Duncan Graham
Duncan Graham has been a journalist for more than 40 years in print, radio and TV. He is the author of People Next Door (UWA Press). He is now writing for the English language media in Indonesia from within Indonesia. Duncan Graham has an MPhil degree, a Walkley Award, two Human Rights Commission awards and other prizes for his radio, TV and print journalism in Australia. He lives in East Java.
Duncan's articles (298 total)
Australia is letting its Indonesia relationship drift
Like marriage, international relations need to be cosseted and cherished. Ours with Indonesia is going the other way through indifference.
When census takers come calling, truth gets complicated
Indonesia’s economic census is meant to produce a snapshot of the nation, but distrust of officials and fears about privacy may blur the picture.
Thanks Mr Fox; please keep digging
Parkinson's disease is the fastest growing neurological condition in the world, and still without a cure.
West Papua’s red crosses are resisting rainforest destruction
West Papua’s Indigenous communities are using hundreds of red crosses as symbols of resistance against rainforest destruction, land-grabbing and militarised development, as Indonesian authorities try to suppress a documentary exposing the damage.
Why Indonesia’s protests won’t shake Prabowo yet
Student protests against Prabowo Subianto’s militarised style of government have exposed anger over prices, corruption and civil liberties, but without broader public support or elite pressure they are unlikely to threaten his hold on power.
Indonesia’s fear of the ‘J word’ reveals a deeper intolerance
Indonesia’s response to the Bondi shootings and the royal commission hearings exposed a deeper unease – one where fear, politics and prejudice still shape how Judaism and Israel are discussed in public life.
An acid test of Indonesia's democracy
An acid attack by four Indonesian National Armed Forces (TNI) soldiers on a human rights activist highlights growing tensions as President Prabowo reinstates military influence in Indonesia's civilian administration.
The unpromised land down under
A little-known proposal to settle Jewish refugees in Western Australia highlights how different history might have been – and the role of racism in shaping Australia’s decisions.
Indonesia's rice bowl gets bigger
Indonesia’s claims of rice self-sufficiency clash with import deals, opaque data and the growing political control of the food system.
Indonesia’s democracy faces a quiet return of military power
Signs of renewed military involvement in civilian life are raising concerns that Indonesia may be drifting back towards the authoritarian practices of its past.
Prabowo’s Middle East peace gambit is long on theatre, short on strategy
The weapons are fast and devastating, driven by big bucks and high tech. They're being used in a war of religions that's almost 14 centuries old. Both sides have recruited God. A man of war from Southeast Asia thinks he can bring reason to bear. He can't.
One error and damned forever?
Women and children held in Syrian detention camps force Australia to choose between rhetoric and the rule of law.
Handshake diplomacy with Prabowo won’t secure shared values
Australia’s new security treaty with Indonesia is heavy on symbolism but light on substance. As President Prabowo Subianto tightens his grip on power, warm rhetoric from Canberra risks obscuring growing democratic regression and human rights abuses.
Herzog’s visit exposes Australia’s legal weakness on human rights
As Israel’s president visits Australia, debates over protest, terrorism and antisemitism expose a significant problem: Australia lacks a coherent human rights framework.
Indonesia’s economy wobbles as policy ambition outpaces planning
Market volatility, investor unease and fiscal strain are exposing deeper risks in Indonesia’s economy – where policy ambition is running ahead of institutional readiness.
Irony abounds: Indonesia gets human rights protection job
Indonesia has assumed the presidency of the UN Human Rights Council, raising questions about credibility, consistency and the future of scrutiny in places like West Papua and Iran.
Best of 2025 - Out of darkness comes a shaft of cheer
The news from Indonesia this month has been dispiriting – natural disaster flooding in Bali and Flores, man-made maladministration, political chicanery, perpetual graft and rioting in the cities. The headlines imply the country is crumpling. It's not, and here's why.
Prabowo’s first year: all power, no accountability
A year after Prabowo Subianto’s election, Indonesia’s democracy is under strain as power centralises, dissent is curtailed and the military’s influence grows.
Blood, silence and history: questioning Indonesia’s 1965 narrative
As Indonesia prepares to release a new official national history, an Australian historian’s account of the 1965–66 mass killings threatens to reopen a long-suppressed debate about power, violence, and memory.
Indonesia’s Gaza peacekeeping bid raises more questions than answers
Indonesia has offered to send up to 20,000 troops to Gaza as part of an international peacekeeping force. The proposal highlights shifting regional politics – and unresolved concerns about military power, credibility and human rights.
Fatal free lunch
Indonesia's free meals for kids program has left thousands of youngsters with food poisoning, and returned the country to the bad old days of military influence.
Trick or treaty? Don't know, can't say
The Indonesian print media covering the one-day visit of President Prabowo Subianto to Australia this month has dazzled its readers with some splendid insights into a serious issue.
Rewriting Soeharto's story
Indonesian conservatives are rewriting the 32-year history of the late second president Soeharto, a former army general, champion of corruption and destroyer of democracy.
The morality we need, the asylum they seek
Like many grumpy hacks from an age of lost standards, I've belittled colleagues' usage of the perpendicular pronoun. We're not the Mums needing attention – only the midwives bringing the stories of others into the world. We report and depart.
