How time flies!

Three years ago, Prime Minister Anthony Albanese was riding his bamboo bike around the Presidential palace gardens in Jakarta with President Joko Widodo. What a lovely picture they made, and how symbolic of the shadow-play relationship between Australia and Indonesia.

Last May, after his impressive electoral win, Albanese was back, this time to shake hands with President Prabowo – all to remind everyone how important Indonesia is to Australia (even though he was actually on his way to Rome to shake hands with the Pope and get his rosary beads blessed).

If Indonesia really mattered, Albanese would be back on his bike right now, given that a stable and prosperous Indonesia is probably Australia’s number one security concern, followed pretty closely by stability in PNG. AUKUS is totally irrelevant in either regard.

In Jakarta, a heavy-duty para-military riot police vehicle ran down and killed a young ojek (a form of motorised becak or trishaw) driver, prompting the torching of buildings and incineration of official vehicles. The homes of the internationally respected Indonesian Finance Minister Sri Mulyani Indrawati and other MPs were looted. The provincial administration building in Makassar was fire-bombed, killing at least three people. Elsewhere in Indonesia, at least twenty people have died.

We’d be beside ourselves if this were happening in New Zealand.

But in Indonesia’s case, none of this matters enough for a Ministerial statement, a MPI or even a few questions in the Parliament. No condolence motions, no expressions of concern. The Opposition is as inert as the government. For all our protestations about the importance of South East Asia, Indonesia just does not matter.

But the travel warning for Bali has been cranked up a notch, just in case the trouble spreads east. Given that President Prabowo has revoked the Parliamentarians’ over-generous housing allowance that initiated the riots, and that a sullen pause to the violent protests is in place, DFAT can now shut the stable door.

It’s a weird state of affairs when Australia’s Deputy Prime Minister can make a magical mystery tour to Washington to achieve not much while our massive neighbour starts tearing itself apart, totally unremarked by our Parliament.