MORE JAKARTA, LESS CANBERRA

     From blusukan to bland in five years

There are some cheering on-line videos worth checking from 2015 when Malcolm and Lucy Turnbull visited Jakarta.

President Joko Widodo took his guest to the vast Tanah Abang textile market for an unscripted blusukan, the Indonesian leader’s common-touch trade mark.  Ties and jackets vanished along with protocols as friendly crowds pressed close.  Apart from the over-taxed security detail, all seemed to be having genuine fun.

Less informal but still jolly are slides from two years later when Widodo and Iriana, both splendid in batik, were welcomed by the Turnbulls.  They camped at Kirribilli House and shared the Sydney sights like middle-aged couples, old pals on hols together.

Match these images against the hand-out pix from Widodo’s two-day wifeless visit to Canberra this month.  The thin smiles are there along with balmy words about friendship, cooperation and common goals - plus more fresh-start pledges than the Sydney-Melbourne high speed rail. 

All fine and worthy, yet it’s clear the natural warmth has evaporated.  Morrison is good on glee and bonhomie while Widodo is reserved.  Like most cultures which favour reading faces rather than books, the Javanese are canny assessors of character.  Morrison is the President’s third PM.

Widodo stayed in the Hyatt.  He was given a fixed bayonet welcome to Government House where Governor General David Hurley spoke competently in Indonesian.

Despite this the President’s look said: ‘I want nasi goreng on the table, not another ten-point plan.’  It’s well known he’s more at home with domestic infrastructure, largely leaving foreign affairs to Minister Retno Marsudi.

Widodo’s briefing notes would have reminded that in an earlier army career the GG commanded the 1st Brigade from 1999-2000 in Darwin.  The job was supporting Australian-led operations in East Timor against crazed Indonesian-backed militia, furious that a referendum had backed independence.

The impression of reluctantly doing duty rather than energetically building rapport was reinforced when Widodo refused to talk to the media and through us the Australian people.   According to Lowy Institute surveys most Aussies know little about their big neighbour and have even less trust.  The reverse is probably true.

Avoiding journos was not a smart move when Indonesia is being touted as a starburst of democracy in a darkening Southeast Asia. Here was a chance to answer critics and show some convictions.

He’d have known local hacks would ask why he’s backed laws fettering the Corruption Eradication Commission, and why they can’t visit West Papua despite earlier promises of allowing press entry. 

By now the elected head of the world’s fourth largest nation should have the confidence to handle tough questions and show his other side.  He’s into big bikes and heavy metal music.  He’s from a poor family, outside the oligarchy and military which wield most power.

Widodo addressed the Parliament with a bland speech.  (Australian media said he used ‘Bahasa’, explaining this meant ‘Indonesian’.  It doesn’t – it’s the word for ‘language’.)

It was less than half the length of his predecessor Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono’s rousing delivery in English at the same forum ten years earlier.  This sent commentators thumbing thesauri for ‘new era’ synonyms.

While the mateship was surging Australian spies were doing their damnedest to undermine optimism by tapping the home phone of SBY, a most pro-Australian president. 

The buggers were caught out in 2013 through documents leaked by former US National Security Agency contractor Edward Snowden. For a while that kicked the Indonesia-Australia Comprehensive Economic Partnership Agreement negotiations off field.

This month Widodo brought a big gift – the signed agreement   The free trade deal has taken ten years to write, edit, print and bind. Implementation is due by mid-May and should be a plus for both nations – though mainly benefiting Australian wheat and beef farmers.

The other good news is that Monash Uni will open a post-grad campus in Jakarta. The first intake is planned for late next year.  Other tertiary institutions are also keen but waiting to see whether this education experiment will work.

Widodo hopes the IA-CEPA will encourage Australians to invest.  Right now only the bold and brash will risk money in a country where stuffed envelopes fast-track government permits, and the rule of law can be bent with the weight of enough rupiah.

He’s also seeking a relaxation of harsh rules which aren’t applied to Singaporeans and Malaysians; they pay $20 for an on-line visa against $140 for Indonesians plus 15-page questionnaires. Australians get a free visa-on-arrival in Bali. 

