I was going to write something about Abbott’s mishandling of the latest spy fiasco, but I don’t think I can improve on Tad Tietze at Left Flank. I’ll just stress a few points
(a) Indonesia is now a democracy which means that the kind of cosy deals between military/security apparatchiks we used to do are just as constrained by Indonesian public opinion as by Australian if not more. I don’t know who the Indonesian equivalents of Ray Hadley and Alan Jones might be, but I can imagine what they are saying
(b) The idea, still underlying a lot of the discussion, that we can and should dictate terms to the Indonesians is nonsense. The US can get away with this kind of thing (though Obama was wise enough to end the bugging of Merkel’s phone), but we need the goodwill of the Indonesians at least as much as they need ours. The fact that neither we nor they are paragons of human rights policy or the treatment of minority groups is a case of attending to our own problems before lecturing others.
John Quiggin 
The current government is demonstrating on a number of fronts that international issues are being handled solely on the basis of internal political obsessions – this issue is one, climate change negotiations are another.
what is worrying beyond the actual policy itself is that Scott Morrison has indicated his puzzlement that Indonesia has not automatically fallen into line and acted as an agent of the Australian Government in its handling of irregular maritime events. He did not seem to be able to at least grasp intellectually the possibility that the Indonesian might see things differently from him.
It is odd to see Australian politicians using military figures to support their authority at briefings, whereas the Indonesians no longer need such figures to appeal to their people.
It seems Dumb Dumb has upset Bang Bang.
well well well.
serves them bloody well right.
just because hiding behind big noting misdirection,distortion,self rightious and secretive worked so well in Australia doesn’t mean it will work in Indonesia.
(best comment?
the other day in the fin: some one asked if they could claim education expensed for subscibing to an Indonesion newspaper. heh.)
expenses.
righteous.
It’s time for a little Realpolitiks. And remember I am not an Abbott supporter.
1. When did the spying happen? Under Abbott or under Gillard-Rudd? If under Gillard-Rudd as I believe, why is it Abbott’s fault?
2. All nations spy on all nations at all levels and everyone knows this. It is total hypocisy to pretend anything else. Indonesia has boasted of bugging the Australian embassy and spying on Australian politicians in the past.
3. Why is this situation any different? The Indonesian leader is simply playing to his domestic audience.
4. We need a refugee solution that doesn’t need Indonesia involved in any way.
5. What use is any co-operation with Indonesia? That’s just appeasement of their extreme right wing elite. Their long term goal is to conquer Australia. Remember West Irian, East Irian and South Irian (Australia)? Those sort of goals don’t change. Anyone who thinks otherwise is being hopelessly naive.
6. Indonesia is still an extreme right wing oligarchic-military dominated nation. The elite are very dangerous and inimical to their own masses and to us. “Democracy” there is an ineffective fig-leaf. I would suggest ending all co-operation with the Indonesion elites. There is nothing in it for us or their own poor people, only dangers.
PS. I agree we should not try to “dictate” anything to Indonesia. Of course, we cannot do that. But then neither do we have to interact in any way with Indonesia. There is absolutely no purpose served by interaction with Indonesia.
Ikonoclast, sorry but I think you are completely incorrect. If, as you believe we are on the long term target list surely our best defensive tactic is engagement. And that is on every level, adopting a fortress Australia mentality is not going to work.
Indonesia has the right to wave their hands in the air and proclaim the moral high ground. It is what we would do in reverse. There will be some political point scoring and good old indignation for the media, then in several months we will more than likely be right back where we started a few weeks back, all spying on each other and (hopefully) not getting caught at it too often. I hope that somewhere in the intelligence services some benefit has been made from the spying (which we will most likely never know about) and this outweighs the hiccups along the way.
Ikonoclast, smoking that stuff is bad for you.
Iko, I reckon the spying predates the last at least three governments by many years. Don’t forget what DSD knew (but didn’t share, at the time) about the murders of the Australian journos at Balibo. The only possible reason our intelligence people would’ve had for not tapping the phones of Indonesian ministers and their spouses at the time would’ve been because they couldn’t.
@David Irving (no relation)
zackly.
our coalition of the teaparty seems to think chest beating will be good enough.
