Challenges and Opportunities for Indonesia and Australia Relationship in the Asian Century

On 17 May 2013, Counsellor in Politics and  Senior First Secretary of Economic Affairs of The Republic of Indonesia Embassy in Australia, Mr Widya Rahmanto and Mr Denny Lesmana shared some valuable  insights into  “Challenges and Opportunities for Indonesia and Australia (IA) Relationship in The Asian Century”. This discussion forum was organised by the Indonesian Embassy, South Australian Chapter of The Indonesian Student Association (PPIA), and fully supported by  PPIA at Flinders University, University of Adelaide and University of South Australia and  GoLive Indonesia.

Legal mobilisation and access to justice in Indonesia: Insights from the Struggle Over International Standard Schools

On 3 May 2013, Associate Professor Andrew Rosser, ARC Future Fellow at Indo-Pacific Governance Research Centre at University of Adelaide presented his work entitled “Legal mobilisation and access to justice in Indonesia: Insights from the Struggle Over International Standard Schools” at our GoLive Indonesia-Indonesian student association (PPIA) University of Adelaide branch academic discussion series. Prof Rosser’s presentation is based on his current ARC Future Fellowship project to understand conditions to allow citizens to mobilise effectively, covering education, health and water issues.

Following the fall of the New Order regime in late 1990s, Indonesia’s 1945 constitution was radically revised as part of a shift towards a more democratic and decentralised political system. Part of this ‘revision’ is the establishment of the Constitutional Court (CC). Established in 2003, the CC has the authority to determine the constitutionality of laws passed by parliament and their individual provisions. But it is not to rule on lower-level implementing regulations.

Is Indonesia undergoing a rights revolution? What is the role of an organisation to support individual justice seekers taking lessons from struggle over international standard schools in Indonesia?

Australia in the Asian century: Identifying opportunities for Indonesia-Australia relations

On 8 May 2013, Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade organised public consultations  ”Australia in the Asian century” in Adelaide. Indonesia becomes one of the focused countries along with Korea, Japan, India and China. Risti Permani, GoLive Indonesia team member, attended the event.

ASEAN Economic Integration: Challenges and Strategies

Kiki Verico, Faculty of Economics University of Indonesia

Southeast Asia is among the important pillars in Asia’s economic integration whereby ASEAN is expected to gain solid economic integration from trade and investment. This would mean that ASEAN must have significant and positive relations in her intra regional trade and intra regional investments. Yet a previous study finds them to be significant nevertheless having negative relations (Verico, 2012). Given its long-run economic integration objective, ASEAN must turn this relation into one that is significant and positive. This will require an economic convergence by which an equivalent level of playing field within its member states.

International Students as Young Migrant Workers in South Australia: Role of University in OHS Awareness and Education

Yahya Thamrin, University of Adelaide and Hasanuddin University Makassar Indonesia

According to Nylan et al (2010) 50 per cent of international student have undertaken paid work. Approximately 56 per cent of overseas students in Australia have undertaken paid employment during their study period (AEI 2007). This trend has continued to grow. These international students normally undertake jobs in workplaces that rank low in terms of employment stratification (Anderson et al 2011). They are also susceptible to injury and exploitation (Nyland 2010). Language and cultural issues may exacerbate their conditions.

The issue on international students who participate in the workforce is part of migrant workers. The question is whether they are more vulnerable than migrant and young local workers. There have been some studies on either international students’ educational experience or migrants’ working experience. But little has been done to investigate the nexus between the two topics.

Diversity of Media=Diversity of Content?

Anang Sujoko, Brawijaya University 

In Indonesia, after the resignation of President Soeharto (1998), the freedom of expression has encouraged the media development. The mass media, including print media and broadcasting media, has significantly grown. For instance, the number of private television stations went up from two stations in 1998 to 11 national commercial network stations and hundreds of local commercial TV stations (Davis 2013). In addition, there are currently one thousand print media (newspaper, tabloid, and magazine) with 25 million copies.

In Indonesia, mainstream media, including print and broadcasting, play the important role in shaping or directing Indonesians’ points of view and life. This article briefly reviews the importance of media and how the media works,  and investigates whether diversity of media leads to diversity of content.

The Legacy of the Past for Current Agriculture

Agus Pakpahan,PhD Chairman of the Union of Estate Crops Farmers Associations

Indonesian agricultural sectors have a long history. This article briefly reviews agricultural development from the colonization era to the post-independence period.  Whilst the colonial agricultural development approach to use forced-agenda through VOC monopoly power and Tanam Paksa (enforcement planting) was no longer relevant to current agriculture, the colonial era has passed on the legacy of a ‘grand design’ that has not changed much, that is to focus export-oriented agricultural commodities such as rubber in Sumatera and main food commodities such as rice in Java and to provide necessary infrastructure to achieve agricultural development goals including research institutes and irrigation networks.