Over the course of the past eighteen months relations between Australia and Indonesia has steadily deteriorated. It’s a relationship that has historically been a challenging one for Australia for a variety of reasons, but the recent fissures are in reality more driven by the rise of populist leaders in both countries with a penchant for xenophobic dog whistling.
From an Australian perspective, the outlook for our partnership with Indonesia looked like heading into rough waters as soon as the country elected the Liberal-National coalition in September of 2013. This was due to the fact that Tony Abbott, the Coalition’s leader and now Prime Minister, had as one of the few pillars of his campaign a commitment to “turn back the boats.”
This simple slogan referenced a plan to stop the illegal people smuggling trade which had caused the previous Labor government a considerable amount of political grief. But the undercurrent to the policy was classic xenophobic dog-whistling.
Although it is certainly true that the number of boat arrivals had been increasing under the Labor government, it was never the epidemic that the conservative Coalition painted it to be. Mostly this was done by ignoring the greater global context surrounding refugee intakes and simply quoting large sounding absolute numbers like the 15,800 that arrived during the 2013, when the issue was reaching fever pitch Australia. But there was little mention of the fact that we ranked 69th in the world for refugee intake in absolute terms and 49th in per capita terms.
To be fair, the rate was increasing, but even then the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) estimated that Australia received about three per cent of the total asylum claims made in industrialised countries around the world and, “by comparison, asylum levels in Australia continue[d] to remain below those recorded by many other industrialised and non-industrialised countries”.
But in the end it didn’t matter. The Coalition had taken Australians’ inherent fear of being overrun by the foreign “boat people” they also often described as “illegals.” Given that the people smuggling trade was anchored in Indonesia, a policy of “turning back the boats” necessitated the Australian Navy get fairly close to Indonesian territorial waters. Indeed, by February 2014 the Australian media had already reported that this proximity had already resulted in the Navy had wandered into these waters six times in the process of enacting the new government’s boats policy.
Indonesians, much like Australians, are somewhat insecure about their position in the world and don’t like the perception they are being bullied by outsiders, led to quick condemnation from Indonesia, with then Foreign Minister Marty Natalegawa quickly becoming a vocal critic of the Abbott government’s policy, in one instance in March 2014 accusing Australia of simply seeking to dump the problem on Indonesians with no regard for their sovereignty.
This context informed the relationship in the lead up to Indonesia’s own elections in October of 2014, which would ultimately be won by former Jakarta Governor and furniture entrepreneur Joko Widodo. Mr Widodo, or simply “Jokowi,” as he is known in Indonesia, replaced Susilo Banban Yudhoyono, a leader with decades of experience in military and foreign affairs and under whom the country had dramatically improved its relations with its neighbours.
The absence of Yudhoyono’s foreign policy experience was quickly felt. Jokowi, much like Australia’s Tony Abbott, had run his campaign with a strong emphasis on a topic that had international ramifications: the drug trade. Jokowi had campaigned strongly for the reintroduction of the death penalty, which had been suspended indefinitely (but not removed) under Yudhoyono, for drug traffickers.
The policy very quickly put Jokowi on a collision course with Australia, which along with several other countries had citizens imprisoned in Indonesia on drug charges. Australia’s two prisoners, named Andrew Chan and Myuran Sukumaran, had been sentenced to death in 2005, but remained in prison for a decade the death penalty’s suspension. In that time the two men had demonstrated considerable remorse for their crimes and shown every sign of being rehabilitated.
But this didn’t matter; Jokowi had lobbied to reinstating the death penalty for drug offenders while running for government and within months of taking office had reinstated the death penalty and began a strong push to have it applied.
Whilst it was a campaign pledge, Jokowi’s push happened to coincide with a rapid drop in his approval ratings following his appointment to the chief of police a man who was under corruption charges by Indonesia’s ‘Corruption Eradication Commission’. This is a highly regarded institution referred to via the acronym KPK (representing the Indonesian name). Jokowi’s new appointee to the Chief of Police then proceeded to arrest the KPK’s leader on spurious charges, bringing the stench of corruption to Jokowi’s doorstep. Corruption is a critical issue in Indonesian politics, so to deflect against it, Jokowi embraced the persecution of foreign drug smugglers.
Naturally, as Indonesia itself has foreign nationals on death row, the governments of the countries these inmates originated from lobbied for their release. It was always an uphill battle, but Australia’s proximity and history with Indonesia made our government’s interactions all the more complex.
Therefore, when Prime Minister Tony Abbott tried to remind Indonesia that Australians had donated one billion dollars to assist them following the 2004 tsunami it went up like a lead balloon. Indonesians publicly protested the comments and some even held events in which they collected money so they could send the aid back.
On the face of it, Mr. Abbott’s comments didn’t seem terribly unreasonable, but such is the politics of populism. Indeed, Mr. Abbott probably should have seen it coming, particularly given he reacted to a United Nations Report suggesting Australia’s asylum seeker policy had breached aspects of the UN convention against torture by simply saying he was “sick of being lectured” by the UN. But then this response was given after Mr. Abbott had been suffering what then appeared a terminal hit to his popularity in the polls and was looking for easy targets.
Ultimately, Australia’s protestations on behalf of its two doomed citizens proved futile, but such is the irrational lure of populist politics to insecure leaders that little could realistically have been done to save them. Australia responded by withdrawing its ambassador and made comments regarding human rights and the like it had just spurned from the UN.
This final act has seen the relationship hit a new low, but it is still far from beyond repaired. It simply requires that the leaders in both countries look beyond populist xenophobia when they next seek to gain the support of their respective electorates.
Daniel O’Toole is currently employed at the Japan External Trade Organisation, based in Sydney, Australia. He has extensive degrees and knowledge of Australian and international politics. His twitter handle: @dotpols
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