Proof of the Labor government’s commitment to stronger engagement in the immediate region.
Anthony Albanese has made bolstering the Australia-Indonesia relationship the first signature diplomatic move of the new Labor government, having blamed China’s security and economic incursions in the South Pacific on the Morrison government’s supposed neglect of Australia’s backyard. The perennially underdone relationship with Indonesia is ripe for revitalising.
This has been further underlined by President Joko Widodo’s warning that US-China strategic competition in the region must be well managed to avoid open conflict The high-powered delegation of senior ministers and business leaders – including Wesfarmer’s boss Rob Scott, CBA’s Matt Comyn, and Telstra’s Andy Penn – that Mr Albanese has led to Jakarta displays Labor’s traditional focus on regional diplomacy, and for building on the foreign affairs legacy of the Hawke and Keating governments that forged stronger ties with South-East Asia in the 1980s and 1990s.
After the COVID-19 disruptions delayed taking advantage of the free trade deal that was 10 years in the making,
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