The two Commonwealth nations together send almost 500,000 visitors a year while only 100,000 Indonesians bother to buy tickets south. As Indonesia Institute president Ross Taylor said in Perth:  ‘If they won’t come here, how do we get to know each other?’

Morrison said he’d look into it.  Outback Aborigines in WA used to neatly skewer any city politician using that cliché with the tag ‘Mr Mirrorman.’  As reported on this blog (https://johnmenadue.com/abul-rizvi-morrison-impotent-on-visa-arrangements-for-indonesians/ ) the President shouldn’t bother sitting by the phone.

Widodo in his second and final five-year term no longer has blusukan on his schedules.  Fear of terrorists now determines the agenda.  Last October two fanatics stabbed Security Minister Wiranto during a low-key visit to Banten, Java’s western province.  He has since recovered.

The attack has further screwed down security and put even more space between electors and elected.  Back in his White House Widodo announced an estimated 600 Indonesian ISIS supporters who went to Syria won’t be allowed home with their hates.

In 2013 PM Tony Abbott declared his foreign policy as ‘more Jakarta and less Geneva’.  Based on Widodo’s performance Down Under this month, the President is probably muttering:  ‘More Jakarta and less Canberra’. 

 First published in Pearls and Irritations, 14 February 2020
https://johnmenadue.com/duncan-graham-from-blusukan-to-bland-in-five-years/

THE POLITICIAN'S DILEMMA: FIRST OPEN MIND - OR MOUTH?

TROUBLED BY TRUTH TELLING  
                               

Does the present government really understand Indonesia? Or want to? Ministers get detailed briefings from diplomats in Jakarta squirreling away in our biggest embassy, plus wisdoms from academics close to home.

So why so many big boo-boos, of which former PM Malcolm Turnbull’s trip as envoy to Bali is a standout.  Not so much the visit, more the wash-up.

The media next door are fully focused on yet another national tragedy.   After two earthquakes killing thousands, a new Boeing 737 Max 8 inexplicably crashed last month, killing all 189 on board.  So there’s been little space to ponder the latest weird policy meanderings in Canberra.

Had Lion Air flight JT610 not plunged into the Java Sea the issue of Australia possibly following the US and shifting its embassy from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem could be threatening trade and friendship with the world’s most populous Islamic nation.

Foreign affairs is the highest of political arts, no place for dilettantes, the unlettered and intemperate. Consistency is a virtue, change must be managed.  It’s an area where Governments and Oppositions, even when disagreeing, tend to be less shrill.

Tongues which flex freely on domestic issues usually manage control on international matters; speaking with one voice dissuades foreign states seeking to denigrate and divide.

Though not Australia in its dealings with the world’s third largest democracy, a major market for our primary produce and future ally as China expands south and the US heads north.

The Palestine issue is to Indonesians what British royalty is to Australasians – a complex of deeply felt religious, cultural and historical emotions where the hard hats of reason offer little protection.

At first glance the idea of sending Citizen Turnbull to Bali for the Oceans Conference seemed reasonable.  Mr Harborside Mansion is said to hit it off with President Joko ‘Jokowi’ Widodo, raised on the mudbanks of Central Java’s Solo River.  The guys had met several times before, so a saving on name tags.

At second glance – not so smart. This was a head-of-state show with Widodo as host. If PM Scott Morrison was unavailable either Deputy Michael McCormack or Foreign Minister Marise Payne should have been first to shake hands when disembarking in Denpasar.

Whatever the barrister’s past eminence, having a delegation leader whose titles are all qualified with ‘former’ was at best a snub to Australian ministers, and certainly an insult to the protocol-obsessed Javanese who run the Republic and must have asked: Does he carry any clout?

This is a nation where spotters work 24/7 seeking slights to sovereignty, like birdwatchers vie for first sightings, then shriek outrage and demand retaliation.

But don’t worry – this stuff-up won’t happen again.  There’ll be no more papers in Mr T’s briefcase with a roo and emu on the letterhead. If he wants to wear batik on Paradise Island he’ll have to pay his own hotel bill.

His naughtiness?  He told the truth to reporters at the conference: ‘There is no question, were that move (the embassy to Jerusalem) to occur, it would be met with a very negative reaction in Indonesia.’ 

