Doorstop interview, Jakarta

Transcript, E&OE Subjects: Australia-Indonesia relationship, Jakarta Treaty, building Asia capability, freedom of navigation, fuel and fertiliser supply, Lombok Treaty. 15 July 2026 Australian Embassy, Jakarta Matt Thistlethwaite, Assistant Minister for Foreign Affairs and Trade: There's no more important relationship for Australia than our cooperation and our friendship with Indonesia.

It's been a pleasure for me to be in Indonesia for the last three days for a series of meetings with government ministers, with business representatives, with religious leaders, to underscore the importance of our strategic and economic relationship with our friends in Indonesia. It's rooted in our Comprehensive Economic Partnership, which for the last five years has been bringing benefits to both of our economies.

Two‑way trade between Australia and Indonesia has tripled. It's gone to $35 billion dollars. Investment has grown to about $1.2 billion dollars.

We're reviewing the Comprehensive Economic Partnership Agreement to introduce the next phase of our economic partnership. While I was here, I've launched Katalis 2.0, a business‑to‑business linkage program between Australia and Indonesia under the Comprehensive Economic Partnership that is seeing small chocolate producers here in Indonesia selling into the Australian market, businesses predominantly run by women in small towns that are getting economic benefits from that agreement between Australia and Indonesia.

We've also had the opportunity to visit some important businesses, including a flour mill this morning that I visited, where the number one source of wheat for that flour mill is from Australian producers. Australian wheat coming into Indonesian mills, being produced and turned into products like noodles that are sold across Southeast Asia, a great example of the economic partnership.

We've also had the opportunity to meet with students and thinkers in the foreign policy space to highlight the importance of the recently signed Jakarta Treaty between our leaders, which will usher in a new era of cooperation between Australia and Indonesia when it comes to our security and our defence in the future. It's been a very productive visit. I thank the Embassy staff, but I particularly thank the government representatives from Indonesia and the businesses that I met with, but most importantly, the people of Indonesia for their warm and friendly welcome, and we look forward to that relationship going from strength to strength in the future.

Happy to take some questions, Journalist: Assistant Minister, you've of course spoken about the new, or rather elevated, relationship between Indonesia and Australia. That being said, the Asia Capability Review has found that Australia does have some fairly significant critical shortages in terms of its capability in engaging with Asia and Indonesia as well. How does your government address that to continue addressing this partnership?

Assistant Minister: Yeah, our government has developed a policy called . Nicholas Moore made some recommendations about improving engagement between Australia and Southeast Asia. The number one recommendation in his report was to improve Asian literacy in Australia, and that means Asian language capability, it means business‑to‑business links, and importantly, it means cultural exchanges.

Our government's taking that report very seriously. We've just received a report from the Education Committee, which has made a series of recommendations that we're currently looking at to boost Asian literacy. We're devoting $33 million dollars from our Budget to improve that Asian capability, to train more Indonesian language teachers, to provide more online learning opportunities for Australians to learn over the internet with Indonesian teachers that are based here in Jakarta and across wider Indonesia.

And of course, there's the New Colombo Plan scholarships and the Australia Awards, which have been the foundation of two‑way exchanges around culture and education in Australia. Last night we had a fantastic event here at the Embassy, where I met Australian alumni who are now living and working here in Indonesia. And incredibly, 16 members of the President's Cabinet studied at Australian education institutions, and that's something that we're very proud of, to see the difference that Australian education is making here in Indonesia.

Journalist: So the government is still reviewing, or rather crafting, its response to the capability study. Do you anticipate, though, that there be further funding or incentives to try and get Australians into Asian language programs? Assistant Minister: The report was handed to the government two weeks ago, so we're working through the recommendations.

But we are committed to trying to boost particularly Southeast Asian language capability in Australia. Unfortunately, we've seen in recent times a reduction in the number of students that are learning Bahasa Indonesia. And if we want to be able to be part of Asia, we have to be able to communicate with Asia.

And I've always said that when you learn a language, you don't just learn the language and its idioms. You learn a history, you learn a heritage, and you learn a culture, and that makes doing business easier in the future for Australians. It improves cultural exchange, and it deepens the people‑to‑people ties.

