NOT all former Prime Minister Tony Abbott’s “captain’s picks” were political disasters.

On the contrary, I discovered one of his more valuable personal interventions while researching my recently published book, “Warrior Elite”.

It arose from the revelation in November, 2013, that Australia’s top secret Signals Directorate (ASD) had been listening in to the phone conversations of then Indonesian President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono’s wife.

When questioned in Parliament, Abbott at first passed it off as a non-issue, saying that “all governments know that every other government gathers information”. This enraged the Indonesian President who even took to Twitter to vent his fury; and Indonesia withdrew almost all co-operative links with Australia.

The situation continued to fester. So, in the first half of 2014 the Prime Minister authorised the most remarkable gesture of rapprochement in the history of Australia/Indonesia relations.

His top intelligence chieftain, the director-general of ASIO, David Irvine, led the director-general of ASIS, Nick Warner and ASD director, Paul Taloni, to Jakarta to meet in serious colloquy with their Indonesian counterparts.

Irvine had developed a professional relationship with his Indonesian counterpart even before the Abbott initiative. Many of their conversations centred on the return of radicalised fighters from the Middle East hotspots.

With its 95 per cent Muslim population, Indonesia  was particularly vulnerable.

“I might have 60 of these [radicalised] blokes returning,” Irvine says, “but at the same time my counterpart in Indonesia would have 120.”

During the Jakarta visit, as icing on the diplomatic cake, the Australians invited the Indonesian spymasters to Canberra for further sharing of “issues of mutual interest” in their tightly guarded fiefdoms.

The Indonesians accepted and when they entered unannounced, agency personnel on Russell Hill were goggle-eyed at their presence in the inner sanctums.

But genuine mutuality of interest overwhelmed all the leadership sensitivities and stumbles.

It was in fact a personal triumph for the then Prime Minister.

“Warrior Elite” (Hachette, rrp $35).