Push for royal commission into people smuggler cash scandalPeople smuggler cash: boat captain speaksHow events unfolded
Jakarta: A member of President Joko Widodo's ruling party has called on the Indonesian government to "send a strong protest" after a report found Australian officials paid people smugglers to return to Indonesia.
Charles Honoris???, a member of the Indonesian House of Representatives, also renewed calls for Australia to abandon its controversial boat push-back policy and said he hoped the Australian government would be more transparent under the new Prime Minister. 
"Foreign Minister Retno [Marsudi] has demanded an explanation on the   June incident but got no response," said Mr Honoris, a member of Mr Joko's Democratic Party of Struggle (PDIP).
"The Foreign Minister must demand it again, especially after the release of the Amnesty International report. The Indonesian government must send a strong protest to the Australian government so that it will not recur in the future."
The Amnesty International report said Australian officials who paid people smugglers to return a boat of asylum seekers to Indonesia had committed a transnational crime, put dozens of lives at risk and called for a royal commission into the scandal.
Mr Honoris also proposed a joint investigation into the people smuggling payments between Indonesia and Australia.
"Now there is a new prime minister in Australia we hope the government will be transparent in this particular case. They have to explain what happened and I think it is time for them to abandon the boat push-back policy. I am sure the payment to boat crews - if the Amnesty International report is accurate - is something that is even against Australian law, let alone international law."
The Australian government maintained its defence of Operation Sovereign Borders on Thursday. Asked whether Australian officials had committed international crimes by paying people smugglers, Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull said that "all of our agencies operate within the law and they operate within the law keeping our borders secure".
He would not be drawn on whether to establish a new inquiry into the matter, saying the government was satisfied its agencies were operating legally. "We have got a very important role to ensure that we stop people smuggling. People smuggling is a very, very serious crime."
Foreign Affairs Minister Julie Bishop rejected the report outright. Immigration Minister Peter Dutton said that people intercepted by the Australian Border Force and Defence Force were "held lawfully in secure, safe, humane, and appropriate conditions ... to suggest otherwise, as Amnesty has done, is to cast a slur on the men and women of the ABF and ADF."
He told Australian radio station 2GB the government would not "water down" its policy of turning back asylum seeker boats.
Shadow Immigration Minister Richard Marles urged the government to immediately say whether the allegations were true: "The Australian community deserves to be told whether this government has used taxpayer money to pay people smugglers to turn boats around at sea."
General Endang Sunjaya, the police chief of Nusa Tenggara Timur province who oversaw the investigation into the people smuggler payments, said Australian officials put the lives of asylum seekers in danger.
He also told Fairfax Media that Australia put Indonesia in a disadvantaged position because it now had to assist and process "abundant numbers of illegal immigrants".
General Endang said Australian officials had paid the captain and crew and then returned the asylum seekers in boats that lacked adequate navigational systems and fuel.
"They were turned back with less than minimal safety," he said.
"It endangered the people and as they approached Landu Island they were stranded and ran out of fuel and food supplies. This is [something that Australia] needs to be fully aware of - it put the illegal immigrants in danger. Australia and Indonesia need to sit down and thoroughly discuss these issues to ensure no country is put at a disadvantage."
General Endang said Indonesian police had proved the existence of bribes to people smugglers in   June. But he said that while the Amnesty International report had mentioned possible payments to people smugglers on a second boat in   July, Nusa Tenggara Timur police had found no evidence of this.
A spokesman for the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Arrmanatha Nasir, said the government would study the Amnesty International report.
"The Indonesian position is clear that successfully handling irregular migrants takes co-operation and commitment between countries of origin, transit and destination."
He said Indonesia remained opposed to Australia's boat push-back policy.
The head of Australian National University's College of Law, Professor Don Rothwell, said that Indonesia was unlikely to pursue the range of legal options it had on Australia's alleged breaches of international law: "[Indonesia has] been in possession of these facts for a very long period of time now, yet it's chosen to deal with the matter by diplomatic means."
Amnesty International said in its report that Australian officials had breached the Protocol against the Smuggling of Migrants by Land Sea and Air. Under the protocol, Indonesia could engage in a range of dispute resolutions, but all rely on Australia's co-operation to go ahead, including the option of suing Australia at the International Court of Justice.
International law experts said that more than the current Senate inquiry was needed to deal with the allegations domestically. Sydney University international law Professor Ben Saul backed the report's recommendation for a royal commission, saying the inquiry did not have the power to deal with classified evidence without prejudicing security operations.
"At least you'd get an independent quasi-judicial scrutiny of what's going on," he said. "It could say this is legitimate or make recommendations against the practice but at the moment that can't happen because a parliamentary inquiry is limited to scrutinising technical matters of the regime without fundamentally questioning the policy premises."
Professor Rothwell said a royal commission was "premature", but, given the government had consistently refused to discuss a range of issues raised on asylum seekers and Operation Sovereign Borders, "it is fair to say that even parliamentary inquiries are unable to fully determine the truth of some of these matters".
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