The latest foreign affairs scandal is the controversial news that Australia spied on Indonesia back in the good old days of Kevin 07. The Defence Signals Directorate, an Aussie spy agency, was working alongside USA’s National Security Agency to conduct a large-scale surveillance operation throughout the UN climate change conference of 2007 in Bali.
Edward Snowden has blown the whistle on the whole thing, saying that the DSD and the NSA were working to obtain phone numbers of Indonesian security officials – and the Indonesian foreign minister, Marty Natalegawa, has stated that it is “not cricket” for Australia to spy on the region under the influence of the United States.
The thing is, the spying isn’t really the problem – the issue here is Abbott’s handling of the situation. He had already pissed the Indonesians off with the whole “buy back the boats” scheme, and now has failed to treat the Indonesian president with respect by not getting in touch to acknowledge and discuss the spying incident. He needs to just shut up and apologise, because that’s what Australia would expect if the shoe were on the other foot.