Karen Polglaze, Melbourne – The interests of the people of East Timor would have been totally compromised had former Labor prime minister Paul Keating stayed in the top job, Prime Minister John Howard said today.

Mr Howard also hit out at critics of his approach to Indonesia saying it was an historic error to define Australian foreign policy by its relationship with Indonesia.

Many of his critics were from the old school of diplomacy who believed that the only relationship that mattered was the one with Indonesia, he said. Their criticism was wrong, the prime minister said. "It's based on the belief that somehow with a change of government you can conjure up a new relationship with Indonesia," he told a media conference. He said it was his government which had acted to change relations with Indonesia.

The previous government had failed to influence the Indonesian regime of former president Suharto. East Timor had been the defining issue in the relationship between Australia and Indonesia and it was a coalition government that had changed Australia's position on East Timor.

"It was under a coalition government that we were prepared to defend the interests of the people of East Timor, " Mr Howard said. "I have no doubt that if Mr Keating had remained prime minister the interests of the people of East Timor would have been totally compromised in the interests of what he saw as the dominant consideration of the relationship with Jakarta.

"I regard that relationship as very important but it is not the only relationship that this country has around the world, and most of the critics of me in relation to this issue are people who see Australia's foreign policy beginning and ending in the relationship with Indonesia. "I believe that that has been an historic error that has been made over the years."