“Yudhoyono served several tours of duty in East Timor during the bloody rising against Indonesian rule and had been promoted to chief of territorial affairs by the time it won independence in 1999. As such, he worked directly under Gen. Wiranto, the former leader of the armed forces who has been indicted for war crimes by an East Timorese special tribunal. But no one has ever attempted to charge Yudhoyono and supporters say he wasn’t part of the inner circle.” – CBC.
Note, “his supporters say”. In fact, he was there doing work directly under Wiranto. This is in the Indonesian Army where you implicitly obey the Generals at all times. Along with Wiranto, Yudhoyono would appear to have been directly involved in war crimes in East Timor. It’s hard to see how he is not implicated. Yudhoyono is not a good guy and deserves NO credence in ANYTHING he says. He became a general and was the son of a military man. By marriage he became Indonesian military aristocracy through and through. It is not I who smoke stuff and forget history.
“Yudhoyono was born into a well-to-do family of aristocratic background. Following in the footsteps of his father, a middle-ranking officer, he entered the army after graduating from the Indonesian Military Academy in 1973. His quick rise through the ranks was assisted by his marriage to Kristiani Herawati, the daughter of a powerful general.” – Britannica.
Yudhoyono is a terror suspect.
http://www.yayasanhak.minihub.org/mot/Susilo%20Bambang%20Yudhoyono.htm
Also see the book “Masters of Terror : Indonesia’s Military and Violence in east Timor.”
@Martin W.
Somewhat of an overstatement, Martin.
Ikonoclast listed six points, one of which was an opinion that Indonesia has always had eyes in our direction and he quite reasonably supported that opinion by referring to the brutal acquisitions of East Timor and West Papua where they claim some sort of ethnic relationship!
He was not advocating fortress Australia; he was suggesting a disassociation, an at arms length relationship.
Possibly your “completely incorrect” opinion related to his other five points?
However, I’m a bit surprised by his first point. The most striking thing about Abbot’s responses so far is the absence of any reference to or criticism of Rudd. His reluctance to do so makes me wonder if the spooks briefed Rudd when he was elected in 2007 as to what the state of “intelligence gathering” in Indonesia was before 2007 and Rudd simply said, “keep up the good work”.
On another thread: If SBY and/or his wife have done no wrong then they have nothing to worry about, eh? (At least that’s what we’re told when ASIO wants to tap our phones)
I want to hear Rudd confess, himself. Then maybe… maybe…
I agree with a lot of what Ikonoclast said above. In particular it seems to me that Abbott is taking a bullet for the ALP in a quite statesman like way and they ought to stop complaining about it. However the Indonesian position is one I can readily understand. Having people spy on you is pretty offensive.
However isn’t the bigger story the fact that you can’t safely share secrets with the Americans.
Also do people think it was in the public interest for the ABC to publish this particular leak?
I’m not sure how to label this. Is it the “yellow peril” or the “brown peril”? Either way, I’m reminded of the effects of a Balinese mushroom omelette.
@TerjeP
Normal rules of conduct were totally trashed by Abbott. The ALP owes him nothing but his own medicine.
What is good policy in regards to spying on Indonesia?
what do spies do but spy on other countries?
Ikon is blowing off. A simple apology following normal form as to these sorts of matters, would have been fine, end of story. But no, Abbott’s fragile underlying sense of self esteem prevents even this.
What Paul Walter said. Seems so completely obvious I’m surprised Bill Shorten, the Labor Party in general and more than half the MSM seem to be buying into Tony’s narrative.
Apologise for FFS. Obama gave you the template, the fact that Dolly Downer thinks he’s made a mistake should be all you need to know it’s the correct decision.
For all the people seeking an apology, what policy are you recommending, moving forward, in regards to spying/intelligence gathering in Indonesia?
@TerjeP
I think all the recent leaks (Snowden & Wikileaks) have been in the public interest.
Thanks very much for posting, John.
@paul walter
It is Yudhoyono who is blowing off for domestic consumption. Indonesia has admitted and indeed boasted of spying on Australia (the Jakarta embassy and Australian politicians). They all do it. They all know they all do it. I mean the governments of all countries. So the complaints are purely hypocritical and for domestic political consumption.
There is circumstantial evidence suggesting Yudhoyono was part of Wiranto’s war crimes process in East Timor. It has never been properly investigated. This has been hushed up and Yudhoyono protected by his supporters (the ruling clique of Indonesia founded on the long and corrupt tentacles of the Indonesian military into all aspects of Indonesian life.) Nobody has addressed the substantive concerns I raised about Yudhoyono’s shady past.
