Catharine Munro, Jakarta – Human rights, not military ties, would be the key to a new relationship with Indonesia under a Labor government, opposition foreign affairs spokesman Laurie Brereton said today.

"I do believe that human rights advancement will be a key element of the future relationship, that will be a big priority," Mr Brereton told Australian journalists during a three-day visit to Jakarta. The relationship between Australia and Indonesia, if Labor won power at the next federal election, would be "difficult" and "tough" but "extremely important", he said.

Mr Brereton called on Indonesia to bring to justice suspects of human rights abuses. Indonesia is yet to establish a human rights tribunal for the violence surrounding East Timor's vote for independence in 1999, despite having named a list of suspects which includes military and police officers.

Indonesia has promised its own tribunal in order to avoid an international tribunal being established by the United Nations.

But Mr Brereton refused to call for a time limit to be imposed on Jakarta for the setting up of its own tribunal, saying the government was facing a myriad of internal problems. "I don't think it's possible to put a time frame of days or weeks and months to a country that is as involved as this country with as many difficulties," Mr Brereton said.

He said the UN Security Council appeared reluctant to establish an international tribunal on East Timor. "Only Indonesia at the end of the day can fix this problem, it seems to me," he said. "All the more reason for us to be pressing for Indonesia to be making a bigger effort to be developing its judicial system, which itself is in a substantial transition, and to see these matters pursued."

Mr Brereton also called for human rights offenders in the troubled provinces of Irian Jaya in the east and Aceh in the north-west to be brought to justice.

Foreshadowing a "new" relationship under a Labor government, he ruled out the training of Indonesia's special forces, known as Kopassus, by the Australian military as was done before relations between Canberra and Jakarta deteriorated over East Timor's independence vote.

"When I say a new relationship I would like one that is not as focused as the past relationship was on military ties," said Mr Brereton. "I don't think it served us all that well at the end of the day. I think it led to false expectations by the Indonesia military, which added to their bitterness in the aftermath of the East Timor peacekeeping mission undertaken by Australia.

"I would like the new relationship to be one with less emphasis on military ties. I certainly don't rule them out, they can play an important role, but I don't want this great focus to be overwhelmingly on the military relationship."

He said military ties could focus on "having the Indonesian military understand international codes of behaviour, for a start". "But training Kopassus as we have in the past would not be the approach that I would favour."

The opposition spokesman also called for reciprocal visits between leaders of the two countries. Since coming to power in October 1999, President Abdurrahman Wahid has cancelled a string of planned visits to Australia. He has cited domestic opposition because of Australia's role in establishing peace in East Timor by leading a military force there in September 1999.

Mr Brereton also raised the possibility for a broadly-based leadership dialogue between Australia and Indonesia that included members of academia, the media, business and the bureaucracy, similar to the Australia-US leadership dialogue. "I have been raising in my talks this week the potential for such a broadly-based dialogue to be established in the period after the forthcoming Australian elections," Mr Brereton said.