A welcome thaw

The visit to Canberra and Sydney by the Indonesian Foreign Minister, Hassan Wirayuda, has been more successful than would have seemed likely a month or two ago.

The most concrete result of the Wirayuda visit is an agreement that the two nations should co-sponsor an international conference, probably in Jakarta in February, on the regional people smuggling problem. The hope is that it will include countries from which asylum seekers emanate or find their first asylum -- such as Pakistan, Sri Lanka, Jordan and Iran -- transit

countries like Indonesia and Malaysia, and destination countries like Australia. Behind the proposal is a sensible acknowledgement, strongly urged by the Indonesians, that people smuggling is an international problem that requires a coordinated international response. Unilateral deterrent measures, ad hoc stratagems like the Howard Government's so-called "Pacific solution" and bilateral arrangements between Australia and Indonesia have been shown to be, at best, inadequate alternatives.

Conference resolutions, of course, achieve little unless they lead to firm action. In the case of Indonesia, the problem is not recalcitrance on the part of the national government but its limited ability to discipline military and bureaucratic officials across a vast archipelago. That said, Wirayuda's mission seems a promising start to a new regional process for dealing with the challenge posed by people smugglers and their hapless client victims. It also holds out the prospect of a more mature, constructive relationship between Jakarta and Canberra.

-- The Sydney Morning Herald