Didn’t anyone have the courage to tell the PM that the man he toppled was probably doing a nice diplomatic dance to move the issue close to an exit?  If they did, he wasn’t listening.

 ‘The issue of trade and other things was not really part of his (Turnbull's) brief. My view, our government's view about these issues are clear. That's what we're pursuing,’ he told commercial radio in Australia.

‘Not really’? ‘Issues are clear’? What was being pursued?  The past Member for Wentworth responded with  ‘a few facts’: ‘Scott Morrison asked me to discuss trade and the embassy issue in Bali and we had a call before I left to confirm his messages which I duly relayed to Mr Widodo.’

More truth telling required and all in public. This washing isn’t just dirty, it’s diseased.

A correction on Fairfax Media: ‘I invited Mr Turnbull to represent me … as head of delegation, he was briefed on appropriate responses on other issues that could be raised in any direct discussions with the President’.

Widodo must have wondered what platform the Okkers were standing on. Like trains switching tracks, policy change should be signaled ahead.  Who’s the real stationmaster here? Or is there one?

If Jakarta hadn’t been focused on the air crash this chaos could have led the TV bulletins, as crippling to relationships as the 2011 Labor Government’s abrupt ban on cattle exports when allegations of cruelty were made against Indonesian abattoirs.

The potential for damage still lurks.  Widodo’s opponents are led by Presidential hopeful Prabowo Subianto. If they campaign on the Canberra confusion claiming Australia treats its friends with contempt and isn’t genuine about seeking a just resolution of the Israel-Palestine conflict, the game will get worryingly weighty.

In this bleak scenario Widodo might chose to show electors he’s no push-around by teaching the Antipodean brats a lesson.

Least painful to him but hurtful to us would be delaying endorsement of the Indonesia Australia Comprehensive Economic Partnership Agreement; this free trade deal is supposed to be wrapped before Christmas.

In such a troubling climate, seeds of hostility could find a damp paddock ahead of Indonesians voting next April. 

To conclude – a respectful request:  Please, elected reps, think before speaking on issues concerning the neighbours.  Is that so hard?

The question’s rhetorical.

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First published in Pearls & Irritations 3 November 2018. 
https://johnmenadue.com/duncan-graham-troubled-by-truth-telling-in-indonesia/

ASEAN? WE'RE NOT WANTED

 EXPANDING ASEAN: AN IDEA WORTH BURYING         

An Australian in ASEAN.  It sounds like the title of an innocent-abroad movie: The hero has adventures, blunders and embarrasses.  But in the end Aussie charm and grit prevail; romance blossoms and the outsider becomes an insider.

It’s a familiar genre. But this time the characters won’t play their assigned roles.  The idea of big landmass, small population Australia (26 million), being welcomed by the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (600 million plus) is still being pushed, though up a gradient that needs crampons.

The notion has been wandering around awhile but got new direction in the weeks heading towards the March ASEAN ‘summit’ in Sydney, the first of its kind in the Great South Land.

Former ABC foreign correspondent Graeme Dobell writing in the Australian Strategic Policy Institute’s The Strategist website has been a principal matchmaker. 

‘Australia’s dealings with the ten nations of ASEAN are set by geography, flavoured by history, worked by diplomacy and driven by trade,’ he enthused.

‘Throbbing always are the central concerns of power and strategy and defence. The geography and the diplomacy and the power mean that Southeast Asia must be a constant interest of Australia’s …

‘Joining ASEAN is the logical culmination of decades of Australian regional engagement. ASEAN membership would be an embrace of the region in the service of our deepest interests.’

This was in February, when Australian politicians and other newsmakers were reluctantly returning from their summer break, so the commentary drew little notice. 

Only when Australian journalist James Massola reporting for Fairfax Press scored a pre-summit interview with Indonesian President Joko ‘Jokowi’ Widodo that the idea was given CPR.

When the leader of the world’s third largest democracy was asked about Australia joining ASEAN he said  ‘I think it’s a good idea.’  The follow-up whether it would be backed by other countries drew a laugh and the comment:  ‘I don’t know.’

