Why bother?

I'm waiting to find someone who knows something about Indonesia to explain why Yudhoyono would even bother meeting with Tony Abbott, given that he's on the way out.  (SBY, that is.  Not Tony, as much as I wish Andrew Bolt was right that Malcolm Turnbull was about to stage some sort of bloody Game of Thrones style coup while Tone's away.) 

The Jakarta Post reports that the meeting didn't mean much:

While praising his host President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono as a great statesman and a true friend of his country, Australian Prime Minister Tony Abbott has apparently chosen to wait for the new Indonesian president before reaching substantial agreements on such sensitive issues as intelligence gathering and boat people, which have rocked relations between the two countries since Abbott’s election last year.

 Maybe  SBY was just happy to be meeting anyone, because the Post also reports:

With his final term winding down, President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono has three times this week chastised Cabinet ministers and military generals for getting involved in the presidential campaign and neglecting their duties.

In a Cabinet meeting on Wednesday, coinciding with the start of the 30-day presidential campaign period, Yudhoyono reiterated a statement he made on Tuesday that his ministers should take leave or resign if participating in campaign activities would prevent them from performing their main duties.

On Wednesday, Yudhoyono went even further by saying that according to his own “observation and judgment” some of his ministers were no longer focused on doing their jobs.