It is clear that Yudhoyono has been looking for a pretext to use to not cooperate with Australia on people smuggling. Now he has his pretext. This is right and fine from Indonesia’s perspective and entirely Indonesia’s right and perogative. Our refugee policy after all is atrocious. But no apology from Australia for such a hypocritical claim is necessary. Their claim is true but the outrage is hypocritical, manufactured and self-interested.
We simply should not deal with Indonesia officially in any way. There is nothing to be gained by engagement with Indonesia at governmental level. Let trade, commerce and interaction between the two countries happen or not happen by private enterprise and private activity but there is no need for much official interaction or cooperation of any significance between our governments.
@iain
Engage in espionage to the extent that national security requires. Take steps to avoid disclosing sensitive information to entities that cannot keep it secure. In other words, a commonsense policy.
Tim, in other words, what they are doing now?
@iain
If that is what they are doing now (I don’t really know), then yes. It seems they could be a bit more careful about disclosing information to the NSA though.
Tim, so you advocate 1) an apology 2) then continue as current, despite the “apology” 3) have a word to the Americans about security of information 4) hope you don’t get caught out again.
If so, I like Ikon’s proposal better (and I don’t like Iko’s proposal at all).
@iain
Suit yourself.
@Ikonoclast
You lost me on point 5. ‘Their long term goal is to conquer Australia. Please…
@paul walter
Exactly Paul, an apology, a line was crossed, won’t tap you or your wives phone again. Say they’ll be a review of the appropriateness of our surveillance opps (the recs of which will of course have to be kept secret). Give SBY a way out with his domestic audience.
@paul walter
It’s possible that Abbott or Turnbull was briefed in opposition about the bugging of SBY, so is partly complicit and has to bite his tongue?
Andrew Wilkie MP, the ex-ONA analyst and Iraq war whistleblower, was interviewed by Michelle Grattan yesterday at The Conversation and his views should be carefully considered.
Below I summarise what seems relevant here.
*He is generally supportive of current practice.
*the people who are close to the people who have secrets are valid targets (eg. SBY’s wife, Ibu Ani)
*He supports Edward Snowden because “Snowden has done us a public service by telling us what these people get up to”
*the Indonesian outrage is political theatre for domestic consumption.
*He believes that effective privacy protection of the rights of Aust citizens exists but can be improved
*currently there is no parliamentary oversight of operational intelligence matters; unlike in the US, the parlt ctee only oversees admin of intell agencies
*some greater oversight is better, not just by the Minister.
Wilkie’s main points in defence of spying were:
*Intelligence provides info about terrorist plans, what people smugglers are saying, what the foreign political leadership is thinking, and their intentions, views and concerns about Australia
*the alternative is that we don’t understand well what is happening, the risk of being caught by surprise, and making decisions in a vacuum
*knowing other countries well and understanding those countries better fosters more stable rel’ships
*one reason why Bush Jr. J Howard, Blair etc were able to create a false story about Iraq was that there was an intelligence vacuum which they were able to backfill with whatever story they wanted
*in our region, if we don’t know what’s going on, we can – and perhaps should – assume the worst, which is not good for relations with our neighbours.
It seems to me that the uncertainty created by lack of knowledge promotes dangerous and hostile behaviour, while transparency of information amongst participants (govts. not citizens) seems a moderating and rational influence. (If you like, an “open conspiracy”).The Iraq example is very important to examine.
There is little if any connection with the privacy issues which concern domestic citizens, which should not overshadow national defence (of which intelligence is a component.)
A better approach would be to 1) refuse an apology, 2) point out the hypocracy of the SBY government, and the mindless arrogance of the demonstrators in Jakarta (and also likely here) 3) point out, and openly discuss, the problems with “representative” democracy, and regional security, in South East Asia (as Iko points out).
The main problem is that Abbott is a prime product of the problems with representative democracy, and is unlikely to criticise the military monopoly of government in Indo in this light, even less the useless duopoly here in Aus.
@iain
Difficult to see what that would achieve.
