The Governments of Australia and the Republic of Indonesia have reaffirmed our commitment to working closely together to make the skies and waterways within our region safer.

Today I joined with the Indonesian Minister for Transportation, Freddy Numberi, to sign an Annex to the Memorandum of Understanding on Co-operation in the Transport Sector which has been in place since 1995.

As a consequence the Australian Government’s Indonesia Transport Safety Assistance Package (ITSAP) will continue for another four years, providing a further $14.5 million to train transport safety inspectors and accident investigators as well as undertake joint search and rescue exercises.

This investment is all about strengthening the relationship with one of Australia’s most important neighbours and reassuring the travelling public of both countries that their governments consider safety a number one priority.

Together, we’re determined to act upon the lessons from past accidents.

My Department will administer the funding in cooperation with the Civil Aviation Safety Authority (CASA), the Australian Transport Safety Bureau (ATSB), the Australian Maritime Safety Authority (AMSA) and Airservices Australia.

The new money builds upon the $24 million we provided in 2007, an investment which:

• Trained over 700 Indonesian government and industry professionals in a range of areas including safety investigation, port control, maritime systems, air navigation, and search and rescue;


• Allowed three Indonesian National Transportation Safety Committee investigators to complete an ATSB Transport Safety Investigation diploma;


• Funded three joint Australia-Indonesia civil search and rescue exercises involving AMSA and Indonesia’s National Search and Rescue Agency;


• Gave Airservices Australia the opportunity to work with Indonesia’s Directorate General of Civil Aviation to improve their air traffic management systems and the transition to a single air navigation service provider;


• Resulted in CASA providing training and technical assistance to their Indonesian counterparts in safety management systems and airworthiness audits.

Each year more than 1.3 million people travel between our two countries, with millions more using the various modes of transport to get around the vast Indonesian archipelago. Our joint efforts are about making sure they all arrive at their destinations safely.