Ministers from around the Asia Pacific region have wound up a two day conference on people smuggling and other trans-national crime in Bali. The meeting was co-hosted by Indonesia and Australia, and both countries describe it as a positive first step on which to build further co-operation. That comes as Australia re-assesses its relationship with Indonesia at a Parliamentary Inquiry in Canberra.
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Dobell: Australia's diplomats start from the perspective that the relationship with Indonesia over 55 years has had turbulent periods and will inevitably continue to be tested.
Foreign Affairs says Indonesia's government and its people expressed strong opposition to the war in Iraq and Australia's military involvement. But top Australian diplomat, Jennifer Rawson says the Indonesian government defined limits which helped relations with Australia.
Rawson: At the governmental level while making clear its opposition to military action, it also stated clearly that it was not a war against Islam, it did not see it as that, it made it clear that while people were fully free to express their views in peaceful demonstrations, the government would take action against those who chose to demonstrate their opposition in a violent way, and it certainly not only in what it said but what it did, met that commitment.
Dobell: Foreign Affairs says one positive outcome from the Bali bombings in October has been what's described as unprecedented and effective cooperation between the two governments. Australian police experts are to continue working in Indonesia for the foreseeable future to help track down terrorist networks.
Foreign Affairs Assistant Secretary for Anti Terrorism and Intelligence Policy, Bryce Hutchesson, says teams from the AFP, the Australian Federal Police, are investigating the Bali bombings and helping with wider work on terrorist groups in Indonesia.
Hutchesson: The AFP is part of an investigative taskforce that has been established, that is to be an ongoing thing and certainly as part of this training package we do expect to have AFP advisors on the ground for the foreseeable future working with their Indonesian counterparts on a range of capacity building initiatives and also in more direct operational investigative ways.
Dobell: Mr Hutchesson says there's been good progress in Southeast Asia in disrupting links with Al Qaeda and in dealing with the local extremist group, Jemaah Islamiah with 30 arrests connected to the Bali bombings. But he says the threat of further attacks in the region remains.
Hutchesson: The reality is that these organisations still do retain a capability, it's harder for them now, a lot of targets have been hardened, that may in fact suggest that what we are looking at is the possibility of more opportunistic attacks or attacks on softer targets of the sort that we saw in Bali.