@Jarrod Knox
So nations never have long term conquest goals? Britain never had the goal of creating an Empire and dominating peoples? Europe, Britain and the US never had a long term goal of conquering and chopping up China? (Hong Kong, Macau, Shanghai, Boxer Rebellion etc. etc.?) Nazi Germany never had a long term goal of conquering Europe. Russia never had a long term goal of conquering Poland and East Eurupe? Japan never had a long term goal of conquering S.E. Asia and Australia. China never had a long term goal of conqueringTibet? The USA never had a long term goal of dominating the M.E. and drawing cheap tribute oil and profits?
To believe that Indonesia (the Javanese empire as it really is) has no long term goals of further expansion and conquest (if at all possible) is the height of blind naievity.
To do it and to lie about it.
Abbott’s problem is that he doesn’t seem capable of managing the latter. It’s something you might laugh at, “oh oh oh he’s too honest”, but, well: we can judge the size of a problem by the consequences, and so far our excessively-honest-if-overly-literalistic PM has managed to engender some fairly major consequences as a result of his inability to mutter… it’s not even a lie, noone could possibly believe anyone would believe it, surely. No intent to deceive.
[as I think I’ve mentioned here, based on certain elements of his manner and personal history, I am reasonably confident that Abbott is affected by some form of diagnosable autism-spectrum condition, aspergers-type. This sort of behaviour certainly doesn’t convince me he doesn’t, that’s for sure.]
@Ikonoclast
Wow. What a lot to agree with. JQ take note. Perhaps it would help clear thinking if you joined those of us who declared Tony Abbott unelectable (and didn’t like some of his Catholic views, without perhaps giving as much credit as we should have for his Catholic social anti-capitalist side) and got over being so wrong. It is surely premature – and indeed wishful thinking – to leap to adverse judgments in these very early days of a new government when actions can be and are being taken on the basis that current perceptions of them won’t matter a damn in three years time. (I have even heard it said that the boat-stopping is going rather well but don’t place any weight on that whether it is true or not).
You Ikonoklast seem to understand something about Indonesia which helps to ensure that there are about a dozen reasons for knowing what their leaders are up to (“Trust but Verify” has something of the right flavour when one is feeling optimistic). Pankaj Mishra’s piece in the London Review of Books of 13 October gave a realistic view of the way the same old corrupt elite, including lots of generals and police (though the latter tend to be corrupt at a lower level) has held on to money and power with occasional populist beatups (small Chinese business people, Christians, Australians) as a diversion instead of the old brute force. We would be barmy to accord them naive trust. Here is a passage from Mishra’s piece:
“That was what Suharto wanted: a population divided by individual pursuit of food, wealth and status was the basis of his regime’s stability. It was also what finally tripped him up.: As Mishra points out there is now much more regionalisation of power and plunder.
As I said JQ, being a recovered member of the “he’s unelectable” brigade, I think one should face reality. Are you not being a tad self indulgent to pick up the stuff from Tad Tietze at Left Flank, to wit:
“On the other hand, Left nationalist arguments — like those of Clinton Fernandes — that Australia has every right to spy on Indonesia because Indonesian governments have done bad stuff should be rejected. They are in effect a defence of the malign regional influence of the US and its allies, including Australia, and of the Abbott government itself. Remembering that the main enemy is at home has rarely been more important. We should think carefully about how we can increase our enemy’s pain.”
His link to Kurt Liebknecht and the implied association of Australia with German imperialism when it still had a population growth of nearly a million a year and hadn’t, as it had, by 1945, had its militarism and arrogance knocked out of it by terrorism from the air…. well its just Marxist romanticism isn’t it?
@Ikonoclast
How long has Australia been spying? Years
@ Ikonoklast replying to Jarrod Knox
It is one thing to point to naivety and counsel a small country to be wary indeed of a highly populous country of increasing wealth on its doorstep but it doesn’t help at all to be so lacking in nuances and inaccurate in one’s supporting material.
There is not much mystery about the way the British Empire came about and it certainly had very little to do with Britain having a long term goal of “creating an Empire and dominating people” (though there was certainly a heyday for overt imperialists in from about the 1870s to 1914: partly spurred by competition with or mere attempts at security against Germany. Russia and France who were seriously imperialist). The East India Company’s activities for two and a half centuries and the transport to and import of slaves to the Caribbean, and the sugar trade, were hardly a planned British activity any more than the Scottish commercial disaster which led to the union of Scotland with England were part of any long term policy. Your suggestion that Europe, Britain and the US had a long term goal of conquering and chopping up China is totally ahistorical and surely careless as you don’t mention Japan which really did have a policy of conquering China. The Brits and the others on their coattails were all about making money, not ruling China, and the Americans could even be given some credit for their missionary activities which were well-intentioned and seem to have done some good. (Not just the Americans. I read that the remarkable winner of two Nobel Prizes for chemistry, Fred Sanger, who has just died, was the son of an Anglican missionary -later turned Quaker- who only left China because of poor health).
