OUR  LEADING LADY’S NOT LEADING

“So much for Australia’s engagement with Asia,” wrote former Foreign Minister Alexander Downer this month, punctuating a claim that the media gives “close to 20 times the coverage to the US presidential elections as Indonesia’s.”

Kicking journos is an easy sport but needs two teams to engage - and in Jakarta our captain isn’t on the pitch.

In 2021 career civil servant Penny Williams was appointed Ambassador to Indonesia - a good news story that should have drawn the salaried reporters of Australia’s mainstream media that still retain offices in Southeast Asia.

The news value went beyond a well-qualified woman running our largest overseas mission, more a fortress since the Jemaah Islamiyah suicide bombing two decades ago that killed nine Indonesians and sowed fear into friendships.

In 2020 the neighbours celebrated 70 years of diplomacy. Until Ms Williams presented her credentials to President Joko 'Jokowi' Widodo her 22 predecessors had been blokes. Not all had known the culture well or the language.

Ms Williams was different. As a young student from Tasmania, she’d spent time in Jakarta and learned Indonesian.

Her previous positions included High Commissioner to Malaysia, and  first Ambassador for Women and Girls, so clearly a DFAT favourite.

Then the bonus: She was also a Mum in a nation where the personal trumps policies. Westerners rarely get quizzed on their academic qualifications, more likely their reproduction records. Ms Williams scores four, presumably now adults.

Hoping to continue the positive and professional dealings enjoyed with her forerunner Gary Quinlan,  your correspondent offered congratulations and sought a sit-down interview:

Please tell us your plans for making the most of this splendid opportunity to start again by repairing a rotting relationship - so bad it's measurable and worrying. Here was a task for a smart woman.

No acknowledgement.  Resend. Resend.

Her politely badgered staff gave assurances she’d read all requests. Then a question about my questions - curious, because top newsmakers rarely need digestion pills to chew up humble hacks without burping.

“I'm keen to get the Ambassador's assessment of RI-Oz relations and how these can be improved.

“Apart from hearing what she'd been doing, I'm interested in her thoughts on getting messages about Australia through to the wong cilek (ordinary folk) and helping our middle and working classes (ANU terms) better understand their neighbours.

“Trade and security issues are regularly canvassed in the media so I'd prefer to stay on fresher matters; if she leads into pastures new I'll follow.”  The in-box stayed empty.

At the Ubud Writers and Readers Festival last October (right) she confirmed awareness of my long-term quest. I gave her a copy of my latest book Tyranny of Proximity and asked again for a sit-down. She said she’d check her schedule. 

All pleasant and respectful, but nothing happened.  Another stir; after two years of requests came the answer: “Unfortunately Ambassador Williams is not available at this time.” 

Assuming this might mean she’s unwell I wished her a speedy recovery. She turns 60 this month with no reports of incapacity.  The consolation prize offered was a ‘catch-up’ with a Consul-General, though not as the Ambassador’s stand-in authorised to speak on the record.

Ms Williams is entitled to favour certain scribes - that's commonplace.  Being snubbed is every journo's occupational hazard; we toughen up or quit. Personal slights get flicked off the carapace, but her apparent indifference to the Fourth Estate seems total.

 If the Ambassador has given any serious speeches or in-depth interviews in the local or Australian media since her appointment by the Morrison Government they’re well hidden.  In 2021 the Embassy website listed two ’Articles and Speeches’ and nothing since.

Ms Williams' three-year engagement will end soon,  so the Albanese administration will be listing candidates.  A model to consider is the late Richard Woolcott, ambassador 1975-78.

In a Pearls & Irritations obituary, John McCarthy, another former ambassador to Indonesia (1996-2001), wrote of his one-time colleague’s communication skills and “outstanding capacity to engage with everybody - from the most elevated to the rest of us.”

The most effective ambassadors are also activists and entrepreneurs.  Former TV entertainer Tantowi Yahya became a national figure in NZ (2017 -22) by running big concerts and debating West Papua independence.  

In Washington (2010 - 13) Dr Dino Patti Djalal got expats to invest in their homeland and was dubbed Indonesia’s ‘Marketeer of the Year’.

Nineteenth-century British editor Walter Bagehot asserted that an ambassador "is not simply an agent - (s)he is also a spectacle."

Nothing in this commentary suggests Ms Williams is not a competent administrator and energetic envoy, applauded by her employer. Maybe she squirrels away effectively in the shadows winning new friends and engineering deals to benefit all.

But to engage with Indonesia the media needs much more, an inspirational up-front leader, ideally from outside the bureaucracy. Essentials include a winning style and enthusiasm for using the press to articulate our democratic values and concerns in the marketplace of public opinion.

Or does Canberra fear that an adventurous and assured ambassador might upset the pricklies in Jakarta and start another tsunami in a rice bowl while an election campaign is underway?

(An invitation remains open for Ms Williams to respond to this commentary.) 

  First published in Pearls & Irritations, 17 January 2024: https://johnmenadue.com/our-leading-lady-in-jakarta-is-not-leading/