Tanya Plibersek (Sydney, Australian Labor Party, Deputy Leader of the Opposition) Share this | Hansard source

I thank the minister for the opportunity to make a response. Labor very much welcomes the minister's announcement of a formal agreement to relaunch negotiations on the Indonesia-Australia Comprehensive Economic Partnership Agreement. As the minister said, we are close neighbours and we are good friends. We are very pleased to see an agreement to advance this stalled negotiation.

Negotiations on the Indonesia-Australia Comprehensive Economic Partnership Agreement commenced in Jakarta in September 2012, following an announcement by then President of the Republic of Indonesia, Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono, and then Prime Minister of Australia, Julia Gillard. The announcement of agreement to commence negotiations was made after their bilateral meeting in Jakarta in November 2010. So this is something that has been on the agenda of both countries for some time. It was one of a number of firsts in the relationship between Australia and Indonesia during the time of the last Labor government.

Between December 2007 and June 2013, there were almost 130 two-way high-level visits between Australia and Indonesia's leaders and ministers. I know that two-way travel has continued under the new government, because both sides of politics, of course, recognise that a change in government here and a change of president in Indonesia have meant that we need to continue to establish and re-establish our relationships. Prime Minister Rudd made a state visit to Indonesia in 2008, and that was the year of the inaugural counter-terrorism consultations between Australia and Indonesia in Jakarta. In March 2010, we had a very successful visit from President Yudhoyono to Canberra, and he became the first Indonesian leader to address the federal parliament—an address that was very well received by all parties here.

In November 2011, we saw the first annual Australia-Indonesia Leaders' Meeting held in Bali, and, in March 2012, the inaugural annual Australia-Indonesia 2+2 Foreign and Defence Ministerial Meeting was held in Canberra. That is a meeting that continues to be very useful for our two nations. Australia and Indonesia also co-chaired the South-East Asia Working Group of the Global Counter-Terrorism Forum, with the first working group meeting in Semarang in March 2012. In September 2012, the inaugural annual defence ministers' meeting between our two nations was held in Jakarta, and the defence cooperation arrangement between Australia and Indonesia was signed. In November 2012, the inaugural Australia, Indonesia and Timor-Leste trilateral leaders' summit was held in Bali. I mention some of these firsts in recent years because, along with the announcement today of the reinvigorated trade negotiations, it shows that it is important that, year upon year, we continue to build on the closeness of the relationship between our two nations.

Labor has always understood the importance of our relationship with Indonesia. In 1994, Paul Keating said:

No country is more important to Australia than Indonesia. If we fail to get this relationship right, and nurture and develop it, the whole web of our foreign relations is incomplete.

From the very first days of Labor's support for the independence of Indonesia, we have continued to focus on the importance of the strength of this relationship to our national prosperity and to our national security. The Chifley Labor government played a vital regional role in resisting the Dutch attempt at colonial restoration in Indonesia, and in supporting Indonesia's transition to independence. When I visit Indonesia I think that there is still a memory of the role that the Australian union movement and others played in supporting Indonesian independence—so much so, that the Indonesian foreign minister in the 1950s and 60s, Dr Subandrio, would later describe Australia as the 'midwife' of the Indonesian republic.

Labor will continue to work to strengthen this relationship. As shadow foreign minister, I have made a number of visits. I have also met, of course, with the previous foreign minister, with the current foreign minister, when she was in Australia at the end of last year, and with the Coordinating Minister for Economic Affairs, in recent months. This morning, I had the great pleasure, along with the Minister for Trade and Investment, of meeting with Mr Thomas Lembong, the Minister of Trade. The new Indonesian Minister of Trade comes with a very strong background in international business. He has worked in a number of different countries in some very prominent positions. He comes to the position as a moderniser, with great spirit and force, to implement the agenda of the President, saying that the Indonesians are very interested, for example, in attracting foreign direct investment and increasing the depth and the breadth of the economic relationship with Australia.

We welcome a number of other pieces of news that are important to the relationship between Indonesia and Australia and to the relationships we have across the region. Our economic relationship will be strengthened by the trading relations that the minister is pursuing, and they are a very important part of our relationship with Indonesia, but, of course, the diplomatic and security parts of our relationship are also very important. Australia welcomes the news that Indonesia and Timor-Leste have agreed to settle two unresolved points on their shared border. All countries want to be able to secure their borders, and to delineate those borders securely is the first step in being able to do that. That is why, earlier this year, I said that a Shorten Labor government would redouble our efforts to resolve the sea border dispute that we have with Timor-Leste.

I also want to take this opportunity to note that the Bali process meetings are coming up again. The next meeting of the Bali Process on People Smuggling, Trafficking in Persons and Related Transnational Crime will be next week, on 23 March. I know that Australia will be represented at a ministerial level at that meeting. I think it is very important to say very clearly and very firmly that Australia believes that there should be a regional approach to the movement of people and to resettling refugees in our region, and that we are very strong supporters of a regional approach in this matter.

I note that the Indonesian government has called upon Australia to take more refugees and, in that respect, Labor has committed to doubling our current intake of refugees to 27,000, should we be elected. I think that being more generous in the number of people we take is a good foundation for finding a way forward on a genuinely regional approach to issues around people smuggling, trafficking in persons and related transnational crime and the issue of refugees and asylum seeker resettlement more generally.

I will just finish by saying that our diplomatic relationship is important, our security and intelligence sharing is important and our economic relationship with Indonesia is important. The minister has quite rightly identified the fact that the Indonesian economy is strong and growing and that, most particularly, the number of people in the Indonesian middle class will continue to grow. That is, quite rightly, as the minister said, a great opportunity for Australian businesses, if we get the settings right. Indonesia is Australia's 12th largest trading partner, and we hope to continue to expand, deepen and broaden that trading relationship into the future.

See this speech in context