Anthony Albanese (Grayndler, Australian Labor Party, Leader of the House) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I present a copy of my ministerial statement. It is my pleasure to welcome a delegation of distinguished guests from Indonesia who are present in the House of Representatives today. I acknowledge:

•   Indonesia's Minister for Transportation, His Excellency Lieutenant-General, Evert Ernest Mangindaan together with officials from his ministry, and

•   Indonesia's Ambassador to Australia, His Excellency Nadjib Riphat Kesoema.

Minister Mangindaan is here on an official visit and today we will jointly sign a new Transport Security Annex to our recently renewed Memorandum of Understanding on Cooperation in the Transport Sector. Today we will also sign a new Air Services Agreement, demonstrating the strength and importance of our aviation relationship which will assist the growth plans of airlines in both our nations.

It is my pleasure to update the House on the positive, cooperative relationship that Australia and Indonesia share in the important area of regional transport safety and security.

Transport Relationship

Australia has an undeniable interest in working cooperatively with Indonesia to improve the safety, security and efficiency of our transport links—both air and sea. Indonesia's burgeoning international aviation industry provides new opportunities and challenges for both countries. If any evidence is needed that our national orientation has, indeed, turned towards Asia, our aviation patterns confirm it.

Over just the last year, we've seen passenger arrivals from Indonesia increase by 13 per cent. Indonesia is also one of Australia's largest outbound tourist markets. Every year, there are more than two million passenger movements between our countries. To accommodate this growth, we have vastly expanded seat capacity to Indonesia, as we have with many of our Asian neighbours. Many Australians also use the various modes of transport to get around the vast Indonesian archipelago. Evidently, there is much that our transport agencies can learn from one another.

I would like to take this opportunity to update the House on some of the important initiatives we have been working on.

Transport safety cooperation

As I noted, Minister Mangindaan and I will today renew our MOU covering transport cooperation between Australia and Indonesia. The updated arrangement ensures the continuation of our very successful transport safety program—the Indonesia Transport Safety Assistance Package, known as ITSAP—that has been in place since 2007. ITSAP has enjoyed strong bipartisan support since its inception, and that bipartisan support is symbolised by the presence today of the Leader of The Nationals and shadow transport minister in the chamber, who will be meeting with the minister after this ministerial statement.

To date, Australia has committed some $38.5 million to this program. This has helped fund more than 50 projects and train more than 1,000 Indonesian government and industry professionals in safety investigation, port control, maritime systems, air navigation, road safety, and search and rescue. Indeed, I presided over a graduation ceremony in Jakarta just two months ago of Indonesian transport and aviation security personnel who had been trained with the assistance of Australia.

Due to our collective efforts through ITSAP, there is now a single air navigation service provider in Indonesia, similar to our own Airservices Australia. We have developed Non-Convention Vessel Standards (NCVS) which modernise the regulation of shipping standards—the formal launch of which I attended in Jakarta, when I was there last December. We have jointly developed and published a Tropical Mountainous Terrain Flying Operations kit. Road safety workshops have been held across the most populous regions of the country promoting links between relevant agencies and road safety practitioners.

The partnership work between Indonesia's National Transportation Safety Committee (NTSC) and the Australian Transport Safety Bureau (ATSB) in transport accident investigation has been particularly useful to both countries.

There have also been five search and rescue exercises involving the Australian Maritime Safety Authority (AMSA) and Indonesia's search and rescue agency, BASARNAS.

Maritime Search and Rescue Cooperation

Last September, I visited Jakarta along with the Minister for Defence, the Hon. Stephen Smith, and the Minister for Home Affairs and Justice, the Hon. Jason Clare, to discuss with our Indonesian counterparts ways to improve our two nations' maritime search and rescue activities. Australia agreed to provide an additional $4.42 million to fund a series of new projects, including:

Transport Security Cooperation

Apart from our excellent work on transport safety, our bilateral transport security relationship is a matter of great pride to me. We have worked hard together to deliver international standards of training and security regulation to protect Indonesia's transport system from acts of terrorism and other acts of unlawful interference. Our joint work to strengthen air and sea transport systems has been beneficial to everyone in our region. By identifying and rectifying vulnerabilities, we build a more robust and secure region.

As a result of our close and mature relationship, our Indonesian colleagues have welcomed officers from my department on long-term secondments as aviation security advisers within the Ministry of Transportation in both Bali and Jakarta. These officers work directly with the regulator, airlines and airports to ensure that our joint investment in capacity-building delivers better regional security. But our security relationship extends beyond government-to-government links. We are working closely with industry associations and individual companies to achieve our security goals. These include an advanced X-ray interpretation course being conducted with the assistance of the Qantas Group and Australian aviation screening experts. These collaborative projects demonstrate that there are no competitors in security—only partners.

This partnership will be further formalised with the joint signing of the new annex to the Memorandum of Understanding on Cooperation in the Transport Sector. It will bring into operation the transport sector elements of the 2006 Lombok treaty—an agreement that provides the framework for security cooperation between our countries.

Closing Remarks

The projects undertaken under the MOU are improving the capabilities of our respective transport agencies to achieve improved transport safety and security outcomes in our region. As a result, I can report, proudly, that our transport relationship with Indonesia has never been stronger.

It is my absolute pleasure to welcome Minister Mangindaan here today, together with his delegation. The minister was able to travel via Darwin to look at the transportation arrangements for cattle there, and I thank those who facilitated that visit. This evening, he will be in my home city of Sydney before returning to Indonesia tomorrow.

It is appropriate that I record today my thanks for the warm hospitality he and his officials have shown me and Minister Clare—who is here also in the chamber—along with Minister Smith during our recent visits to Indonesia. I have now visited Indonesia four times as the Minister for Infrastructure and Transport.

