It is a great pleasure to introduce the 2014 AIYA members survey, which this year had its highest response rate ever, attracting close to 500 people.

Each year AIYA conducts a survey to get our members’ views both about how AIYA is operating and about key policy issues impacting young people involved in the Australia – Indonesia relationship. This report focuses largely on the latter, providing a synopsis of our membership but focusing largely on the views of those members on matters of public policy.

Download a copy of the survey report

Young people are a large, and often unrepresented group, who play a significant role in the Australia Indonesia relationship in cultural exchange, business and, importantly, education. The way that Indonesia’s 120 million or so people under 30 years old view Australia will have a marked impact on the way that our two countries relate.

Similarly, if current Australian political and economic thinking about an Australia more integrated with Asia is to be realised, the way that young Australians currently relate with Indonesia, and the barriers they face with engagement with that country, is of central importance.

The hard working and highly skilled AIYA team carrying out this survey (Samuel Bashfield, Tim Graham, Stefano Sibarani, Michael Tarn, and Chris Urbanski) have spent hours of volunteer time pulling this report together in the hope that it will be used by governments, universities, not-for profits and other organisations which deal with young Australians and Indonesians.

We hope that the results can be used to shape government policies and improve services to help create settings in which the bilateral relationship – particularly at a youth level – can flourish.