indonesian_open FW: [Wa-indon] Jakarta Post on Oz Fed Parlt report response

[Wittman, Leonie]

Teman-teman yang baik

Info below is forwarded from the wa-indon list.

 

Leonie Wittman

Senior Curriculum Adviser

Languages Special Projects

 

Languages Unit

Curriculum K-12 Directorate

NSW Department of Education & Training

3a Smalls Rd

Ryde NSW 2112

 

Tel: 61 2 9886 7681

Fax: 61 2 9886 7160

Email: leonie.wittman at det.nsw.edu.au

________________________________

From: wa-indon-bounces at central.murdoch.edu.au
[mailto:wa-indon-bounces at central.murdoch.edu.au] On Behalf Of David T.
Hill
Sent: Friday, 21 October 2005 6:31 PM
To: wa-indon at central.murdoch.edu.au
Subject: [Wa-indon] Jakarta Post on Oz Fed Parlt report response

 


Wa-indon members might be interested in this article by Duncan Graham in
today's JAKARTA POST
http://www.thejakartapost.com/detailworld.asp?fileid=20051021.I01&irec=0

.........................
The Jakarta Post, 21 October 2005

Australia-Indonesia relations lack leadership 

Duncan Graham, Contributor, Surabaya

The Australian government has failed to provide serious leadership in
improving relations with Indonesia, according to Dr. David Hill,
professor of Southeast Asian Studies at Western Australia's Murdoch
University.

"It is disappointing that many key recommendations made by a Federal
Parliamentary committee -- and central to Australia's future capacity to
engage with Indonesia in a mutually beneficial and productive way --
have not been taken up with sufficient vigor or commitment," he told The
Jakarta Post. 

Prof. Hill was commenting on the Australian government's response to a
major report on Australian-Indonesian relations. 

The report was written by the foreign affairs sub-committee of the
Australian Parliament's Joint Standing Committee on Foreign Affairs,
Defense and Trade. 

The 275-page report with 28 recommendations was published in May last
year, but the government's response has only just been released. 

The report, titled Near Neighbours - Good Neighbours, took 21 months to
produce. Work started following the 2002 Bali bombings. 

The 25-member sub-committee met in Australia and Jakarta. It included
members of parliament from all major Australian political parties. The
current Opposition Leader Kim Beazley was a member. 

Input was given by 60 organizations and 124 submissions were made.
Almost 40 percent concerned education. 

In the report sub-committee chairman David Jull described the
Indonesian-Australian relationship as "complex". 

"Being good neighbours is an art requiring a delicate balancing of
distance and closeness," he said. "A distance that is respectful of
difference and sovereignty -- a closeness that guarantees a helping hand
in time of need." 

Although the report drew a lukewarm response in Australia, most
academics involved in Asian Studies welcomed recommendations that urged
the government to spend more on education to boost understanding of
Indonesia. 

In its reply to the report, the government said funding for education
and training assistance to Indonesia had increased. Scholarships were
available and a new program had been introduced to lift English language
training in Islamic boarding schools, mainly in East Java. 

However Professor Hill slammed the government's negative response to a
recommendation to restore the National Asian Languages and Studies in
Australian Schools program. 

This started in 1995 and was designed to make Australians more
Asia-literate. Teachers claimed the program helped revive interest in
Indonesian, but the Federal government withdrew support in 2002.
Enrollments in higher level learning of Indonesian then slumped. 

"While the uptake of Indonesian language languishes around Australia the
government's response is simply to declare that it is doing what it can
-- which is clearly not enough," Prof. Hill said. 

"Indonesian needs to be regarded as a strategic priority and to be
supported financially at all levels of education from primary to
tertiary. 

"Yet the level of funding is less than A$1.50 (Rp 11,000) a year per
head of population which is a paltry investment in a country's
linguistic competence. It's less than the cost of one cup of coffee. 

"Instead of providing serious leadership, the government has chosen to
deflect responsibility back to the various states." 

Responding to another recommendation that the government lift its aid to
Indonesia, the government said that before last December's tsunami
Australia had already increased its annual aid budget to A$160.8 million
(Rp 120,75 million). 

After the Indian Ocean disaster and a commitment of A$1 billion (Rp 7,5
billion) over five years, Australia is now the third ranked bilateral
donor to Indonesia behind Japan and Germany. 

Another recommendation for action to promote understanding of Islam in
Australia drew this response: "The government is currently looking at
ways to address the perceptions in some areas of the community that
Australia is not racially or religiously tolerant". 

== ibox 

For more of the report from the Australian Parliament's Joint Standing
Committee on Foreign Affairs, Defense and Trade, go to:
http://www.aph.gov.au/house/committee/jfadt/index.htm 



........................................................................
............
Professor David T. Hill
Chair of Southeast Asian Studies
School of Social Sciences and Humanities
(Education & Humanities Building, Room 2.11)
Division of Arts
MURDOCH UNIVERSITY WA 6150
AUSTRALIA 

tel: (+61-8) 9360 2412 (direct); 9360 2504 (School office)
fax: (+61-8) 9360 6575

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