Prime Minister Anthony Albanese’s visit to Indonesia comes at a pivotal time as Jakarta prepares to vault into the ranks of the world’s biggest economies.

President Prabowo Subianto has made the astonishing promise to raise economic growth from 5 per cent to 8 per cent. Indonesia is the world’s 18th largest economy and the fourth-most populous country, with some 290 million people, and the president wants to make it the world’s fourth-biggest economy by 2045.

Peter Hartcher, the Herald’s political and international editor, says the centre of Prabowo’s agenda is to provide free, nutritious meals daily to all school-age children and pregnant and nursing mothers – a mammoth effort to feed more than 80 million people. He has made huge budget cuts, including rationing of electricity to government ministries. Another target is funding for schools and universities and to widen the scope of the military in civilian affairs, a move that has galvanised student protests and raised the spectre of the Suharto years of military dictatorship.

Canberra’s awareness of Indonesia’s new importance to Australia was revealed by Albanese during an effusive phone call after being re-elected, in which he told Prabowo he wanted Jakarta to be his first visit, not Washington DC or Beijing.

Three years ago, Indonesia was Albanese’s second foreign trip, after Japan, when Labor was elected. The new Labor government subsequently concentrated on rebuilding bridges with China after the relationship was damaged during the Morrison years, when Beijing imposed trade sanctions in 2020 on $20 billion worth of Australian imports.

Relations across the Pacific also required repair. Historically, Australia had enjoyed close relationships with the island nations, but Coalition governments relegated them to second-order status until the security deal between China and the Solomon Islands on the eve of the 2022 federal election shook us out of our torpor, and the Albanese government recalibrated attention on the Pacific.

Now with China and Russia seeking more influence over Indonesia, and US President Donald Trump’s confusing tariff ploy perceived as hostile trade treatment, the Australian connection to Jakarta is more vital than ever.

ANU professor emeritus Greg Fealy says Prabowo will want to talk to Albanese about trade and investment. Australia and Indonesia already have a free trade agreement, but both nations are eager to explore critical mineral collaboration.

Hartcher reports Albanese sees scope for much more trade liberalisation with Jakarta and intends to discuss the prospects for the Sun Cable project to deliver renewable power to Indonesia. The $30 billion project will collect solar energy from northern Australia and run it through an undersea cable to Singapore. But it must transit Indonesian waters and there could be scope for some of its electricity to be sold to Jakarta in an offtake.

Despite underlying tensions, our two countries share a dynamic friendship that has endured through conflict and catastrophe. These are certainly heady days to our north, and it is time Indonesia came back into Australia’s focus after being slightly off our radar.

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