Indonesia is really big. Why do New Zealanders know so little about it? 

Members of the public making the most of a car-free day during a festival on Thamrin Street, Jakarta

Twenty years ago, then-Australian Prime Minister Paul Keating declared in a speech from Sydney’s Overseas Passenger Terminal, “No country is more important to Australia than Indonesia.” He continued, “If we fail to get this relationship right, and nurture and develop it, the whole web of our foreign relations is incomplete.”

Keating went on to call out what he deemed “Australian ignorance of Indonesia” and stated that ensuring Australia-Indonesia relations got the attention the relationship deserved was one of his highest priorities.  

Keating was quick to put his money where his mouth was. His Labor-government poured significant funds into Indonesian studies, leading to a doubling of Indonesian language learners in Victoria between 1995 and 2001.

"...while Australian academics are lamenting the decline of the country’s Indonesia studies programmes, their New Zealand counterparts are still looking on enviously."

While the number of universities teaching the language fell from 22 in the early 2000s to 12 by 2021, Australia is arguably still reaping the benefits of this past boon. And while Australian academics are lamenting the decline of the country’s Indonesia studies programmes, their New Zealand counterparts are still looking on enviously: Indonesian studies offerings are starkly absent from New Zealand’s secondary and tertiary landscapes.  

Yet the case for New Zealand investing in learning about its closest Asian neighbour is clear. Not only is it the world’s fourth most populous country – Indonesia's population is around 280 million, a considerable increase from when Keating urged his compatriots to learn about “these 180 million neighbours of ours” – but Indonesian officials have also estimated it will be the world’s fourth largest economy by 2045 (it’s currently thought to be the 16th largest in nominal terms).

Indonesia has a population of some 275 million people with a rapidly growing middle class

In the year to March 2024, trade between New Zealand and Indonesia was valued at almost $3 billion, making the Southeast Asian nation New Zealand’s 11th largest trading partner by total trade value. Given Indonesia’s projected economic growth, there are clear opportunities for New Zealand to expand these trade ties. 

But trade aside, there are deep cultural ties that connect the two countries. Like te reo Māori, Bahasa Indonesia, Indonesia’s official national language, belongs to the Austronesian language family. There are thought to be hundreds of cognates – or words sharing the same linguistic origin – between the two languages.

According to research by the Asia New Zealand Foundation, Indonesia, is one of the Asian countries Māori perceive to be the most culturally similar, along with Japan, China and the Philippines. A YouTube video discussing the similarities has even gathered over 90,000 views.   

Given Indonesia’s proximity, economic importance, and deep cultural ties, why is it so hard to learn about it in New Zealand?  

Indonesian Studies in New Zealand 

Although never at the same scale as across the Tasman, opportunities to learn about Indonesia weren’t always so lacking from New Zealand’s education landscape.  

Natasha Hamilton-Hart, director of the New Zealand Asia Institute at the University of Auckland, says that the university's Indonesian studies major was no longer on offer by the time she joined the university in 2011.

While English is widely taught in Indonesia, since the 1990s, New Zealand has gone backward in teaching Bahasa Indonesia

Dr Hamilton-Hart recalls seeing a booklet from the late-1990s outlining the university’s Asia-related courses. “At that time, there were [Asia-related] courses in a whole variety of subjects, in economics, in political science, in other areas. Almost none of those courses exist now.” 

She suggests that the hiring of staff without Indonesia-specific research interests and Indonesian language requirements may have put some students off enrolling in Indonesia courses. Instead of looking to boost falling enrollments, the decision was made to remove Indonesian studies as a major.  

While in more recent years the university has hired staff with Indonesian capability and research interests, this has not led to a revival of the major or formal language classes.

In fact, Dr Hamilton-Hart explains that a lack of opportunities and incentives within the New Zealand system mean that those with Indonesian research backgrounds often end up abandoning their Indonesian research.

“It's really sad... the difficulties of getting funding or getting support for recognition for your research are such that it just makes more sense for these people to go and follow different lines of interest.” 

The Auckland University experience is not unique. 

Te Herenga Waka — Victoria University of Wellington had its own Indonesian programme throughout the 1990s. By the end of the decade, however, enrolments had shrunk to single digits.

High school learners of Indonesian peaked in 2020 with 29 students enrolled in Indonesian as a subject. By 2023, the number had shrunk to zero

Although declining enrolments were not unique to Indonesian, Stephen Epstein, who currently directs the university's Asian languages and cultures programme and has translated numerous works of Indonesian fiction, points out that backlash following the fall of President Suharto in 1998 and turmoil in Indonesian-occupied East Timor likely exacerbated its decline.  

More recent attempts to revive Indonesian studies have not proven enduring.

In 2017, the Auckland University of Technology (AUT) established the Indonesia Centre with the purpose of promoting Indonesia in New Zealand and strengthening the relationship. 

A page announcing the centre’s establishment noted its intention to offer a range of programmes, including Bahasa Indonesia and exchange opportunities for students from AUT and Indonesia.  

The centre never delivered any courses and is no longer in operation, says an AUT representative.

The university advised it was not able to provide more details on the centre’s closure as the people involved in its establishment have subsequently left. Without wider recognition of the need to learn about Indonesia, such initiatives often reflect the effort of particular individuals, and as such can fade away when those individuals move on.  

Volunteers teaching students the basics of Bahasa Indonesia at a four-week beginner's course in Wellington

Now, the only Indonesian classes associated with a New Zealand university are the non-degree community classes run by the University of Auckland’s New Zealand Asia Institute and funded by the Nicholas Tarling Charitable trust.  

