The author wrote: "Issues, like capital punishment, corruption and religious hatred need to be challenged because they offend universal human values."

I am against capital punishment, corruption and religious hatred. However, those are my values and the current values of many of the people in the society I live in. They are not universal human values.

In the past Australia has had capital punishment and may have it again. If you live in a society where your position is a low paid one corruption may be the only way you can get by, and it is understood in that way by most of that society. In the sixteenth century in Christian society tolerance of other religions was regarded by most people as insufficient devotion to one's own.

The love of a mother for her child is an almost universal human value and is a value shared by some non-human life. Let us not confuse universal human values with the values currently held by ourselves and our society.

capital punishment, corruption and religious hatred.
USA
USA

Australians and Indonesians are totally different. To suggest otherwise is blatant, dangerous cultural relativism, which has already wreaked havoc on Australian society. We do not have to criticise cultures not like ours (they think theirs is better than ours, too), but we do not have to be in love with them; nor do we have to try to change them or live with them. Different cultures are useful to each other - at arm's length.

I agree with the author that mutual tolerance and respect are most important in Indonesian-Australian relations.

6 degrees of separation, means we humans are just not that different! As attested by the fact different races can and do interbreed, with the resulting issue being usually superior every which way, to the parents who gave them life.

Differences are almost always culturally inculcated/indoctrinated, whether belief based, factual or otherwise? The wellspring of ignorance, fear and prejudice?

Simply put, most of this is relieved by actual knowledge and science based education, much to the chagrin of the dominant didactic!
Alan B.

East Timor is seen as an heroic defence by Oz. It is a Portuguese enclave which demanded violent separatism , even against Aust peace-keepers. Seccession is an attack on the nation as in US Civil War , East Pakistan , Republic of Ireland, east Ukraine , Palestine -Israel and anti-colonial acts in general. East Timor was forced out of Indonesia by US pressure and Aust deputy sheriff carried the six-guns. Then Oz dudded them out of oil rights. Portuguese-Dutch-Oz are not a good look.