More Indonesians are holidaying abroad but is Australia missing out?
By Ross B Taylor AM Air Asia’s slogan is “Now everyone can fly”. Indonesians seem to have taken this message to heart, as in 2017, 9.1 million Indonesian citizens travelled abroad, and more than 3 million applied for a new passport. The number of Indonesians travelling overseas is growing rapidly as this nation of 265 million people sees the emergence of a middle-class eager to take up the latest technologies, eat better food, and travel. The favourite overseas destinations for Indonesians last year included Singapore,…
Red-tape still a barrier to closer Indonesia-Australia relations.
By Ross B Taylor AM Jakarta Over many years much has been said and written about the importance of Australia’s relationship with its large and near neighbour, Indonesia. Australia’s former prime ministers also were clear about the importance of being good neighbours: Paul Keating said, ‘Indonesia is our most important relationship’. Tony Abbott famously talked about, ‘More Indonesia and less Geneva.’ NGO’s, bureaucrats and academics talk continuously about the need to ‘get more ballast into the bi-lateral relationship’, an…
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