That, I think, underpins how important the government believes this relationship to be. That is a bipartisan position of this parliament. The relationship formed and the lessons that have been learnt through this cooperation will help our countries grow even closer in coming years. And, of course, this chamber witnessed the very important speech given by President Yudhoyono here in this chamber just a short time ago. I welcome the minister and I welcome his delegation, and I look forward to this being a next step in what is a very important building of the relationship between Australia and Indonesia.

I ask leave of the House to move a motion to enable the Leader of the Nationals and shadow minister for transport to speak for 11 minutes.

Leave granted.

I move:

That so much of the standing and sessional orders be suspended as would prevent Mr Truss speaking for a period not exceeding 11 minutes.

Question agreed to.

Warren Truss (Wide Bay, National Party, Leader of the Nationals) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I thank the minister for his statement. I am delighted to join the Minister for Infrastructure and Transport in welcoming the distinguished delegation from Indonesia here today led by the Minister for Transportation, His Excellency Lieutenant General Evert Ernest Mangindaan, and other officials from his ministry and accompanied also by the Indonesian Ambassador to Australia. It is a particular pleasure to have you in the gallery today, and I look forward to meeting your delegation in a few moments time.

Australia's relationship with Indonesia is without doubt one of our most important. Indonesia has the world's fourth-largest population and is the world's third-largest democracy. Not only is Indonesia one of our closest neighbours; it is also our fourth-largest trading partner in ASEAN and our 12th-largest trading partner in the world. Over the past decades, our governments and our peoples have grown closer as business partners and friends, and it is pleasing that the strengthening of our two nations' relationship has increased the bonds and the close ties between our countries—and it has strong bipartisan support, as the minister has already mentioned, from both the government and the opposition.

From the coalition's perspective, we welcome the opportunity for our two countries to work together with respect and understanding to further our many mutual interests in trade, transport, security, education, health and emergency management, just to name a few. The Leader of the Opposition was warmly welcomed by Indonesian President Yudhoyono and his ministry on his visit to Indonesia in October last year. To underscore his and the coalition's commitment to the Indonesian-Australian bilateral relationship, he has announced that, should he become Prime Minister, his first overseas visit will be to Indonesia. The coalition strongly supports the Comprehensive Economic Partnership Agreement negotiations that the current government announced in 2010 and would certainly want to continue the annual ministerial meetings which have been established and which I had the opportunity to participate in on several occasions when I was a minister.

As the Leader of the Opposition noted on his visit to Indonesia last year, more and more the assistance and support goes both ways, as a truly bilateral relationship should. For instance, Indonesia provided much-appreciated financial and engineering assistance in the wake of the devastating floods in my home state of Queensland in 2011. The minister may be interested to know that we are now going through it again in 2013, and another recovery phase has begun.

As Minister Albanese has said, Australia and Indonesia have every reason to work together to improve the safety, security and efficiency of our transport network. As we all know, Indonesia is a popular destination for Australian tourists. In fact, in the last financial year it was second only to New Zealand and ahead of Thailand, the USA, England and every other country. As the minister noted, over the past year passenger arrivals from Indonesia have increased by 13 per cent.

Minister Mangindaan and Minister Albanese will today renew the memorandum of understanding on transport cooperation between our two nations. This represents the continuation of the Indonesia Transport Safety Assistance Package, known as ITSAP, which was first announced by the former Minister for Transport and Regional Services, the Hon. Mark Vaile, in May 2007, at a time when Indonesia faced real security challenges. At that time, the Australian government provided $23.9 million over three years for training and technical assistance to address issues associated with aviation and maritime safety. This allowed our governments, through their respective departments and transport agencies, to assess arrangements as they stood and identify improvements to the systems and practices. This program was further expanded by the current government in 2010, and Australia has now committed almost $40 million to this initiative.

There is no doubt that ITSAP has been a valuable initiative for both Indonesia and Australia. It has seen the development of new safety procedures and manuals and has invested in training for over 1,000 Indonesian government and industry professionals. The minister has outlined a number of ITSAP's achievements, including advances in shipping standards and airspace management and the development of a tropical mountainous terrain flying operations kit. Under ITSAP, Australia has also provided training and support for safety investigators in the Indonesian National Transportation Safety Committee and provided opportunities for exchanges of personnel, techniques and support with particular investigations. I welcome the minister's announcement that this worthwhile initiative will continue so that our two countries can work together on aviation and maritime safety into the future.

The minister's visit to Australia today will also see the joint signing of the new annex to the Memorandum of Understanding on Cooperation in the Transport Sector, which, as I understand it, will build on the Lombok treaty signed by our countries' foreign ministers in November 2006. The Lombok treaty provides the legal framework for supporting increased collaboration on a number of security and counter-terrorism related matters. The signing of this annex builds on the strong foundation of bilateral cooperation on security issues that already exists between our two countries.

Following the tragic 2002 bombings in Bali, our two countries' counter-terrorism and security ties have grown dramatically. The Indonesian government has proved a willing and able partner in addressing regional security issues and disrupting terrorist networks. The minister has outlined some examples of where our two countries have worked together on transport security, and I am sure that, through the signing of this annex, this cooperation will continue to grow.

In conclusion, can I again join Minister Albanese in welcoming Minister Mangindaan, together with officials from his ministry, to Australia and thank them for their commitment to strengthening the security relationship between our two countries. Maintaining a productive and cooperative relationship between our transportation departments and agencies is very important, and the two transport initiatives that will be signed today will assist in improving transport safety and security outcomes, not just for Australia and Indonesia but for our whole region. I welcome Minister Mangindaan. I trust that your visit to Australia will be pleasurable and that the bonds of friendship that are now secure and strongly developed between our countries will be further strengthened by your days in Australia.