Is an apology in order?

One can but blanch at the poor quality of the intelligence occasionally proffered to august members of regional administrations in certain parts of this archipelagic nation.

The recent information claiming that there might have been a remote link between the Australian Labor Party (ALP) and the funding of the PRD (Democratic People's Party), recent or otherwise, was a case in point.

It might be best if the socialist credentials of the ALP were first examined. The ALP has operated within the constitutional confines of Australia's bourgeois democracy since 1901. During that time it espoused nebulous, and at times ill-considered, quasi-socialist policies but when in office it implemented policies acceptable to capitalists and the middle class. Indeed, the only real difference between the ALP and the Australia's conservative parties is that the ALP has probably paid greater attention to matters of social welfare.

In its latest tenure of office, the ALP engineered arguably the greatest weakening of the trade union movement since the 1920s. In this time the ALP also oversaw the greatest transfer of wealth to the economic elite witnessed in Australia this century. This was done when record and sustained levels of unemployment were being inflicted upon the workforce.

Paul Keating oversaw the dismantling of much of Australia's protectionist economy and opened up the economy to world market forces. Much of this may well have been necessary, yet what it proves is that any attempt to brand the ALP with the sobriquet "socialist" or even "worker-friendly" is completely ludicrous.

Paul Keating and Gareth Evans promoted deeper and more meaningful relations between Australia and Indonesia, a process that seemingly had the full approval of President Soeharto and Ali Alatas. In the 1980s the Indonesian and Australian armed forces, the latter under the aegis of an ALP government, undertook a wide range of cooperative ventures and joint exercises. During the tenure of the last ALP government, Australia-Indonesia trade ties burgeoned. The two countries, Australia under an ALP Government, signed the historic Timor Gap treaty, which will undoubtedly benefit both countries.

In truth, is it at all likely that the ALP would have jeopardized its relations with Indonesia by funding a hitherto obscure, non-official Indonesian group? If the answer is "Yes," then the reply must be, "Get real." The fact that such funding, if it had been forthcoming, would have precipitated a political crisis of immense proportions within Australia seems to have evaded the notice of the political advisers who came up with this intelligence. Such funding by the Federal ALP, and certainly by the Australian government, is of course illegal.

Although the charge was proven false, one can understand how a representative from a group in a foreign country might have met with members of a social-democratic party which has members at regional, state and federal levels in Australia. Such a meeting would only have been a phone call away, and could have garnered some sympathy with ordinary members in the party hierarchy.

However, what one fails to understand is how such a meeting might have led an observer to conclude that the funding of a revolutionary overthrow of a neighboring and friendly government by officials of Australia's largest political party was the outcome.

One can but hope that the dangerously wild actions of certain non-official groups in the last few weeks will be met with wise and considered policy. To accuse a foreign and friendly political party of funding a revolution within Indonesia is surely neither wise nor considered. The bearers of such poor advice to regional governmental heads should perhaps be given short training courses in diplomacy and foreign politics.

GARRY J. SINCLAIR

Jakarta