Australia has a great opportunity to boost its relationships with Southeast Asian and Pacific Islands countries with the implementation of a First Nations foreign policy doctrine. To ensure its success, the government must empower the diplomatic services. 

Earlier this year, Justin Mohamed was announced as Australia’s inaugural Ambassador for First Nations people. Mohamed will be responsible for leading efforts to incorporate the First Nations policy across the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade (DFAT) and head an Office of First Nations Engagement within the department. More than a figurehead role, the First Nations approach to foreign affairs requires deeper engagement with our neighbours and a firm footing to establish greater relational bonds that underscore the true friendship between Australia and its closest partners.

A need for closer diplomacy

Today, Australia’s most important neighbours are Indonesia and Papua New Guinea (PNG). Indonesia is Southeast Asia’s largest country, whereas PNG is the largest Pacific Island nation. In 1994, then-Australian Prime Minister Paul Keating remarked that “Australian territory can in effect be directly threatened with military force only from or through Indonesia and PNG.” The 2016 Defence White Paper identified the Pacific and Southeast Asia as Australia’s second strategic defence interest behind a secure, resilient Australia.

Despite the region’s geostrategic importance for a secure Australian continent, however, recent Australian governments have sought to under-fund DFAT and diplomacy in the Indo-Pacific. The recent decision by the government and Foreign Minister Penny Wong to engage in a new First Nations foreign policy gives Canberra a chance to deepen and broaden its engagement with its immediate region.

DFAT aims to embed the unique experiences and perspectives of Indigenous people into Australia’s approach to foreign affairs. The Albanese Government believes that First Nations perspectives will particularly strengthen Australia’s relationships with its regional neighbours in the Indo-Pacific. Today, out of the 500 million Indigenous people in 90 countries, 70 percent live in Asia. Clearly, as a nation with progressive values and a growing recognition of the contribution First Nations people make, the country has much to exchange with its neighbours.

Early relations

Long before European settlement in Australia, Southeast Asian trepangers (fishermen) from the Indonesian city of Makassar visited the coast of northern Australia. Between 1600 to 1907, the trepangers collected and processed trepang (sea cucumber) in northern Australia and then sold the valuable commodity to Chinese merchants. The Makassan trepangers were Austronesian-speaking men of ethnic Makassarese, Buginese, and Malay backgrounds. During these visits, deep cultural ties were established between the Makassan’s and the Yolngu people of Arnhem land. The Makassan’s also married and fathered children with local Aboriginal women. Some of these families relocated to Indonesia with the Makassan visitors.

First Nations Australians are also closely related to the native Melanesian peoples of PNG, the Solomon Islands, Vanuatu, and Fiji. Both Aboriginal Australian and Pacific Islander communities share a deep-rooted South Sea Island identity. Nonetheless, until Wong’s First Nations Doctrine, Aboriginal Australians’ shared history with Southeast Asian and Pacific Islander communities has received limited official attention. Pacific Islander communities in particular have long called for a prominent place for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people in Australia’s regional relationships.

Therefore, Australian foreign policy is likely to be served well with the inclusion of Aboriginal Australian relationalism in its foreign policy toolkit. For instance, too often Canberra’s focus in the Pacific has been through the lens of its short-term geostrategic interests. By taking this transactional approach, past Australian governments have failed to listen to and act on the primary concerns of its Pacific family. This also extends to parts of the Australian business community, where a transactional relationship with Southeast Asian countries is too often the focus. But Indonesia and its ASEAN partners are not like Australia’s other trading partners, such as China, meaning a “we sell, they buy” approach will not work. A relational approach is more likely to succeed in the region, embracing principles of mutual respect, co-development, and reciprocity. Such a relational approach has been ingrained in Aboriginal Australian cultures for centuries. It is also embedded in both Pacific Islander and Southeast Asian cultures.

More than figureheads 

First Nations attachés shouldn’t just merely become ceremonial figureheads in Australia’s engagement with the region, they should instead be given a substantive role in driving Australia’s public and development diplomacy efforts in the Indo-Pacific. In the recent budget, the Australian Government allocated AUD$4.77 billion to the Official Development Assistance (ODA) program. Canberra is aiming to embed the perspectives of First Nations Australians into its development efforts in the Indo-Pacific.

Moving forward, the attachés could be based in major Australian diplomatic missions across Southeast Asia and the Pacific, working under DFAT’s developing Office of First Nations Engagement. This could also include the involvement of senior advisers with specialised knowledge of Aboriginal Australian experiences and perspectives in dealing with communities in Southeast Asia and the Pacific.

The attachés model also offers a golden opportunity to further operationalise Wong’s vision to “see First Nations perspectives at the heart of Australian foreign policy.” Ultimately, First Nations attachés will help Canberra to genuinely and effectively project First Nations voices to the Indo-Pacific and the world.

Ridvan Kilic is a Master of International Relations student at La Trobe University. His research interests include the Australia-Indonesia bilateral relationship, Indonesian foreign policy, and domestic affairs, ASEAN, the Quad, and the Indonesian diaspora community. Ridvan’s primary focus is Indonesia, Australia, ASEAN regionalism, and the Indo-Pacific.

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