The pole vault from these throw-aways to headlines like ‘Indonesia wants Australia as full ASEAN member’ should be a Diplomacy IO1 example of cultural clumsiness.  Jokowi might well have given the same response to the question:  ‘Should colonies be built on Mars?’

Massola is a newbie in Jakarta; the job used to be ‘Indonesian correspondent’. Now it covers Southeast Asia – population more than 600 million.

Academics brought the hyperbole down with a thud. Foremost was Aaron Connelly, research fellow at the Lowy Institute who tweeted: ‘Reality check: Australia has not been invited to join ASEAN, and will not be invited to join ASEAN in our lifetimes. Jokowi was offering a "Javanese response," trying to be polite.’

(Another Javanese reply that perplexes outsiders is: ‘Why not?’ This doesn’t mean ‘yes’ or ‘no’ or even ‘maybe’.)

Writing on The Conversation Dedi Dinarto from Singapore’s Nanyang Technological University reminded that Australia was already in a couple of big boys’ clubs where they talk guns and bombs - ANZUS (Australia, New Zealand, United States Security Treaty and NATO, the North Atlantic Treaty Organisation.

‘The aggressive nature of these pacts goes against ASEAN’s non-interference principle. ASEAN emphasises the absence of external military hostility as its core principle,’ he said.

Then there’s the rule of law and human rights abuses – issues which greatly trouble Australians. They would not keep Mum in situations like Myanmar’s purging of Rohingya; nor would they shut up about the sanctioned arbitrary killing of real or imagined drug dealers in the Philippines (President Rodrigo Duterte didn’t front the summit), or the widespread crushing of peaceful dissent in states tracking their way into totalitarianism.

The only imaginable benefit is that Australian officials could help prop up the hotel bars following some of the hundreds of chatathons held every year.  They could swap name cards, share golf tips and keep personal numbers on speed-dial should trouble flare.

ASEAN was created in 1967 as an anti-communist block. Today three members are Red states  - Vietnam, Laos and Cambodia, the last two sticking close to China. Now the only common glue is geography.

There are four ‘emerging’ democracies (Indonesia, Singapore, Malaysia and the Philippines) two military dictatorships (Thailand and Myanmar) and one authoritarian sultanate (Brunei). Apart from Thailand all were once ruled by colonial powers.

Each state is supposedly equal. All must approve applicants. This ensures Australia can never join under the present arrangement as any one nation can veto.

The rules insist on non-interference in each other’s internal affairs so the statements issued after each meeting are gems in polishing thousands of words to say nothing.

  Australian Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull, who hosted the summit, avoided his culture’s directness and offered a more Javanese reply to reporters’ questions about joining ASEAN: ‘I will look forward to discussing that with President Jokowi if he raises it with me’.

Apparently he didn’t.

So far, other members have not responded to Jokowi’s rubbery response, though former Malaysian PM Mahatir Mohamad, in another Fairfax interview, thought Australia in ASEAN might happen one day when Australia becomes ‘more Asian than European.’

About 12 per cent of Australians have Asian ancestry; however ethnicity is no guarantee of enthusiasm to recouple with the nation they fled. 

Cambodian PM Hun Sen was apparently unaware that in Australia violence leads to prosecution, however important the perpetrator. He respected his hosts by threatening to ‘beat’ those protesting against his presence at the summit. They still waved their banners and shouted slogans, grateful they’re not in Phnom Penh.

There’s also no public enthusiasm.  A Twitter straw poll has shown Indonesians and Australians averse to the idea of Australia in ASEAN. This isn’t surprising; despite all the goodwill statements at government level, Mohammad and Sri in their Jakarta kampong are just as wary of their neighbour as Myrtle and Sam are in a Sydney suburb.

So what’s behind the Oz in ASEAN push?  Dobell reasons that ‘as the geostrategic and geo-economic pressures build in Asia, ASEAN, as a middle-power grouping, needs the extra middle-power heft offered by Australia and NZ.

This would make sense if foreign affairs were conducted by white-coated social scientists in an isolated lab sealed off from outside germs.

But in a world where strategic groupings are subject to political realities infected by different histories, cultures, perceptions and ideologies, Australia in ASEAN is a dead duck. It just needs a quiet burial with no marker.

