SHUFFLING AROUND

Still in the groove                    

In pre-digital days journalists reporting inaction on critical issues favored the metaphor of a needle stuck on a record turntable.

The revival of vinyl has kept the cliche circulating - particularly with new urgings to stop Australian-Indonesian relations from forever going round and round.

The latest wind-up comes from a well-intentioned group of 21 academics, economists, business people, NGOs and public servants; they gathered in Perth in July for a  closed-door session seeking better ways for the two nations to cooperate. This Track 2 (outside official channels) initiative was engineered by the USAsia Centre at the University of Western Australia.

The result of the one-day 'extensive in-depth discussions' is the just-released report The Power of Proximity: Enhancing Australian-Indonesian Economic Relations.   Grand title - but that's about all.

The test of any think tank's effectiveness is whether it articulates practical action or is struggling for traction. The latter is the case here - only half the 12-pages have much to say and even less that's original. The words sound energising but none have driving power.

To be fair this was not the ambitious matchmakers' fault.  Their brief was worthy but flawed.  The difficulties in getting Indonesia and Australia to develop a trustful relationship after years of hot-cold wariness are formidable. Repairs require firm political will on both sides of the Arafura Sea.

Professor Tim Lindsey of Melbourne University once called the two countries the 'odd couple' of Southeast Asia. The pair live in the same location but long-term  marital tensions are too strained to share one bed.

The one politician present at the workshop and only as an observer was Bill Johnston, the West Australian Minister for Asian Engagement.  This is the smallest of his four portfolios. The two biggest names Marty Natalegawa (Foreign Affairs) and Mari Pangestu (Trade) are former ministers long out of office.

All the report's ten recommendations carry auxiliary verbs rather than imperatives. Although many participants were more mid and regional than peak and central - Indonesia’s official reps were from consulates - most had long records in the game and their voices deserve the ears of government.   

In the current climate those who get heard are inner circle ambassadors, Cabinet ministers from Jakarta and Canberra, gold star corporate tycoons and party  chessmasters with the president or prime minister's numbers on speed dial. When these giants murmur things happen.  

The report's author Kyle Springer from the USAsia Centre later commented that  'Australia simply has yet to see Indonesia as an opportunity ...There is yet a narrative of Indonesia’s rise and what it could mean for Australian businesses ... Instead of perceiving each other as a threat, they should choose to see each other as an opportunity.' The repetition suggests exasperation.

But why?  The answers get nudged out for this room is full of elephants.  The pachyderms which won't leave include the growth of fundamentalist Islam, surging nationalism, whether the Indonesian military is playing political games, and human rights concerns in West Papua.

For the Indonesians it's fear that Australia is plotting to fracture the Unitary State by supporting secessionists, and promote 'liberal lifestyles' - code for acceptance of homosexuality. Any of these beehives could be tipped over by agents provocateurs in the lead-up to the 2019 General Elections.

The closest the report's language gets to reality is this comment: 'Bilateral crises derail progress on economic issues and Australia and Indonesia lack a mechanism to manage and communicate during diplomatic crises'. That should be an all-stations alert.

To an outsider the equations look simple: One highly-efficient exporter just over the horizon from 260 million people in an economy growing at three per cent annually. Why does Australia do more trade with tiny New Zealand (population 4.5 million) than the colossus that's closer?

How come more than a million Australians every year holiday with the Balinese but Indonesians don't dart Down Under for a break?  Just 156,000 made the short trip after negotiating a 15-page visa questionnaire and paying more than AUD 150.  Australians have visa-free entry into Indonesia.

Outside the forum participant Ross Taylor, president of the Australian-based Indonesia Institute echoed exasperation: “We talk about building closer links,” he told Strategic Review. “But both governments still make it hard for young people to move between our two countries due to unnecessary red-tape”.

Why is the fourth largest country in the world desperate for infrastructure investment but Australian developers aren't building?  They see Indonesia as high-risk with a questionable legal system. Australia invested AUD 2.2 trillion overseas last year but only AUD1.9 billion in Indonesia.  

But as Springer points out, China: 'with its lack of government transparency, shaky property rights, and bureaucratic corruption, it actually falls rather close to Indonesia on the World Bank’s ease of doing business index.'

For the record China ranks 78, thirteen points better than Indonesia.

The Power of Proximity leans on the trade trends report The World in 2050 by the international financial analyst Pricewaterhouse Coopers. 

This forecasts Indonesia overtaking Russia, Mexico and Brazil to become the fourth largest economy behind China, India and the US.

Fogging the USAsia group's vision has been the awkward progress of the Indonesia – Australia Comprehensive Partnership Agreement (IA-CEPA).  Negotiations are supposed to be finalised this year.

The laptops were opened in 2013, closed over domestic disputes, and rebooted in 2016.  Once called 'free trade talks' the term is now seldom heard suggesting the results will not meet expectations.

(In a separate forum Mari Pangestu revealed that while Trade Minister she talked of 'fair trade' to avoid antagonising economic nationalists.)

The Power of Proximity continues the trend of trade-or-fade auguries and muted responses.  The conservatives in Canberra seem more concerned with defence and security believing trade is best left to free-market entrepreneurs.

The experts who gathered in Perth are not so convinced, concluding: 'In short, despite robust diplomatic, political and military ties Australia and Indonesia have yet to fully take advantage of the power of proximity.'  

The needle stays stuck.