Things do not fare any better at the primary or secondary school level.

High school learners peaked in 2020 with 29 students enrolled in Indonesian as a subject, according to Ministry of Education data. By 2023, the number had shrunk to zero. In 2017, the last year for which data is available, just three primary school students were recorded as learning Indonesian. 

Of course, shrinking numbers need to be understood as part of a broader move to cut languages and cultures courses across New Zealand’s universities amid concerns over falling enrollments and financial woes.  

Things look a lot greener across the ditch. In South Australia alone, with a population similar to Auckland’s,  46 primary and secondary schools offered Indonesian in 2024.   

Importance doesn’t foster interest 

New Zealanders are increasingly recognising the importance of Southeast Asia. According to the Foundation's 2024 Perceptions of Asia survey, one third of New Zealanders feel Indonesia is important to New Zealand’s future. 

But this is yet to lead to an increase in knowledge levels or a desire to learn about it. In the same survey, only two percent of New Zealanders said Indonesia was the place in Asia they know the most about, with knowledge levels trailing those of its neighbouring Singapore, Thailand, the Philippines and Vietnam. Meanwhile, only one percent said Indonesia was the place they most wanted to learn about, putting it on par with the much smaller Mongolia, Myanmar and Bhutan.    

The fact that perceived importance hasn’t translated into actual interest won’t come as a surprise to a group of Australia-based Indonesia scholars, who have found that campaigns focusing on Indonesia's economic and strategic importance rarely resonate with students.

According to their findings, such messages are too future focused for teenagers who are more drawn to popular culture – hence the relative success of Japanese.  

Part of the problem is that Indonesia has not been successful at marketing itself, says Stephen Epstein, in contrast to countries like South Korea that have prioritised boosting their global images.

This, combined with the way in which Indonesia is often depicted in the media, means that New Zealanders still tend to associate Indonesia with natural disasters and terrorist activity.  

Nor has Indonesia invested in promoting the overseas study of Bahasa Indonesia to the extent that countries like Korea and China, or France and Germany have. This is an issue in places like New Zealand where overseas governments often play a sizable role in supporting language education.   

Despite Bali might be a popular destination for New Zealand tourists, this hasn’t translated into a broader interest in Indonesia’s other 10,000-odd islands. As Stephen Epstein points out, many New Zealanders may even assume Bali and Indonesia are different countries.  

Government investment needed 

So what would it take to re-establish and grow Indonesian Studies in New Zealand? 

With New Zealand universities grappling with financial shortfalls and Asian Studies and language and culture departments on the chopping block, New Zealand academics point out that Indonesian Studies is unlikely to make a comeback without government intervention – and funding.  

Once again Australia offers some models. Within its first two years, the National Asian Languages and Studies in Australian Schools Strategy saw the number of public school students learning a priority language leap by 60 percent.

At the tertiary level, and more recently, the government’s New Colombo Plan has supported more than 12,000 Australian students to study or intern in Indonesia, making it the programme's most popular destination.       

Further afield, the United States supports university students to undertake immersive Bahasa Indonesia training through government-funded initiatives like the Critical Language Scholarship.

Each year the Foundation supports a young journalist to attend the Australian Consortium for In-Country Indonesian Studies (ACICIS) initiative in Jakarta where they study Bahasa and intern at a media organisation

While these programmes, like area studies itself, grew out of the colonial project, they have since fostered generations of students and scholars critical of area studies’ problematic origins and who pursue equitable research.  

Recent cuts to humanities research funding suggest that such an intervention is unlikely.  

In the absence of government investment, tailoring existing initiatives like the Prime Minister’s Scholarship for Asia (PMSA) so that a portion of the funding is ringfenced for certain activities or places would also help incentivise New Zealanders to consider studying or working in Indonesia (Japan and Korea are currently the PMSA’s two most popular destinations).    

There is also scope for New Zealand universities to leverage what’s on offer in Australia, says Natasha Hamilton-Hart. Partnerships with the 12 Australian universities offering Indonesian Studies could enable New Zealand students to participate in courses remotely and piggyback on existing exchange arrangements with Indonesian universities.  

But the Australian example also illustrates the way a country or language is promoted is equally as important. The subsequent decline of Indonesian Studies in Australia shows that emphasising a country’s strategic importance or economic value isn’t enough to motivate people to learn or keep learning about it. 

How could the study of Indonesia be better promoted in New Zealand then? We know that culture is the leading reason why New Zealanders are interested in learning about particular places in Asia, according to the June 2024 Perceptions of Asia report. 

According to the Foundation's Perceptions of Asia survey, culture is the number one reason New Zealanders are interested in learning about places in Asia

Emphasising Indonesia’s diverse religious and social landscape, complicated history, and cultural and linguistic similarities with te reo Māori are likely to boost interest in way that pointing out strategic importance and potential trade opportunities cannot.  

Expanding one’s world, better understanding one’s place in it and the chance to engage with an additional 280 million odd people are far more tangible benefits after all.

About the author

Alex Smith is the Foundation's manager research programme. She has a Master of Arts in East Asian Regional Studies from Columbia University and a BA (hons) from Victoria University. She has studied Mandarin Chinese in Shanghai and Taiwan.

The Foundation's Asia in Focus initiative publishes expert insights and analysis on issues across Asia, as well as New Zealand’s evolving relationship with the region.