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First published in On Line Opinion, 16 April 2018: http://www.onlineopinion.com.au/view.asp?article=19674

JOKOWI GOES WALKABOUT

Stepping carefully Down Under

After two years in office Indonesian President Joko ‘Jokowi’ Widodo has an Australian visit scheduled for November. Outcomes and hopes may not sync.  Duncan Graham reports:

Jokowi’s door knock comes a year after new Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull’s invite when the men spent a half day together in Jakarta.  That speed date was billed as a relationships ‘reset’ after drug smugglers Andrew Chan and Myuran Sukumaran were executed in April, 2015. Australia was outraged and ambassadors recalled.

Jokowi was urged to rapidly ride the goodwill wave that followed Turnbull’s unseating of Tony Abbott.  The former PM had been on the nose in Indonesia for coupling Australia’s 2004 Indian Ocean tsunami aid with appeals to end the death penalty.

The President ignored the advice.  Turnbull’s popularity rapidly waned.  In July he called an election but plans went awry.

His conservative government now holds office by a whisker. A rise in right-wing bigotry has let the Islamophobic One Nation Party into the Senate, and the mining-dependent economy has slumped.

Then Indonesians learned they’re unloved.  An Australia-Indonesia Centre survey showed 47 percent of Australians view their northern neighbor unfavourably – preferring folk from almost anywhere else in Asia - even repressive China.

On the ledger’s other side 87 per cent of Indonesians had positive views of Australia, mostly gleaned from the media for few visit; here’s another matter to address as visa rules and costs are travel deterrents.

When announcing Jokowi’s first State visit Down Under, Foreign Minister Retno Marsudi promoted the nebulous STD formula - Security, Trade, and Defence – as reason enough for chats.

Free trade is top of the menu, but unlikely to yield as Indonesia is deeply protectionist. More Australian investment depends on Indonesia establishing the rule of law and crushing corruption.

Marsudi said the President’s trip would ‘enhance economic cooperation’.  Also in bold type: Counter-terrorism, cyber crime and people smuggling plus fish and beef issues.  All necessary – and insufficient. 

‘Bi-lateral ties’ feature so commonly in these pronouncements that every male delegate should wear one; female negotiators could model ‘close-knit relationships’ which are forever ‘warm’.

Jokowi’s attendance at the 2014 G20 Brisbane summit was not a State visit.  This time he may include Sydney where his eldest son, businessman Gibran Rakabuming Raka, 28, had some tertiary education.

The President is expected to address the Federal Parliament in Canberra but he’s neither an orator in his own tongue nor a competent English speaker.  He won’t eclipse his predecessor Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono’s stirring speech in 2012 labelled ‘transformative’ by hardnose political commentators.

The euphoria didn’t last. A year later international media revealed that Australian spies had been bugging the phones of SBY and his wife Ani.  Abbott refused to apologise.

There’ll be more official announcements as Jokowi’s schedules are sharpened, maybe a few cultural exchanges and some flavoursome clichés.  Turnbull has already matched Marsudi’s rhetoric with statements about ‘deep and broad-ranging’ partnerships.

So far nothing to indicate any lasting intellectual engagement to dilute the distrust exposed by the AIC poll.  Indonesian language and culture studies, which should be the foundation for better understanding, are dropping off the curriculum despite academic protests.

Earlier this year Australian National University Professor Frank Bongiorno wrote of Australian leaders’ ideas about Asia.  He said many have ‘a narrower vision of relations with Asia … As in the past, the temptation is to try to bend Asia to the economic and political purposes of the present’.

Some issues won’t bend to fit the Australian agenda.   Seaweed farmers in the eastern islands want Jokowi to scrap the 1997 treaty between Indonesia and Australia on the Timor Sea Exclusive Economic Zone.

The farmers are suing for damages allegedly caused by the Montara 30,000 barrel oil spill which polluted the Timor Sea after a 2009 drill rig blowout.

The treaty, signed when dictator General Soeharto held power, is also under attack by Timor Leste.  The former Indonesian province wants the document reworked to give a greater share of undersea resources. The parties have been before the UN Conciliation Commission.

Should the mild-mannered Javanese leader speak up Australia is likely to use the ‘legal processes underway’ excuse to dodge debate.

