Kevin Rudd’s speech at the Australia-Indonesia Conference Dinner

Politicians are often criticized for being all talk and no substance, but for me Kevin Rudd, Australia’s current Prime Minister seems to be one of the worst. I read through his speech which he gave at the Australia-Indonesia Conference Dinner which was published in the Jakarta Post.

I wonder if he was trying to be funny when he said, “in the year 2008, the President of Indonesia, Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono and I met on seven occasions. We’ve now entered that into the Guinness Book of Records under the bilateral relations heading.”

In 1,840 words we learn that he has met the President of Indonesia a few times and the two countries have helped each other out a few times during natural disasters.

For anyone from Australia or Indonesia with an interest in either country, there was nothing in the speech that gave you anything to look forward to. Wouldn’t it be nice to see the relationship between Australia and Indonesia go a little beyond what we have now. The average Australian’s knowledge of Indonesia doesn’t go beyond Bali and perhaps a place to build a few more new mines.

In today’s Jakarta Post I also read how there is less interest in people studying about Indonesia in Australia and Curtin University have even closed down their Indonesia department.

Not only are Indonesian specialists from Australia an endangered species, but if Indonesian courses continue to be closed at universities across the country, as has happened this year at Curtin University in Perth, WA, they will become an extinct one too.

To close Indonesian courses at Australian universities based purely on financial issues is an incredibly shortsighted step to take. Pro-Vice Chancellor David Wood and Vice Chancellor Jeanette Hacket, who are responsible for these closures, have acted in complete contradiction to the stated aims of the Federal and State governments, and of the university itself.

In short, like many others, I am appalled at the treatment of staff and students in the Indonesian department at the hands of the Vice Chancellors of Curtin University.

I am also dismayed and thoroughly embarrassed at the narrow-minded decision to scrap Indonesian language courses and will be relocating to a different university next year.