Australia’s Prime Minister Tony Abbott today starts his first overseas trip to fulfill promises made in elections like bolster trade with Asia and stop the flow of boats to the country carrying asylum seekers.
Abbott promise to stop the boats in a meeting with Indonesian President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono in Jakarta. Abbott has promised to boost Australia’s $1.5 trillion economy and cut company taxes, and another to limit asylum seekers arriving by boat via Indonesia from countries like Afghanistan. He sought during the election to persuade voters worried that asylum-seekers were living off welfare payments and taking employment opportunities.
He promotes his message that Australia is once more open for business in back-to-back meetings with leaders such as U.S. President Barack Obama. He has viewed a more low-key approach than his forerunner and a priority for Asia and he is looking toward “Jakarta, not Geneva.”
Abbott said today at Sydney airport that Indonesia may not yet be our most important economic or security partner but it is in many respects our most important partner according to a transcript.
Haydon Manning, a politics professor at Flinders University in Adelaide said that First international trip for a new leader is often view as a honeymoon-period but Abbott’s Indonesia visit will potentially be a lot spinier than a honeymoon.
Abbott will have to persuade leaders that he is serious about developing relationships in Asia. He has selected Trade Minister Andrew Robb to make progress on free trade deals alongside the broader Trans-Pacific Partnership agreement with countries such as China, India, South Korea, Japan, and Indonesia.
Abbott’s international agenda’s main focus will be to pair interest with the U.S. and China an Asia biggest economy, a nation with which two-way trade reached a $117.7 billion last year. He will attend Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation next week in Bali and then the East Asia meeting in Brunei While the previous Labor government of Kevin Rudd pushed for greater influence at bodies such as the UN. He has indicated a more low-key approach. He was criticized by Rudd by not involving Australia in military intervention in Syria. Abbott said in an ABC interview in start of September that I don’t think we should be getting above ourselves here.