Less easy to avoid is Indonesia’s treatment of Papuan dissidents which concerns human rights advocates.  It’s also rattling Pacific nations which see a Melanesian bond with indigenous Papuans.  

Vanuatu and Solomon Islands raised their worries at a UN Human Rights Council session in June.  They were slapped down by Indonesian delegates using their standard ‘sovereign rights’ argument against outside involvement in domestic issues.

Australia’s official position has long been non-interference and recognition of Indonesia’s ‘Unitary State’, but NGOs don’t do the diplomatic waltz.  

Allegations of civilians abused by heavy-handed military don’t get much airplay in Indonesia; but they do in Australia where church groups and activists back self-determination for what they call West Papua.

The issue of almost 14,000 asylum seekers stranded in the archipelago en-route to Australia when the smugglers’ boats were stopped may also get an airing. Australia wants a ‘regional solution’ but Indonesians say that’s NATO – No Action, Talk Only.

Indonesia’s harsh treatment of gays is another issue which might rile protestors.

Although no Australians are currently on death row, abhorrence of capital punishment is widespread and likely to be raised in demonstrations. Security will minimise direct Presidential embarrassment, but accompanying journalists will not ignore placard wavers.

The shriller the statements, the more Indonesians will be inflamed as nationalism sweeps the nation. After the executions of Chan and Sukumaran The Courier Mail ran a front page mock up of a smiling Jokowi showing a bloody hand. 

Anything similar this time could result in the President cancelling his walkabout and staying home where the electorate still loves its leader.

But all this could be drowned by an event far from Australian-Indonesian relations.  Although official dates for Jokowi’s visit have yet to be announced insiders say it’s currently scheduled to start around 10 November. The Canberra Parliament then rises for an 11-day break.

By then the media typhoon will be swirling around results of the US Presidential election leaving space for little else.

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(First filed on 18 October.  An edited version was published in Strategic Review on 4 November when more details of the President's trip were known.)

NO RESET YET

Stopover charm is not enough                                       

Instead of a long state visit Malcolm Turnbull used a ten-hour Jakarta stopover for his first official trip as PM to meet the northern neighbors. 

The much-reported reason before he dashed to Berlin was to ‘reset’ the relationship.

A ‘reset’ follows a circuit-breaker trip.  Flick a switch and if there’s no system fault the lights come on. Easy.

Not this time.

After a year in office we understand little about President Joko (Jokowi) Widodo other than he’s indecisive, believes shooting traffickers fixes drug problems and is powerless to stop regular illegal firestick-farming threatening world health.

We also know the leader of the world’s third largest democracy blows thought bubbles (which his ministers pop) on issues like joining the TPP, and appears awkward at international events.  The Jakarta Post explained this was his ‘contemplative nature’.

Much is scuttlebutt – that he doesn’t read documents, is beholden to oligarchs and bored by foreign affairs.  Newsclips of his meeting last month in the US with Barack Obama and business heads did nothing to erase these calumnies.

On the upside the nation has not been ripped by vengeful losers following the 2014 election. There have been health care reforms and fuel subsidies partially removed. The seventh president is not a military fascist. WYSIWYG, a plain man free of guile. 

His party patron Megawati Soekarnoputri once claimed he was too thin to be a real politician.  If girth equals graft then slender Jokowi should be whistle-clean.

This doesn’t help him wade through Jakarta’s political slimepit, but it endears him to the electorate, though love is on the wane.  Polls showing approval down from 70 to 50 per cent in a year reflect dismay that performance hasn’t matched promise.

He’s failed the smoke alarm test with the fires in Kalimantan; now another challenge looms – a rice shortage following droughts.  If prices rocket with imports the masses will not confine their rage to tweets.

Real warmth between the two leaders will probably remain elusive but Turnbull did well – he smiled a lot and it looked sincere.  Abbott-style pugnacity wins no friends in the Republic where personality trumps policy and visitors must be halus – refined, gracious and sensitive – and have a sense of fun. 

The PM and his wife Lucy obliged. Charm disarms.  Jokowi took Turnbull to the overcrowded Tanah Abang textile market for one of his trademark blusukan (walkabout among ordinary folk).

