'I just have a different style,' says Downer

JAKARTA (JP): March ushered in a new chapter in bilateral relations between Indonesia and Australia with the election of a conservative government under Prime Minister John Howard.

In his first official visit abroad as Australia's new foreign minister, Alexander Downer, 44, talks with The Jakarta Post about development aid, the mutual security agreement and the membership of the ASEAN Regional Forum (ARF).

JP: How was your visit to Indonesia?

Alexander Downer: It's been an important visit...we want to reinforce the view to the Indonesian government that despite... there being an election and a change of government, there remains a very strong commitment from the new Australian government to Asia as our first foreign policy priority.

JP: How is your tenure going to be different from your predecessor?

Downer: People often ask me that question and, if I may say so, I find it a very odd question. We are two completely different people who will do things in different ways. I just have a different style and a different manner.

Just because I'm a different person and come from a different political party doesn't mean that my predecessor and I disagree on everything. And one of the things that we have always both agreed on was the importance of the relationship with Indonesia.

JP: The Australian government has announced it will cut A$8 billion off government spending within a two-year period. How does this affect the development aid to and projects in Indonesia?

Downer: We are reviewing our aid program. We will be reducing overall expenditure on aid, yes.

But how that reduction will affect the different countries to which we provide aid at the moment or how it will affect our contributions to multilateral aid organizations is yet to be determined.

JP: Is that to say there might possibly be a lower level of aid coming to Indonesia in the future?

Downer: It remains to be seen.

JP: You have expressed a desire to build on the mutual security agreement between Indonesia and Australia and look at ways of developing a defense cooperation program. How would you go about this?

Downer: There are two aspects to this. There's the defense cooperation program which already exists and, within the confines of our budget, we would like to keep developing that defense cooperation.

JP: And the second aspect?

Downer: We also want to develop a dialog with Indonesia about regional security issues. Of course there are such conversations already but we would like to develop that dialog.

We have shared security interests because we are side by side and I think we should be frank with each other and talk about our assessments of, broadly speaking, the regional security situation. So I think that's something we can build on within the framework of the mutual security agreement.

JP: More countries are applying to join the ARF. What is Australia's position on India's application?

Downer: Australia would be sympathetic to India's application to join the ARF and I would anticipate a consensus developing for Indian membership in the ARF.

JP: And Myanmar?

Downer: If there is a consensus for Burma (Myanmar) to join, (then) we won't stand in the way of that.

JP: What about Britain and France?

Downer: The European Union (EU) has two seats on the ARF at the moment in the form of the Commission and the Presidency. The question of British participation is one that needs to be looked at in the context of the number of seats that the EU has and is something that needs further discussion.

We're certainly...not opposed to British membership but we don't want to see the European Union members becoming too numerous.

So one of the issues that they need to think through is the extent to which they want both those seats to be taken by European Union institutions, or whether maybe one of the member states, like Britain, would have a better claim to one of the seats.(mds)