An Australian millionaire is preparing to run television ads across Southeast Asia urging Jakarta to let human rights monitors into the Indonesian province of Papua.

Presenter/Interviewer: Graeme Dobell

Speakers: Australian millionaire businessman Ian Melrose; Papua activist Clemens Runawery.

Dobell: The television ad has pictures of Australia's Prime Minister, John Howard, and Indonesia's President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono. Earlier versions started running in Australia last month. Now a new series is set to be run across Southeast Asia as well. The ads were launched at a press conference in Parliament House in Canberra hosted by four Members of Parliament – an independent MP and a Labor MP from the lower house, and senators from the Democrats and the Greens Parties.

The focus is on the new Australia-Indonesia security treaty signed in November. While signed the treaty is yet to to be endorsed for ratification by the Australian Parliament's Treaties Committee. The tv ads call for the treaty to be amended so it has a human rights clause. The sponsor of the ads, millionaire businessman Ian Melrose, ran a similar campaign to embarrass the Australian Government over its dealings with to East Timor. Mr Melrose says he'll run tv ads across Southeast Asia to discomfit Australia and Indonesia over human rights in Papua.

Melrose: My hope is that as a result of this both governments decide to put human rights monitoring into the treaty with Australia and that would be a good outcome for both the West Papuans and Indonesia. There would be no losers.

Dobell: How would running the ads in Asia, would have more of an impact than running the ads in Australia?

Melrose: Australia and Indonesia are sensitive to other countries opinions. Airing the issue and letting everyone know what's happening at present isn't right, isn't honourable, is going to cause a sensitivity to both governments and they may well both work on implementing human rights monitoring in West Papua and access for journalists. If journalists are allowed access, human rights monitoring will be a much easier process because the Indonesian military won't want to be caught out doing the things that it does so well.

Dobell: Are you having trouble getting the ads placed in Asia? Are some television networks worried about offending Indonesia?

Melrose: Hm, I don't think that's going to be the case. There's going to be some people that take the money.

Dobell: Other ads feature Clemens Runawery, who fled from Papua in 1969 and lives in exile in Papua New Guinea. He says there's a slow process of genocide in Papua, because of the influx of people from the rest of Indonesia. Mr Runawery says that under Dutch rule in the early 1960s, Papuans made up 96 percent of the population of what is now an Indonesia province. Today, he says only 65 percent of the population is Papuan, the other 35 percent from the rest of Indonesia.

Runawery: The over population for the Indonesian side is growing much faster than the Papuan population. Now one may wonder why, but the answer to that will be through the trans-migration, official and non-official or the so-called spontaneous migrants. They are coming in almost 5,000 a week and that is this policy is devastating, is detrimental to its Papuan existence, in terms of maintaining the cultures and the dignity as an ethnic group.