indonesian response to deteriorating situation, page-241

This was an absolute bullshit game of childish behaviour which has been explained away by apologists as cultural pride.

Tony Abbott did handle this very well and did not publicly capitulate to Bang Bang's behaviour.

I hope Tony has indeed learned a good lesson about how to handle the Indonesians in future. We pretty much have them over the barrel in all aspects except the Illegal Asylum Seeker situation. We:

- give them foreign aid
- are their best source for live stock
- have land that they are desperate to get their hands on to ease their meat costs even more
- have a land to die for, just on their doorstep

Indonesia really does get more out of our relationship than the other way round. I think in future we need to, as the saying goes, 'treat them mean to keep them keen.' This is certainly their modus operandus towards us. We need to understand the 'Asian way' when it comes to dealing with our neighbours.

Abbott should indeed rethink the amount of foreign aid we grant to Indonesia, or certainly keep this up his sleeve as a hold-over bargaining chip whenever needed.

Abbott should look at tightening up Foreign Investment legislation - Australia is probably at the top of the list when it comes to overseas interest in agricultural land ownership - in terms of future value and opportunity - as the rest of the world struggles with access to prime agricultural land. Perhaps there should be a cap on the amount of foreign owned land, or perhaps the rules should be changed to only allow long leases to foreigners, at least subject to the Industry the land is used for.

Here are some interesting stats from a recent Australian Govt report:

- 11.3% of Australia's agricultural land was wholly or partly owned by foreigners
- 91% of water entitlements were fully Australian owned
- 23% of the Northern Territory's agricultural land was wholly or partly under foreign ownership
- Victoria had the lowest percentage of whole or part foreign ownership of agricultural land, at 0.8%
- By industry, the highest level of foreign ownership was in the sheep, beef, cattle and grains industries, with the lowest in nursery and floriculture.