Dziedzic in Indonesia and Erwin Renaldi – Prime Minister Anthony Albanese has landed in Indonesia as he begins his first overseas trip since his resounding election victory on May 3.
It won't be a long visit – Mr Albanese will only spend one full day on the ground in Jakarta before flying to Rome to meet European leaders and attend the pope's inauguration mass.
But it will still have plenty of symbolic weight.
By making Indonesia his first destination, Mr Albanese is sending a clear (if predictable) signal about his key foreign policy priorities for his second term.
Mr Albanese will also be intent on cementing his relationship with Indonesia's sometimes mercurial President Prabowo Subianto, who looks certain to exert more control over major foreign decisions than his predecessor Joko Widodo.
Why visit Indonesia first?
Almost every prime minister since John Howard has made their first overseas visit to Jakarta in the wake of seizing power, and Mr Albanese seems to be doubling down on this informal tradition.
Mr Albanese made his first bilateral visit to Indonesia after winning the 2022 election, and now he's repeating that gesture in 2025.
Gatra Priyandita from the Australian Strategic Policy Institute says Mr Albanese wants to make sure Jakarta understands that Indonesia remains "a key priority" for the government.
"The government is interested in signalling that Australia is a part of Asia and Australia still prioritises its relationship with key South-East Asian states," Mr Priyandita told the ABC.
Just before boarding the plane to Jakarta, Mr Albanese told reporters in Perth he was making Indonesia his "first port of call" because "there's no more important relationship than [the one] we have with Indonesia".
Expect Mr Prabowo to roll out the red carpet for Mr Albanese in return, as well.
Australia doesn't loom as large in the Indonesian government's consciousness as it does in ours, but we're still seen as both a significant partner and a regional power.
Security opportunities abound
Defence and security cooperation will be a key priority for the prime minister on this visit, particularly in the wake of the Chinese navy's partial circumnavigation of Australia and the vast strategic uncertainties ushered in by Donald Trump.
The government is racing to strengthen strategic and defence ties with a host of major countries in the region, from Japan to India, the Philippines and Indonesia.
Last year, Mr Prabowo travelled to Canberra to sign a major security agreement between the two countries, which was hailed as a landmark moment in the relationship.
Mr Prabowo is less cautious than his predecessor, Mr Widodo, and more interested in positioning Indonesia as a major player both regionally and globally.
That could open up new opportunities for Australia, which wants to use the defence agreement to build more strategic trust with Indonesia, as well as expand joint military exercises and build more interoperability between the armed forces of both countries.
Expect all of this to be firmly on Mr Albanese's agenda when he sits down with Mr Prabowo.
Limitations to becoming full allies
Still, while Australian politicians and officials might harbour sky-high ambitions for the defence relationship, they're also realistic about its limitations.
There are still some deep cultural gaps between the two countries, and some Indonesian officials remain wary about deepening military cooperation with Australia in the wake of the 1999 East Timor crisis.
Indonesia also remains firmly non-aligned: Mr Prabowo has made it clear that Indonesia does not want to be involved in "any geopolitical or military alliances" and this agreement doesn't change its traditional neutrality.
After all, Indonesia has recently moved to join BRICS (with Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa) and expanded its long-standing military ties with Russia.
During the election campaign, Defence Minister Richard Marles scrambled to get his Indonesian counterpart on the phone after reports surfaced suggesting Russia was trying to base long-range military aircraft in Papua.
Jakarta was quick to rule out that prospect.
But Mr Prabowo's unpredictability can cut both ways, and Australia will have to keep on watching Jakarta and Moscow's relationship very closely.
ASPI's Gatra Priyandita says it's "very difficult" for Indonesia and Australia to ever become true allies, in large part because there are still "deep strategic divergences" between them.
"On the one hand, both countries do recognise the threats arising from the rise of China. On the other hand, though, they have different perspectives on how to respond to it," he said.
"Australia obviously has moved towards leaning closer to the United States through its AUKUS and Quad arrangements.
"Meanwhile, in Indonesia, at best, the United States is seen as a necessary balancer to China, but at worst a predatory great power."
The hard graft of economic cooperation
Geopolitics and hard power won't be Mr Albanese's only preoccupation in Indonesia.
Mr Albanese will want to continue the slow and sometimes grinding task of trying to expand Australia's economic ties with its rapidly growing neighbour.
When Mr Albanese visited Jakarta for the first time after being sworn in three years ago, he met with the then-president, Joko Widodo, who was famously obsessed with super-charging Indonesia's development ambitions.
At that time, experts said "the road to Jokowi's heart would be business and investment".
Australia has poured considerable effort into expanding economic ties with Indonesia and the region since then, including through commissioning a major new strategy to increase investment in the region.
It's far too early to judge the success of this strategy, but the returns so far have been patchy.
"Australia wasn't able to offer Jokowi much in terms of economic transactions, and so he didn't pay much attention to it," said Associate Professor Marcus Mietzner from the Australian National University.
Mr Priyandita said that while the economic relationship was on a "positive trajectory", there had been "no exponential change" in business ties.
"It's very much market-driven. The government cannot really force businesses to trade in Indonesia," he said.
Perhaps one opportunity can be found in an imperative: both Indonesia and Australia are hugely vulnerable to climate change, but remain economically reliant on fossil fuel exports.
Both countries are also trying to find a way to capitalise on new markets springing up around clean energy; Indonesia's vast nickel exports are already crucial to global supply chains, although the local environmental costs are also vast.
Andrew Hudson from the Centre for Policy Development says Australian capital and expertise could play a crucial role in Indonesia's own transition, which could open up significant financial opportunities for Australia as well.
"Both Australia and Indonesia have complementary strengths on the energy transition," he tells the ABC.
"What Australia can really contribute is really capital and money, but also knowledge and expertise.
"Indonesia offers scale – it's almost 300 million people and it's on track to be one of the biggest economies in the world."
Nurturing a close relationship with Jakarta and taking advantage of the opportunities Indonesia offers is rarely easy work, but for Australia it's still absolutely critical.