Of all multilateral talking-shops, APEC struggles most to justify its existence.

Mr Abbott’s visit to Jakarta, Indonesia’s capital, this week with his foreign minister and a business delegation was never going to be plain sailing, however. Not only had his opponents made much of his alleged ignorance about foreign affairs and the flat-footed simplifications with which he summed them up. He had also riled Indonesian leaders with his approach to the one foreign-policy issue that loomed large in the campaign: how to handle the thousands of asylum-seeking boat people from Afghanistan, Sri Lanka and elsewhere heading for Australian shores (over 18,500 in 250 boats so far this year). Most use Indonesia as a staging post. Thirty-six asylum-seekers lost their lives at sea just before Mr Abbott’s visit.

Mr Abbott had suggested using the navy to turn boats back, and paying Indonesians for information about the trade. This had raised hackles about Indonesian sovereignty—how would he like it if a foreign state publicly offered to pay Australians to spy on each other? Mr Abbott’s supporters, however, were able to portray his maiden sortie as something of a triumph. After repeated pledges of respect for Indonesian sovereignty, the prime minister secured the agreement of Indonesia’s president, Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono, to hold bilateral talks on the people-smuggling issue—a concession from Indonesia’s previous stand that it had to be dealt with in a multilateral forum.

In return, Mr Yudhoyono was able to make much of Mr Abbott’s remark that his government “takes a very dim view…of anyone seeking to use our country as a platform for grandstanding against Indonesia”. This was taken as a pledge to act tough against those agitating for the independence of the troubled Indonesian province of West Papua.

Mr Abbott was able to blame the previous government for a serious hiccup in the bilateral relationship—a temporary Australian ban in 2011 on the export of live cattle to Indonesia. This, introduced after a television programme alleged cruelty in Indonesian slaughterhouses, hurt the industry in both countries. “Never again”, said Mr Abbott, would Australia play fast and loose with the food security of such an important neighbour.

Perhaps by coincidence, good news emerged on the issue that probably resonates most among Australians—the detention in Bali of Schappelle Corby, a 36-year-old Australian serving a 15-year sentence for smuggling marijuana into Indonesia in 2004. Her bid for parole passed another hurdle this week.

On the negative side, the Indonesian press was outraged at being excluded from an Abbott press conference. Some suggested this might even be illegal under Indonesian law. The more old-fashioned of Indonesian politicians might relish this chance to lecture Australia about press freedom. But looking at this, and his remarks about pro-Papua protesters in Australia, they might also conclude that Mr Abbott is their sort of bloke. The Economist