Vanity, defence or just wanting to show off?
For a demagogue, what could be more stirring than to take the salute on a raised dais as thousands of armed men and women march past like robots in perfect synchronisation?
Do politicians ever listen to the people or only the powerful?
Rage, rage against the dying of the light.’ Welsh word-wiz Dylan Thomas’ angry poem to his dying dad implied that the older man resisted passing. But for others, the end is welcome.
Turmoil in tummies, pains in purse
The road to Indonesian hospitals is paved with good intentions and vomit.
Out of darkness comes a shaft of cheer
The news from Indonesia this month has been dispiriting – natural disaster flooding in Bali and Flores, man-made maladministration, political chicanery, perpetual graft and rioting in the cities. The headlines imply the country is crumpling. It's not, and here's why.
Xi targets Prabowo and ditches Trump
For the past decade, the most geostrategic country in Southeast Asia and the world’s third-largest democracy has been wooed by Washington and Beijing.
Indonesian riots update
The riots in Indonesia have so far taken eight lives with 700 injured, according to Reuters.
Avoid Bali and the rest of Indonesia
Cashiered former general Prabowo Subianto was elected president of Indonesia last year on a contradictory campaign image.
Absent – The 3D essentials: Discipline, direction and determination
Why did the Jakarta student riots of 1998 succeed in ousting President Soeharto while this week’s public displays of outrage seem doomed to fail?
Know thy neighbour – he's getting gun-happy
What does Australia’s legacy media think you want to know about Indonesia?
Once Australia was important to Indonesia
Happy birthday, monster neighbour. Er, do we know you? We’re strangers here – our proper place is mid-Atlantic, ‘twixt the Old World and the New. However, we're trying hard to cope by promoting trade and investment, while ignoring endemic corruption and avoiding deep involvement.
No Indonesian high-speed rail wizardry for Oz
When PM Anthony Albanese was flying home after six days in Beijing, the Great Wall and a panda zoo, he told a newspaper that “Australia could learn from China’s fast-rail network. The People's Republic already has more than 45,000 kilometres of high-speed rail connecting 500 cities. We have zilch.
The penalty for being late is to be doomed forever
Infected by wars and climate change is the other intractable issue: how to help 43 million refugees? More than 3,451 pledges to change the mountain-size misery have been made worldwide by governments, NGOs, and individuals, including Australians. The issue is less about gathering signatures, more about turning words into action.
Collateral damage? Focus on the principle, not the fallout
Among his many defects, Donald Trump is a vengeful obsessive. Which is why poor Indonesians (that's about 40 million of the 285 million rice-eaters) could soon be paying more for their essential starches.
Not waving, drowning – Indonesia may lose warming battle
This is the way the world ends, not with a bang but a flooding: With apologies to T. S. Eliot
Scrubbing away the bloodstains, tipping out the truth
Lit lovers argue who first said History is written by the victors. It's sharp enough to belong to Churchill, though earlier and longer versions come from politicians in the US and Germany – including fascist Hermann Göring.
Let one version win – ours
The Church burned translators of the Latin Bible into English in the late 14th century and forbade its teachings, to ensure only one narrative ruled. Australian sinophobes want their version of what the People's Republic of China is doing, thinking and planning to prevail.
Pregnancy as a death sentence
Genuine good news stories involving government initiatives are rare. Here’s an exception.
Is Marles the right fit for defence?
P&I readers don't need to be told that Defence Minister Richard Marles is floundering when trying to make security links with Indonesia seem as though they've never been in better shape.
As Keating advised, it's time for Australia to seek its security in Asia
The world America made for us is passing away. Its place is being taken by a new and harder post-American world, and we are at a loss to know what to make of it.
Don’t stir Semar – He seeks harmony
Ancient Javanese mythology, often inherited from India and adapted to fit local culture, is rich with striking characters in the wayang kulit shadow puppet theatre. The fat-gut wise clown Semar is charged with maintaining stability.
Indonesia's old guard wants its old world back
Anthony Albanese’s pilgrimage to Jakarta this week as the new prime minister follows the standard post-election Hi Neighbours goodwill wave. But this time the parades and handshakes may get blurred by heat from Indonesia’s simmering Constitutional crisis.
Trump shoves Indonesia into China's hands
Jakarta is not a charmer, but her assets are attractive. Beijing and Washington have long been wooing the Indonesian capital for her strategic power and influence.
How to lose friends and help rivals
If the US wanted to thrust Indonesia into the strategic political orbit of China, it couldn’t have found a better way than imposing a 32% tariff on imports from the archipelago.
Does Jesus need a barber? The question is a trap
Western media usually tags Indonesia as having more Muslims than any other country. That’s statistically true – but lesser known is that 11% of the 284 million don’t follow Islam. The constitutionally secular republic has more Christians than Australia.
The creeping crisis we're ignoring
As Indonesian President Prabowo Subianto steers his giant nation closer to China it’s worth recalling Paul Keating three decades ago: No country is more important to Australia than Indonesia.
Free meals threatened – and threatening
Before the 18th century Enlightenment, church and state in Europe were one. In Indonesia, fears that Islam will infiltrate civic affairs go back to the founding of the Republic. Instead, the threats are not from the mosques, but the military.