Indonesia is an immense beneficiary of the effectiveness of the...

Indonesia is an immense beneficiary of the effectiveness of the Abbott government’s policies to stop the boats, and the most plugged-in senior Indonesians know this. A whole cohort of people went to Indonesia solely for the purpose of transiting to Australia illegally. They no longer go.

But in truth an Indonesian president’s problems are so numerous and so enormous that this is almost the last of his worries. What the administration of Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono came to appreciate very deeply was that once the boats stopped coming to Australia the political problem disappeared for the Indonesians as much as for the Australians.

Thus, one of SBY’s senior advisers told me that they were delighted with the way Tony Abbott’s anti-boats policy had worked, but could not say so publicly. Once the boats stopped coming to Australia, this issue was virtually never mentioned in Indonesia. It only came up when the Australian media, or Australian politicians, forced it back on to the agenda.

No wonder labor has a change of heart.

The Australian