Indonesia summons Australian ambassador to Jakarta Greg Moriarty over spying reports

Australian Broadcasting Corporation (ABC) ^ | 1st November 2013 | George Roberts

[naturalman1975]

Indonesia has summoned the Australian ambassador, Greg Moriarty, to answer allegations Australia used its Jakarta embassy as a spy base.

The Indonesian foreign ministry has issued a statement demanding clarification of media reports that Australia used the Jakarta embassy to run surveillance operations.

Reports in Fairfax media suggest the embassy has been used as a post to collect intelligence on Indonesia, a country of growing regional and economic importance.

[naturalman1975]

Australia spying on Indonesia? A country with ten times our population, just a little off our north coast, which we last came close to armed conflict with in 1999. With the world's largest number of Muslims, so even if 99% of them were peaceful, that's 200,000 of them who are not, and we've suffered three significant terrorist attacks primarily targeting Australia there since 2002, not to mention, significant numbers of Indonesian people smugglers violating our borders and sovereignty.... Australia spying on Indonesia isn't news.

The story here is that the left wing Fairfax owned newspapers (primarily the Sydney Morning Herald and Melbourne's Age are once again showing their true colours by coming out and printing stories about this, that they know expose Australia's intelligence information and secrets, and will create diplomatic problems for the new conservative government (never mind that the spying in question occurred under the previous Labor government (I am certainly not criticising that government, by the way - they would have been negligent if they hadn't done so, but pointing out that the left wing press ignored it while they had a left wing government is relevant).

Indonesia knew Australia spied on them - their own spies would have told them that, although that would have just confirmed what everybody assumed was happening. It's business as usual between nations and everybody accepts it. Until some journalists come along and turn it into something that can't just be quietly understood and defended against.

[Ax]

Forewarned is forearmed, mate. Keep up the good work.

[Cicero]

Not good. There’s a brief piece on Fairfax Media here:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fairfax_Media

The biggest shareholder is Gina Rinehard, a mining company owner and richest woman in Australia. She seems to get involved in a lot of family disputes and suchlike, but she also seems to be basically conservative. She opposes global warming and carbon taxes and thinks there should be less restraint and taxation on mining operations.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gina_Rinehart

But I suppose like any major media outfit, the reporters and editors are mostly the usual suspects.

[naturalman1975]

Rinehart has only got involved with Fairfax very recently, and does seem to be trying to reform it. But while she is the largest single shareholder, she still only has a distinctly minority stake. She’s been able to put a couple of people on the board, but it’s an uphill struggle.

I don’t really mind Fairfax being left wing - NewsCorp who own most of the other major newspapers are fairly conservative and I do think a degree of media balance is inherently positive. But causing diplomatic incidents and publishing national security information for no good reason goes beyond being partisan.

[gr8eman]

the Indy gov’t has FinFisher. Pot>Kettle

[Venturer]

Your Post is correct.

Every Consulate of every country in every other country is spying while they are there.

Some are a bit more sophisticated than others, but spying is a given, has been for 200 years.

[Cicero]

Agreed. And, yes, apparently the tax rules forced Rinehart to reduce her holding to 15%. It’s an influential amount, but not enough to dictate to the editors.

[Gay State Conservative]

Countries spy on one another.*All* of them do it...at least the ones with the capability.During my two brief visits to Indonesia (both within the last four years) I was *stunned* by the backwardness I saw...and I've seen backwardness in my day.Australia's an advanced,civilized nation that hangs out in a pretty dangerous neighborhood and has a duty to her citizens to protect them from those dangers.If Indonesia were to miraculously lift itself from the 17th to the 21st Century perhaps Australia wouldn't feel the need to spy on them.

A former US leader once declared "no more World Trade Centers"...a pledge that our current leadership,in the name of a lightweight brought up in Indonesia,has backed away from.One can easily see why Australia's attitude,across the political spectrum,would be "no more Balis"