When I was last in Jakarta, Malcolm Turnbull was the prime minister, and the president Joko Widodo took the Australian prime minister for a walk through a local market – part of his regular tradition as the Indonesian leader.
Back then, the walk was a gesture of healing. Turnbull’s visit in 2015 was an effort to reset one of Australia’s most important foreign policy relationships which had been derailed by a number of events during the Abbott prime ministership, including running disagreements over asylum boat turnbacks, revelations that Australia had spied on (or attempted to spy on) the then president, Susilo Yudhoyono, his wife and nine members of their inner circle in 2009 and – later – the executions of the Bali Nine duo Andrew Chan and Myuran Sukumaran.
