Author: Shiro Armstrong

Rudd’s first day in Indonesia involved an interpreting mishap which highlighted a sensitive issue:

According to the interpreter, Dr Yudhoyono said he looked forward to Australia lifting its travel alert for Indonesia, prompting a pointed response from Mr Rudd.

A spokesman for Dr Yudhoyono later told Australian journalists the president had not said that. [full article at the Age]

Over at the Lowy Interpreter [no pun intended] blog Peter McCawley and Stephen Grenville have chimed in on the potential damaging effects, economically and politically, of the DFAT travel warning. I agree with them both. . . why do we still have our warning if the US has downgraded theirs?

Indonesia is showing they respect our processes and not trying to interfere. And I agree with Sam Roggeveen that:

as long as the system is in place, we should not ask Government to manipulate it for trade or diplomatic reasons

but perhaps we should review how consistent these travel warnings are with other travel warnings of our allies (the US in this case) so that if and when they have to be applied there is credibility. . . credibility for potential tourists and it doesn’t look like Australia is the only country discriminating against another.