James Campbell: No easy way out of trade mess for Scott Morrison
Indonesia’s refusal to sign a trade deal while the Israel embassy debate goes on is a big headache for Prime Minister Scott Morrison, writes James Campbell.
James Campbell
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Australians are not, on the whole, very good at reading foreigners. As a nation we pride ourselves on our bluff, no-nonsense, call-a-spade-a-shovel style of plain speaking which, alas, does not always serve us well in dealings with people of older and more subtle civilisations.
Maybe because we are used to speaking bluntly — some might even say rudely — we expect others, in turn, to speak bluntly to us, a misapprehension which can sometimes lead us to miss the catches, caveats and polite evasions contained in what is being said to us.
INDONESIA FREE TRADE DEAL ON HOLD
Perhaps that explains how Fairfax’s man in Jakarta came away with the impression it was all-systems go on the signing of the trade agreement between Indonesia and Australia. Under the headline “Australia Indonesia free trade deal to be signed next week”, it was reported that Fairfax had “confirmed with three sources” in that country’s government the deal would be signed on Wednesday by Prime Minister Scott Morrison and President Joko Widodo on the sidelines of East Asian summit taking place this week in Singapore.
Alas, it was not to be. As we learned on Saturday morning, the Indonesians have put the deal on ice — possibly until after our federal election, which is most likely to be held in May. Moreover, our neighbours have made it clear there’s not going to be any deal at all while Australia is considering moving its Israeli embassy to Jerusalem.
Perhaps we should have taken more notice of the caveat from the quoted “senior source in Jakarta” who said the signing would take place “if things go as planned”.
But while it would be easy to mock the newspaper for getting it 100 per cent wrong, Fairfax isn’t the only one with egg on its face over this. Last month, Senator James Paterson told Sky News Australia that “as far as I’m aware, there has been one report speculating about what the Indonesian government might do, and that’s been contradicted by multiple on-the-record comments by Indonesian officials — so I don’t believe that is a concern”.
To be fair to Paterson, he was just echoing the views of his leader, who seems to have walked into this mess without any thought for the likely impact of floating the idea. By that I mean if Morrison had simply announced we were moving our embassy, there would have been outrage both here and in Indonesia — possibly involving riots — but after a while, things would have eventually moved on because, to again quote Paterson, “Indonesia and Australia have a great and close relationship and this trade agreement is very important to us”.
Instead, by merely speculating about the move, the Prime Minister invited the Indonesians to try to exert as much pressure as they could in an attempt to make him can the idea.
Indeed, given the facts of life on the ground, Widodo had no choice but to react in the way he has. It is all very well for us to say “we don’t seek to dictate to Indonesia what its foreign policy should be in respect to the Middle East and we wouldn’t expect them to dictate to us what our foreign policy in the Middle East should be either” — Paterson again — but the fact is that if the government dumps the Jerusalem idea — and let’s face it, that is far more likely than the opposite — the Indonesians will be able to crow that they are indeed able to dictate to us what our policy in the Middle East should be. And crow they will do.
In Singapore on Wednesday, Morrison claimed — rather feebly, it has to be said — that the failure to sign the deal had not been linked by Widodo to the Jerusalem issue at their meeting. But then he didn’t have to, did he? His trade minister had said earlier in the week the problem was “because of Palestine”.
Bringing it up again would have been rude. And it wasn’t as though the issue wasn’t front and centre — Morrison apparently felt the need to inform Widodo his government will have reached its decision on this matter by Christmas at the latest. Between now and then, we can expect to hear a lot huffing and puffing from the government and its dwindling band of cheerleaders about how Australia is not going to be kicked around by foreigners, and decisions will be made in the national interest. Which is all very well, of course. Indeed, it is as it should be.
As you listen, however, you should keep in mind that so far at least, the government has yet to explain to how our national interest would be served by the move. Moreover, given that we live in a world in which governments sometimes have to weigh two competing interests — which can both be valid — you should ask whether our national interest in Asia Minor, as important as that may be, ought to outweigh our interest in good relations with a country of more than 200 million people that is right on our doorstep.
James Campbell is national politics editor
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