Andrew Bartlett (Queensland, Australian Democrats) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I move:

That the Senate take note of the document.

This is an agreement between Australia and the Republic of Indonesia on security cooperation that was adopted just a few weeks ago in Lombok. It is already known colloquially as the Lombok agreement. As a treaty, it will of course immediately stand referred to the Joint Standing Committee on Treaties of which I am a member. I do not seek to pre-empt that inquiry, but I do want to make a couple of points because I think that—as I have said publicly a number of times, including in this chamber—our relationship with Indonesia is a very important one and a very vexed one.

The history of human rights abuses in Indonesia and the history of the campaign for self-determination of the East Timorese has led to some degree of antagonism towards Indonesia in Australia. This has sometimes led to an instinctive knee-jerk anti-Indonesian response anytime there is any activity in Indonesia that causes concern. I know that can have the impact of obscuring some of the very significant advances that have been made in Indonesia in moving astonishingly rapidly towards democracy. To shift from an era of military dictatorship to what is a functional parliamentary democracy in a huge country that covers such an enormous area and has such a large number and diverse range of people is a challenge that I do not think many Australians fully appreciate.

I often feel torn between being very critical of continuing human rights problems in parts of Indonesia and wanting to acknowledge and encourage the very significant advances that Indonesia has made in the face of some very difficult challenges. In the couple of times that I have been there, the people I have met with, including members of parliament and government ministers, have been quite open about those challenges. The challenge of poverty is a very key area. Security is important and, as it states, this is the first security treaty with a regional country to comprehensively cover traditional and non-traditional threats. At first glance, I do not think it does comprehensively cover them because one of the big security threats—I do not know if you would call it traditional or non-traditional—is widespread poverty and inequality. There are certainly still a lot of problems there.

As has been widely noted, the treaty contains a recognition of the territorial integrity of Indonesia and respects that. That is an understandable thing to have in a treaty but it cannot be used as an excuse to turn a blind eye to what are very serious human rights abuses. One of the issues that really does present a dilemma with treaties like this is that it includes quite specifically, and probably centrally, continuing engagement and capacity building with the Indonesian military through exchanges, exercises and education. Frankly, whilst there have been some significant advances in civil society and in democracy in Indonesia in recent years, the key obstacle that remains is parts of the Indonesian military. That might be a bit undiplomatic to state, but it is a simple fact. We need to walk an incredibly fine tightrope between greater engagement—which I am all in favour of—and facilitating a greater strengthening of some of the elements of Indonesia that are a barrier to further progress.

That dilemma is something that I think the treaties committee should explore very closely. I would encourage those people in the Australian community who have views about this issue to engage with that process of the treaties committee because we do need to look at it closely. We do not want to just engage in knee-jerk anti-Indonesian rhetoric. We want to engage with Indonesia and I believe that we should, but we have to do it with our eyes open and in a mature way. I hope the committee inquiry process can enable that to happen.

Question agreed to.