First published in Strategic Review 16 October 2017

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DESTINED TO BE DIFFERENT AND MISUNDERSTOOD?

Can we ever be mates?  
                                         

It all started so well.  In 1945 and during the following four-year struggle for independence against the Dutch, Australians were mainly on the revolutionaries’ side.

That was largely through sympathetic reporting by the small number of Jakarta-based foreign correspondents.  British and Dutch newsmen [it took many years before women got overseas postings] were regarded with suspicion, but Australians were seen to be friends.

No longer.  What’s gone wrong? Long before President Joko Widodo stopped taking phone calls from Prime Minister Tony Abbott and went ahead with the judicial killing of two Australian drug traffickers, there had been missteps, stumbles and tumbles.

After the fall of first president Soekarno in 1965 it seemed that relationships between the neighbors would improve.  The stridently anti-communist Soeharto took control, Konfrontasi was cancelled and fears of a Red Invasion vanished.

But ten years later Indonesian troops killed five Australian media workers at the East Timor town of Balibo, a story pursued since ‘with vigorous determination’ though no one has been convicted for what Australians see as murder.

It’s likely few Indonesians have heard of the event because books and a feature film have been banned – but the people next door have not forgotten.

‘For many Australian journalists the deaths of their colleagues were a rallying point for exposing Australian government complicity in covering up inconvenient details of the event in order to maintain positive relations with Indonesia,’ writes  Ross Tapsell in  By-Lines, Balibo, Bali Bombings, a history of the way Australian reporters have covered the Republic.

Don’t be discouraged by the silly alliterative title.  The author is an academic at the Australian National University and has based his research on interviews with those who were there.

After Balibo the Indonesian government started expelling foreign journalists.  That didn’t stop reporting or commentary.  A 1986 Sydney Morning Herald [SMH] story about corruption in the President’s family gave heart to Indonesians who hated the repression and graft of the New Order government, but infuriated an administration that had long conflated reporting with promotion of national development.  The slogan was ‘free but responsible’, with the government determining the definition.

Five years later came the Santa Cruz massacre when Indonesian troops gunned down at least 250 protestors in Dili.  The tragedy was widely reported in Australia where sympathies were with the Timorese who had helped Australian troops in the war against Japan.

The 1999 Referendum which gave the Timorese their independence marked another low point, now used as the gauge to measure the current anguish following Indonesia’s use of the death penalty against drug traffickers.

Tapsell doesn’t just focus on the difficulties faced by Australian journalists trying to understand the complexities of Indonesia while satisfying the simplistic analyses of their bosses; he also recognises the work of the Indonesian support staff and the problems they faced.

The camera operators, translators, advisors and fixers have seldom been acknowledged, though Yenny Wahid, daughter of the late President Gus Dur who worked for the SMH, did win a Walkley Award.  She was nominated for Australia’s top prize not by her employer but her Australian colleague, Louise Williams.

The foreign correspondents agree that they would have struggled without the help of Indonesian staff who were crushed between two loyalties.  Indonesian bureaucrats and army generals demanded the Indonesians curb their Australian bosses’ interest in stories that might show the Republic in a bad light.

The answer to the question: ‘Whose side are you on?’ had to be: ’The Truth’ – but that was of no interest to partisan officials who believed ‘my country, right or wrong.’  When things went bad the foreigners could jet out of the country; the locals had to stay put and take the blame.

Strident nationalism isn’t exclusive to Indonesia.  Australian correspondents have also faced hostility from their own nation’s diplomats and leaders who believe reporters aggravate situations that could be handled better without public scrutiny.

Having media organizations send extra staff to Indonesia to cover big stories like the Schapelle Corby case can cause friction with correspondents who live in the country and understand the subtleties. 

The megaspectacles [like the recent executions] draw interest away from other issues and paint everything about this complex country in black or white.

Several Australian journalists, frustrated by an inability to get the big story published have written books about their experiences.  Though quickly out-of-date because events move so fast they provide insights into the making of history.

The job can lead to serious damage.  The ABC’s Peter Lloyd suffered so much stress after covering the Bali bombing in 2002 that he turned to drugs. Two Australian journalists died in the 2007 Garuda crash in Yogyakarta and one suffered horrific burns and lost both her legs

Cynthia Banham’s extraordinary recovery and return to the media says much about personal courage and commitment to journalism.  It’s curious that her story is not in the book.

Also absent is any mention of Michael Bachelard who reported for Fairfax Media till early this year and did far more than just cover Jakarta politics.  His long pieces on life outside the capital, including West Papua, filled the gaps in Australians’ knowledge of their neighbor.

Tapsell’s book is a reworking of an earlier doctoral thesis, but it should have been updated.

Apart from these omissions, a few mistakes and occasional sloppy sub-editing this useful book helps explain why Australians and Indonesians see the world so differently.

Why bother? The pay is lousy, the work intense and the risks great. Peter Lloyd said: ‘Ours is the high minded vocational pursuit of truth and meaning.  We’re in it to shine light where others would prefer it to remain dark… Even the most hard-faced, cynical old hack secretly believes it to be true.  Otherwise they wouldn’t still be doing the job.’

And if they didn’t democracy would be a hollow concept.

By-lines, Balibo, Bali Bombings                                                                                               

 by Ross Tapsell                                                                                                               

 Australian Scholarly Publishing, 2014    

First published in The Jakarta Post 29 June 2015)                                                                         

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