Australia's home affairs minister and Indonesia's top law minister say there is a lot of goodwill to seal an unprecedented prisoner transfer for the five remaining members of the Bali Nine drug smuggling group — despite a lack of laws to facilitate it.
Tony Burke met Yusril Ihza Mahendra in Jakarta on Tuesday, where the pair acknowledged that neither country had existing laws to allow the prisoners to be transferred.
They added that further discussions were needed, putting a dampener on expectations of a transfer before the year was out.
Five men — Mathew Norman, Scott Rush, Si Yi Chen, Martin Stephens and Michael Czugaj — are serving life sentences in prisons in Bali and Java for attempting to smuggle more than 8 kilograms of heroin to Australia in 2005.
Fellow members Andrew Chan and Myuran Sukumaran were sentenced to death and, after 10 years on death row, were executed by firing squad on April 29, 2015.
Tan Duc Thanh Nguyen died from cancer in 2018 and that same year Renae Lawrence, the only one in the group not to get a life or death sentence, was freed and returned to Australia.
The visit by Mr Burke to Indonesia is the first by a senior figure in the Albanese government since Prime Minister Anthony Albanese made a request last month to new Indonesian President Prabowo Subianto to bring the prisoners home.
Mr Mahendra — who is the coordinating minister for law, human rights, immigration and corrections — said progress towards a deal was being made and he had given the Australian side a draft on how a transfer could happen.
"We are waiting for the Australian side to respond and hopefully it won't take too long", he said.
Mr Burke noted there were still issues to resolve, but said they were working through them "in a constructive way".
"I have full respect for Indonesia's legal system", he said, stressing that the proposal given to him by his counterpart showed "significant goodwill".
Mr Mahendra also said the proposal included the need for Australia to respect Indonesia's legal system and the life sentences imposed on the five men.
But it also allows for Australian sovereignty over their fate once they are back in Australia, and the Indonesian minister reiterated the country would respect any decision by Australian authorities to grant the men clemency.
The agreement might be similar to a proposal submitted to the Philippines government to send home a Filipino prisoner last month, Mr Mahendra added.
He said the Philippines government "responded very positively" to that proposal, whereas the Australians said they would study it.
Asked if Indonesia was seeking anything specifically in return for the transfer of the men, Mr Mahendra answered "no".
In a nod to domestic sensitivity, the minister also said no convicted drug smuggler had ever received a presidential pardon or clemency, but said Mr Subianto was considering transferring the men home based on the friendship with Australia and on humanitarian grounds.
Jakarta-based law professor Hikmahanto Juwana said if Indonesia sought to use an existing transfer of sentenced persons' law to move the men, it could take "months if not years", with multiple steps to work through.
Alternatively, Professor Juwana said the government could release the men early and deport them, which would be a much quicker option but one harder politically to justify.
"The public does not care about this issue, so long as the government is doing the transfer through proper laws and regulations," he added.
