A senior member of the Indonesian government has suggested that Opposition Leader Tony Abbott's policy to turn back asylum seekers boats may harm Australia's relationship with Indonesia.
The opposition has long held the position that it would turn back boats with the help of the Australian Navy, where it is ''safe to do so''.
At the weekend, Mr Abbott said that most of the asylum-seeker vessels arriving in Australian waters were crewed by Indonesians.
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''If a boat gets turned around outside of Indonesia's waters, and then turns up again at the Indonesian port from which it had come, that surely is just simply a matter of course,'' Mr Abbott said.
On Monday, Mahfudz Siddiq, the head of Indonesia's parliamentary commission for foreign affairs, said that Mr Abbott's comments demonstrated that the Opposition Leader ''doesn't understand the problem''.
''This kind of opinion disrespects the talks we have already had which have been very productive. With wrong perception, even Indonesia could pull out from these co-operative agreements regarding people smuggling,'' he told AAP.
''I'm not saying that Australia is not troubled and burdened by people smuggling cases, but then Indonesia is suffering the same thing. Indonesia is not their [asylum seekers] destination.''
On Tuesday, Trade Minister Craig Emerson warned the Coalition's asylum seeker tow-back policy would harm Australia's relationship with Indonesia.
Dr Emerson has just returned from a Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation forum in Indonesia where Indonesian government representatives raised concerns with him during private discussions about Mr Abbott's turnback policy.
''We've got Mr Abbott with three-word slogans and an approach that would be very poorly received by the government of Indonesia,'' Dr Emerson told Sky News.
On Tuesday, Mr Abbott told reporters in Geraldton that boats could be turned around in the future.
He said that turning boats around during the Howard government years had been compatible with a strong relationship with Indonesia.
"We can do what we need to do and the Indonesians will be happy to cooperate with an Australian government," he said.
Earlier this month, an Indonesian police official told Fairfax Media that the Opposition's tow-back policy would ''disadvantage'' Indonesia.
''Absolutely it's a disadvantage for us. [Our actions] are not only about protecting our country's interests but we're also protecting Australia's interests,'' senior commissioner Parsaoran Damanik, of Banten Police in West Java said.
Last year, an Indonesian immigration department spokesman said the country's immigration detention centres were full to overflowing and could not fit the extra detainees that Mr Abbott's policy to turn the boats back would generate.
Mr Abbott has previously said he would make Jakarta his first port of call if he won office in September. He claims the Australia-Indonesia relationship has been ''trashed'' under the Gillard government.
'Illegal' boats campaign re-launched
A Liberal Party billboard in Perth tallying the number of ''illegal'' asylum seeker boat arrivals under the Gillard government has been vandalised.
The billboard, the centrepiece of a Tony Abbott publicity stunt on Monday, originally showed the number of boats as 641.
By Tuesday, that figure had been blanked out and replaced with a zero.''No crime to seek asylum,'' was twice daubed beneath.
In Geraldton on Tuesday, Mr Abbott responded by saying: ''You can vandalise a billboard but you can't change the facts.''
On Monday, the Opposition Leader re-launched the Coalition's famed ''illegal boats'' billboards – used during the last election campaign – in Perth, saying a Coalition government would ''stop the boats''.
The billboards read: ''How many illegal boats have arrived since Labor took over? 639 illegal boats. Labor has lost control of Australia's borders''.
Reactions were swift, with a petition launched calling on Mr Abbott to apologise for his use of the word ''illegal'' and refugee advocates accusing the opposition of fear-mongering.
Mr Abbott's office referred to Article 31 of the UN Convention to defend the opposition's continued use of the word ''illegal''. The article states: ''the Contracting States shall not impose penalties, on account of their illegal entry or presence, on refugees who, coming directly from a territory where their life or freedom was threatened . . . enter or are present in their territory without authorisation''.
A UNHCR spokesman said he could not comment on domestic politics, but said: ''the term 'illegal' is not one that UNHCR uses, or encourages the use of, in relation to refugees or asylum seekers.''
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