Sulistiyanto: Discussing Bilateral Relationship Between Australia and Indonesia

Due to the isolation of Australia geographically, surrounding countries and their economies are extremely important to Australia for instances such as trade, influence and partnerships. Indonesia is one of Australia’s closest neighbours and hence there would be some obvious similarities as well as differences due to the economic status of the country’s stage of development and the role of the Government.

In handling bilateral relationships, the Government often claims to have adopted an integrated approach taking into account the totality of Australian interests. But, a closer analyses of this claim reveals it would be almost impossible to meet the totality of Australia’s interests in any bilateral relationship and this is especially true of China which has such a different socio-political system. This close relationship continues to raise political questions for Australia to grapple with, such as her relations with Taiwan, Tibet and Chinese human rights issues. In some instances Australias interests will be confined mainly to trade and investment; in the more substantial bilateral relationships, the Government will implement comprehensive strategies

Secondly, people smuggling and refugees is a primary determiner of the conflict between Australia and Indonesia. From 2001 onwards, this has become a big issue in both countries, with the increased flow of migrants by boat trying to seek asylum in countries either for a better life or to avoid persecution in their countries of origin. In Australia, the problem has been that of determining between the statuses of the two types of asylum seekers. Since Tony Abbott came into power with his ‘stop the boats’ policy, he has mandated the strict enforcement of the detention of asylum

Australia needed allies due to the changing situations in a global context. Australia traditionally had connections with Britain in terms of trade, defence, aid and strategical ties. However, this all changed due to circumstances such as defence, economy and trade. This led to concerns of economic prosperity, defence and remaining a Western country. As a result, Australia was forced to form allies when these situations arise. Australia has ties with the United States in relation to defence, with China in relation to trade and economically and with Japan in terms of defence, trade and strategy. The following essay will make comparisons between Australia and the countries of China, Japan and the United States. Furthermore, this essay will justify

Australia and Indonesia are one of the closest neighbouring countries, and even though they have had several issues between each other, they are still managed to promote a good relationship between them, yet it has been proven that Australia and Indonesia are difficult to forge a stable and productive relationship as the national interest of Australia and Indonesia have been conflicted from the last seven decades, regardless of which party has been controlling there in Canberra (8). Initially their relation has been apparently stimulated by the case of execution of Bali Nine ‘co-ringleaders’ Andre Chan and Myuran Sukumaran (6). As well as, the other reason that affects their relationship is the geographic closeness between the two countries,

Some leading scholars, both Indonesian and foreigner have identified the drawbacks of legal systems in Indonesia. Lev (1990) revealed that harsh criticisms of the law in Indonesia have actually begun since 1960, especially when social injustice began to occur. Alkostar (2000) then argued the cause of this situation because of the misuses of law enforcement. Next, Juwana (2006) analysed how the legislators did not give proper attention to whether laws that they made later can be implemented or not, especially in areas outside Java island as the gap between Java and outside Java was still high. Furthermore, some laws were not realistic because they have been issued to follow an order of the political elite, foreign countries and international financial institutions instead of people’s demand. For example, the political elite may determine that legislation was enacted in

Indonesia is the largest economy in South-East Asia; it has progressed into a decentralized electoral democracy and has managed to reduce its overall poverty from 17 percent in 2004 to 11 percent in 2014. However, despite their steady economy and major improvements, nearly 40 percent of Indonesia lives just above the poverty line. Additionally, Indonesian public services and health standards fall behind other middle-income countries; these facts combined with their high rates of maternal mortality, child malnutrition, and insufficient access to education place Indonesia in the developing or Third World realm. Indonesia’s history, geographic position, abundance of natural resources, wars and conquest, as well as trade has fundamentally shaped the economic and political structure. Furthermore, leadership influence, intervening forces, and its colonial masters have also played a large role in constructing the systems of this developing country.

Indonesia currently cooperates with the US and contributes to regional efforts to ensure a stable and predictable regional order in Asia-Pacific. Indonesia stresses that it doedominated the region dominated by any one major country or a group of countries. Indonesia is currently working to establish a regional environment where the East Asia Summit(EAS) along with the US and Russia become the main facilitators of an Asian-Pacific wide community. With that being said, Indonesia hopes the partnership with the US will contribute to the realization of this endeavor.

In order for Indonesians to free themselves from the grip of colonialist, they need to work hard because their traditional weapons are not able to expel them (The colonialist) away from Indonesia. We lost due to the lack of unity (they were fighting the colonialist as a kingdom, not as Indonesia). In this position, Soekarno sees that the number one weapon to attack the enemies is by having a larger unity, by spreading the soul of nationalism to the people of Indonesia. There are two reasons why Soekarno thinks that way.

Reports that Australian intelligence services were intercepting communications of the Indonesian president and senior officials began to cause friction. According to an Open Source Editorial, Australia chose not to clarify whether or not they had been intercepting communications, however, apologized for their actions. Later, in August 2014, both countries reaffirmed their commitment to strengthening bilateral relations and both countries’ Minister of Foreign Affairs signed a Joint Understanding in implementation of the Lombok Treaty, that provides an agreed approach to enhance intelligence cooperation between Australian and Indonesian agencies (Department of Foreign Affairs, 2015).

Despite Indonesia being a signatory the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples, the indigenous people say they are not allowed to enjoy its benefits. Several conflicts between businesses and the indigenous are reported monthly. There are some changes that have been felt in the last decade since the state amended the constitution to recognize the indigenous people’s rights. The law also stresses the right of indigenous people to their

Generally, worldwide exercises were the aftereffects of the moves made by the central governments, yet this is changing in the realm of today. Progressively, these activities involve the distinctive on-screen characters. International relations can, therefore, be defined as the collaborations investigations among the different performers that take an interest in universal legislative issues, including states, global organizations, nongovernmental associations, people and sub-national substances (Mingst, 1999). Political researchers have also created speculations both to comprehend the major reasons to occasions that occur nationwide relations and answer the foundational inquiries in the same field.

Two glaring differences between the two countries are probably the population size and religious composition. However, Indonesia’s bigger size and muslim-majority religious composition should play against Indonesia’s favor in terms of democracy, and yet we have seen completely the opposite with the two countries.

Goods and services produced in a country and being sold outside is globally known as export (Mankiw, 2004:240). Suppose that a country do an International Trade and become an exporter of some goods, domestic producers will get more benefits, while local consumers will get loss because the local price is higher. However, government policy about the opening of international trade itself will be profitable for both concerned countries (Mankiw, 2006:221).For Indonesia, the activities of the export has been encouraged since 1983. In the same year, export was getting more attention in order to spur Indonesia economy growth. Indonesia slowly changes its strategy of industrialization, from the emphasis on import substitution industries to export promotion industries. Along with this new policy, the economy of Indonesia is getting better. It was proven in 2008 that the cumulative value of export reached USD 118,430million, in other words it increased by 26.92 percent, while for non oil and natural gas sector reached USD 92,260million or increased by 21.63 percent. The other sector, for instance agricultural, industry, and mining had also increased, each by 34.65 percent, 21.04 percent, and 21.57 percent compared to the previous year.

Since the beginning of the declaration of independence by Soekarno in 1945, Indonesia started to create its own political system. It started with the era of Soekarno as president with guided democracy. Then, after 5 years passed, the leaders thought that the political system should be change to parliamentary democracy. In this political system, it pointed the prime minister as the head of the government and the role of president as the head of the state.