 Indonesian media described the informal scene as ‘hot, stuffy and boisterous’ but Jokowi was in his element, looking happier than usual.  Jacketless Turnbull, snapping selfies, seemed amused.

Certainly a few hours facetime is better than a diplomatic note, but change won’t come through speed dating.  This courtship needs to be Java-style - slow and seemly.

Turnbull seeking contact points spoke of both being in business. The link is slight.

The silvertail lawyer and banker grew up with vistas of Sydney Harbour; the provincial furniture trader was raised in a shack illegally pitched by the Solo River – not for the view but its ablution values.

One was a Rhodes Scholar – the other an unexceptional forestry graduate. Now the two men have to see each other’s perspective.

The other much thumped drum is that Indonesia is ‘our most important relationship. Absolutely – though the feeling is one-way.  More worrying is that Australian governments have long been hypocritical, disbelieving their own rhetoric.

If otherwise the Turnbulls would have spent relaxed days, not hours in Indonesia, reviving friendships built over long careers in public life.

There’d be no need for a ‘biggest ever’ 300-strong business delegation coming in Turnbull’s wake because substantial trade would have been built long ago.  Communications with Jakarta would be as stable as they are with Manila and Singapore.

No costly ephemeral PR exercise called Window on Australia because the image would already be benign. If that money had been put into scholarships the number of Indonesians currently studying in Australia (below 14,000) might overtake the Nepalese,

Jokowi’s pre-election statements included Nawacita (nine principles, mainly motherhoods) and Mental Revolution. This called for a strong military, food and energy independence and reduced reliance on foreign investment.  The delegation led by Trade Minister Andrew Robb might ask if these short documents are still valid.

Business opportunities are being crimped by Jokowi’s capricious approach to policy, a tumbling rupiah and the growth of strident nationalism and protectionism.

Earlier this year Melbourne University Professor Tim Lindsey told a Griffith Asia Institute forum that the Australian public was generally hostile and ill-informed about Indonesia.   The polls prove his point, and the situation is getting worse.

The government hasn’t seriously backed Indonesian studies which Lindsey predicted will be extinct within eight years. This isn’t a new universe in the galaxy – other educators have been observing the same for much of this century.

Presumably Robb’s mob is Asia-aware, but if the pessimists are right the next generation of Australian exporters and investors will know little about their market.

The Turnbull trip listed the standard trinity of topics favoured by visiting Australian politicians – trade, security and investment. All important but having no immediate impact on the daily lives of the toilers; they tend to see their neighbour seeking to control Christian Eastern Indonesia according to polls cited by Lindsey.

Window on Australia should help diminish ignorance about Australia, but doesn’t confront the absurdity of a secular sport-obsessed nation having neo-colonial ambitions.   Indonesians fought for four years to expel the Dutch; they can be seismometer-sensitive to real or imagined threats to sovereignty in ways Australians find hard to understand.

Edgy issues like the death penalty and visas were off the agenda. The problem of 11,000 asylum seekers stuck in the Archipelago while heading to Australia was apparently not addressed.  This was despite Indonesian kite-flying ahead of the leaders’ meeting which Turnbull kept stressing was about ‘jobs and growth’.  So the failed boat people’s fate remains a pebble in the shoe.

After the meeting came statements no-one could fault – the need for more cooperation, cattle breeding and tourism. No detail, no contracts, no aid packages.

Contrary to some media reports this was not Turnbull’s first overseas trip as PM.  His priority was tiny, placid New Zealand for two days last month. He’ll spend more time in Malaysia coming back from Europe than the nation where the relationship is allegedly so important.

Academics, businesspeople and others with long-term knowledge of Indonesia say building good connections needs time and personal engagement.  This trip says the government knows it knows better.

Indonesians are too polite to say so, but they recognize the realities:  The Australian PM comes across far better than Abbott. He appeared to have had a fun break. But his real mission was in Europe and elsewhere where he’ll meet 19 other world leaders.

No reset yet.  The system faults remain but the two men seem to have found a switch. Maybe the switch.

(First published in New Mandala on 13 November 2015 http://asiapacific.anu.edu.au/newmandala/2015/11/13/stopover-charm-is-not-enough/

and The Canberra Times on 14 November 2015)

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