So we're deeply committed to this report and its recommendations, and we'll work through them in a normal manner that we do as a cabinet‑based government. And we've allocated that initial funding, and we'll look to explore further options in the future. Journalist: Yesterday, you made a very interesting point about the security challenges that are faced in this region, including like you mentioned about what if Natuna was blocked.

It's something I have never heard before, but it's a very real threat, as you said. How seriously have you been discussing these kinds of issues with Indonesian counterparts, and how would the Jakarta Treaty signed a few months ago address this? Assistant Minister: Indonesia is an island archipelago, and I went to the port today to see just how vitally important sea lanes and shipping are to the health of the Indonesian economy, just as it is for Australia.

As an island continent, we rely on shipping on a daily basis for sustainment of our communities and our economies. And I've been pleased that Indonesian government representatives share our deep commitment to ensuring the freedom of navigation and open sea lanes and channels, and the importance of that for both of our nations. We're seeing at the moment, unfortunately, in the Strait of Hormuz, what a blockade of that important waterway is doing to both of our economies and indeed the international economy.

So it highlights and underscores the importance of the Jakarta Treaty, cooperation between our defence forces and our governments to ensure that we can try and work together to maintain open sea lanes, open channels of import/export into our countries for the vitally important health of our economies. Journalist: Yeah, because Indonesia has at least three strategic straits: Malacca, Sunda, and Lombok, which are all important for Australia, but also Natuna, which is not a strait but is very strategic because of its proximity to the South China Sea.

Do you think that this is the strategic understanding of Australia still looking at China, where it's very close to China, Indonesia? So, do you think that it's trying to keep Indonesia closer and have the same understanding or perspective on these digital trends? Assistant Minister: Well, Australia is an island nation in the southern hemisphere, at the bottom of the globe, and most of our commerce and our trade is done by ship coming from the north, particularly from Southeast Asia.

So we've relied in recent times on the goodwill and the good economic partnerships that we have with Southeast Asian nations regarding supplies of fuel to Australia. And a couple of weeks ago, a shipment of 47,000 tons of urea landed in Brisbane, a partnership between Australia and Indonesia. A total of 250,000 tons of urea will be delivered under that agreement, and that will ensure that Australian farmers can continue to grow their crops like wheat, so that at harvest time we can put that onto ships and export it to flour mills like Bogasari that I visited earlier today to continue that important trade between our nations.

That's why those open and free shipping lanes, freedom of navigation, are vitally important to both of our countries. And it's pleasing in the meetings that I've had here that both of our nations are committed to that, and both of our nations are committed to that cooperation through the Jakarta Treaty to uphold those principles. Journalist: So both nations are committed.

Have you sought any assurances from the Indonesian government that say it wouldn't move to charge tolls in the Malacca strait as was previously effectively flagged? Assistant Minister: We haven't sought any assurances, and there's been no indication that Indonesia holds a different view. It's been pleasing to get an understanding from the ministers that I've met with around the importance of freedom of navigation.

Discussions with the Foreign Minister and the Trade Minister have highlighted the importance of UNCLOS to both of our nations, the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea, maintaining that free and open shipping. And that's a principle that we both agree on, and that we both work to cooperate to uphold. Journalist: On UNCLOS there as well, we've also had the 10-year anniversary of the arbitral award between the Philippines and China and the Hague as well.

How do you see the Lombok Treaty forming part of Australia's efforts in ensuring freedom of navigation in the South China Sea? Assistant Minister: Well, that underscores the importance of shipping for both of our nations. It's a point that our Defence Minister makes on a regular basis as a justification for our investment in AUKUS, for our investments in our defence capability that we're making to ensure that Australia has the necessary military capability to deter an event that could lead to a disruption to our shipping lanes to the north.

It's highly important to Australia's defence and security. And the Lombok Treaty outlines those principles of cooperation, of course subject to the domestic considerations that both of our countries have around commitments to conflict. So it's an important treaty.

It's gone even further with the Jakarta Treaty to elevate that relationship to a higher level. Thank you. Thanks very much, everyone.