Australia is poised to sign a new upgraded defence pact with Indonesia by the end of this month as the federal government prepares to welcome the incoming Indonesian President Prabowo Subianto to Canberra.
The government has framed it as the most strategically significant bilateral agreement with Indonesia since at least 2006, when the two countries reset security ties by signing the Lombok Treaty.
Australia and Indonesia confirmed in February they would upgrade their 2012 defence pact to a new binding agreement, with Defence Minister Richard Marles aiming to complete "lightning-fast" negotiations within three months.
The negotiations haven't gone quite that quickly, but the ABC has been told that discussions are now in their final phase and that Mr Marles is planning to travel to Indonesia near the end of this month to sign the agreement with Mr Prabowo.
Prime Minister Anthony Albanese also confirmed yesterday that Mr Prabowo – who is continuing to serve as defence minister ahead of being sworn in this October – will make a separate visit to Canberra in the coming two weeks.
"I will welcome the Indonesian defence minister in the next fortnight, who is coming to Canberra, and he'll have meetings with my cabinet," he said.
"In a matter of weeks, I will attend his inauguration. And the cooperation that we have with Indonesia is very strong indeed."
One Australian government source told the ABC that both countries were now "very close" to finalising the upgraded agreement, but the signing ceremony would likely be held in Indonesia rather in Australia.
The federal government is expected to hail the new pact as a milestone in the bilateral relationship.
In February, Mr Marles declared it would be the "most significant" defence agreement signed by the two countries and would be a "treaty level" document.
He also said it would allow much more expansive joint military exercises between Australia and Indonesia.
"It is profoundly important in terms of what it provides around being the platform for our two defence forces to exercise together, for Indonesians to exercise in Australia and vice versa," he said.
"It is a very significant statement about the strategic direction of both Indonesia and Australia."
A fraught history
The two countries have a fraught history on defence cooperation and security ties have been regularly disrupted by broader diplomatic and political disputes.
The Keating government struck a landmark security treaty with Jakarta in 1995 but that pact was torn up by Indonesia just four years later during the Timor Crisis.
Diplomatic tensions between the two countries also flared in 2013 when it was revealed Australia had wire-tapped the phone of then-Indonesian president Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono, while Indonesia briefly suspended military cooperation with Australia in 2017 after a controversy over "offensive" training materials used by the Australian Army.
But since then the two countries have again stepped up defence cooperation, with Australia participating in Indonesia's Super Garuda Shield joint military exercises with the US and other nations.
The Royal Australian Air Force and the Indonesian Air Force also conducted joint maritime surveillance training exercises in May, while Indonesia last year received 15 Bushmaster armoured vehicles from Australia to help with its international peacekeeping missions under the UN.
Sam Roggeveen from the Lowy Institute told the ABC that it was "very encouraging" to see progress on the negotiations for the upgraded agreement.
"Once we get the text of the treaty what I'll be looking for is a maritime focus," he said.
"Australia and Indonesia occupy a single strategic place and we have a core strategic objective in common: we want to make sure maritime South-East Asia is never dominated by any other power."
Indonesia committed to non-alignment
While Australia has been intent on building stronger broader strategic ties with Indonesia, Jakarta remains wedded to a non-aligned foreign policy.
Last week, Mr Prabowo visited Russia and met with President Vladimir Putin, where he said he saw Moscow as a "great friend" and declared that he wanted to "enhance" the relationship.
Mr Roggeveen said Australia would have to remain realistic about how far it could nudge Indonesia.
While the new agreement is likely to streamline cooperation between the Indonesian and Australian militaries, it will not be a formal military alliance or a mutual defence treaty of any kind and neither country is expected to offer security guarantees to the other.
"For the time being Indonesia will maintain its commitment to non-alignment," Mr Roggeveen said.
He also said that Australia had "narrowed the space" for closer strategic alignment with Indonesia by entering the AUKUS agreement with the US and the UK – even if Mr Prabowo is less sceptical towards the pact than other Indonesian elites.
"As encouraging as the new agreement is, the prospect of even closer strategic ties with Indonesia is constrained by AUKUS," Mr Roggeveen said.
"By drawing in the US and China into the region, it does the very thing that South-East Asian leaders don't want; they don't want to be a theatre for competition or a battlefield for the great powers."
And he said the bilateral relationship still needed more "ballast" in the form of strong economic ties, greater migration and people-to-people links.
"At the moment we have a good high-level relationship, but that relationship can still be knocked off course by relatively minor accidents or incidents."
Source: https://www.abc.net.au/news/2024-08-09/australia-indonesia-new-defence-pact/10420600