Australia and Indonesia today pledged to work together to tackle the people smuggling trade between the two nations, forging a fragile alliance if only to agree the issue was an enormous problem .
Australian Foreign Minister Alexander Downer said an inaugural meeting with his Indonesia counterpart Hassan Wirajuda marked a good first step in tackling the flow of mostly Middle Eastern, Asian and Afghan migrants via Indonesia to Australia.
"During the course of these talks today we've been able to consolidate the cooperation between our two countries in trying to address this issue," Mr Downer told a joint news conference following the meeting in the Australian capital Canberra.
"I don't think one should ever underestimate how difficult this is. This is an enormous problem," he added.
The two nations agreed to campaign together to discourage Indonesian involvement in people smuggling, warning fishermen and boat crews of the criminal consequences in Australia if they are caught helping illegal migrants make the treacherous crossing.
The meeting was the first between Australia's conservative government, which was reelected with an increased majority earlier in November, and a minister of Indonesian President Megawati Sukarnoputri's four-month-old government.
Historically dicey relations between Jakarta and Canberra were strained in August when Prime Minister John Howard asked Jakarta to accept a boatload of migrants rescued from international waters by the Norwegian freighter Tampa.
Jakarta refused, and Canberra began diverting unwanted boatpeople to neighbouring Pacific nations for processing.