Shalailah Medhora Monday 16 March 2015

Labor’s foreign affairs spokeswoman said Australia’s relationship with Indonesia strained over asylum policy

Tanya Plibersek: ‘We certainly have been opposed to turn backs.’ Photograph: Mick Tsikas/AAP

Senior members of the government have criticised comments from the deputy opposition leader, Tanya Plibersek, who said the Coalition’s boat turn back policy has strained the relationship between Australia and Indonesia.

At the weekend Plibersek linked the boat turn back policy, which is the cornerstone of the government’s anti-people-smuggling measures, with a souring relationship between leaders.

“We certainly have been opposed to turn backs,” Plibersek told Sky News. “Tony Abbott can’t get a phone call returned from the Indonesian president – it has affected our relationship with Indonesia in the past. It has not been good for it.”

The prime minister, Tony Abbott, has asked to speak to the Indonesian president, Joko Widodo, about the Bali Nine drug traffickers Andrew Chan and Myuran Sukumaran, who are on death row in Indonesia.

Widodo has refused to grant clemency to the duo, who have exhausted nearly all avenues of appeal and are expected to face death via firing squad shortly.

The foreign affairs minister, Julie Bishop, has criticised Plibersek for making the connection between the phone call and the boat turn backs.

“She tied the issue of border protection in with the execution of two Australian citizens and that was a very crude and ill-informed statement to make,” Bishop told ABC radio.

“We inherited from Labor the live cattle ban, the Snowden allegations, and the fact that through the change of Labor policies on border protection Indonesia once more found itself a destination point for a number of people seeking to come to Australia through the people-smuggling trade,” she said. “And we’ve had to deal with all of those issues one by one, and we do it quietly and methodically and respectfully.”

A spokesman for Plibersek said that her statements “were in relation to a different matter” and not in relation to Chan and Sukumaran.

“Labor doesn’t play politics with this highly sensitive matter – it’s too important,” the spokesman said. “Labor has always offered the government every support in efforts to have clemency granted for these two young men.”

The social services minister, Scott Morrison, who implemented turn backs when he ran the immigration portfolio, has called Plibersek’s statement “insensitive”.

“This is a very disappointing and insensitive comment. It’s one that I hope she regrets given the very strong bipartisan nature of the way that we’ve been dealing with this issue,” Morrison told 2GB radio.

On Sunday Abbott slammed the comments as “irresponsible”. “This is just really loose and irresponsible talk from the Labor party,” he said. “The relationship with Indonesia is strong. It’s at least as strong under this government as it was under the former government.

“The fact that the people-smuggling trade has all but shut because of the policies of this government is one of the reasons why the relationship is stronger today.”

Last week an Indonesian minister warned Australia that Jakarta would withdraw its support for Coalition border-protection policies, effectively unleashing a “human tsunami” of asylum seekers, if Canberra kept agitating for Chan and Sukumaran’s release.

Abbott has vowed to press on. “I have raised the question of the Bali Nine and the two Australians on death row with the Indonesian president on a number of occasions and we had a phone call about a fortnight ago,” he said.

“It was specifically on this subject and I made the Australian position absolutely crystal clear. He also made the Indonesian position pretty clear as well. He might think that the subject has been well and truly discussed, but my request for a phone call stands and it’s up to the Indonesian president to respond.”

The prime minister was heavily criticised by Indonesians for saying Jakarta should “reciprocate” the aid money Australia sent after the 2004 Boxing Day tsunami by sparing Sukumaran and Chan.

In a backlash to those comments, Aceh residents began a grassroots campaign to collect coins to repay the aid.

Tanya Plibersek castigated by Coalition over boat turn back comments | Australia news | The Guardian