You see I am not quibbling about the US in the Middle East or the Chinese in Tibet (but did you know that there was once a Tibetan empire which extended to the Bay of Bengal: clearly the Tibetans were a warlike Mongol related lot who needed to be brought under control, quite apart from their sitting on the headwaters of so many important rivers). Nazis? Well I would say they had the short term goal of conquering Europe and lots and lots of Lebensraum for what they still hoped would be a population of Ubermenschen that expanded as fast as it had under the Wilhelms.
@kevin1
Which puts pressure on the term “intelligence”.
i’m not sure if people here are aware of this – it wasn’t on our news for reasons obvious to me – but there was a major diplomatic row a couple of months ago between brazil & canada over electronic espionage.
based on documents leaked to brazilian media – by edward snowden – it is claimed that a canadian agency – communications security establishment canada (csec) – which “routinely” monitors the phone traffic of other countries for anything that might interest canada, has been conducting large scale industrial espionage, by intercepting all phone traffic & emails coming in or out of the department of mines & energy in brazil.
the brazilian president openly confronted the canadian p.m. about it at a conference in indonesia last month.
the canadian ambassador was called in to explain.
brazil’s foreign minister made a statement expressing “[his] government’s repudiation of this serious and unacceptable violation of national sovereignty and the rights of people and companies”.
the canadian opposition leader called it “a black eye for canada”.
the canadian p.m. said “[the] commissioner of the canadian security establishment does surveillance and audits the organization to make sure its operating within canadian law … we are concerned and we will do appropriate followup.”
public opinion in brazil is outraged. the ministry is being “scrubbed” but a rift has developed between the two countries, at a time when: (1) canada wants to extend trade relations with brazil, and (2) canada complains about china’s industrial espionage.
it intrigues me how an edward snowden revelation, which leads to a major rift between two countries, one of which speaks english, is not reported here at all. so, for my 24 cents worth, i’d like to know, why oh why, are they called “north america correspondents” at the abc when they don’t report a story like this?
the issue is off the front page in canada now, as this revelation works its course. and they have bigger fish to fry, today, and i don’t mean mayor ford. -a.v.
@Collin Street
I agree Abbott is struggling with how to deal with the situation, but the idea that this is because he can’t lie is risible.
@alfred venison
Thank you for that interesting info about Canada and Brazil. As you say, where were the ABC. Fairfax doesn’t have anything like the resources. News doesn’t either but it would still be expected to report on the Canada-Brazil falling out. Has it done so?
@Neil Hanrahan
You can still bump into people every single day who think that AGW is, at best, something of a 50/50 proposition and that we invaded Iraq because of 9/11.
It’s interesting that intelligent people accept this reality without doing anything about it.
The core of all our woes is the establishment media – without its propaganda model and market manipulation we wouldn’t be where we are.
Hands up everyone who heard from our vastly diverse media that the Australian tax-payer gave Rupert Murdoch $470million just the other day. Surely his mortal enemies at their ABC mentioned it somewhere? Nup.
The source for that figure was Neil Chenoweth:
Thanks Megan, again. You are a long term option for following, here.
I see a number of people here quite deliberately ignored my point concerning Abbott’s lack of sophistication in dealing with racial, (ethnic, gender and class?) “others”.
Instead we are bombarded with xenophobic hornswoggle concerning an imminent Asian Invasion, and tosh denying that intelligence is gathered to also stomp out community resistance to nonsenses like FTA endowments to capital at the expense of local communites.
Not enough folk have conjured with the notion that we are actually doing the Wall St controlled US’s dirty work, via elecronic intelligence and that information gained may even be being used to destabilise democracy from within, with the corrupting of democratic processes here.
I don’t doubt that outsiders would be glad of any conflict between Australia and its neighbours, uninformed citizens in countries involved would be naturally inclined from a point of isolation to more right wing xenophobic politics, with Conservative governments inclined to hard capitalist “reform” at the expense of dumbed down communities denied a more considered approach to the determing of their own futures.