Indonesia’s quiet dismay at Coalition plans to ‘‘turn back the boats’’ should be obvious to those who care to listen.

Marty Natalegawa, the nation’s carefully spoken chief diplomat, has in the past couple of years variously dubbed Tony Abbott’s signature idea as a ‘‘backward step’’, ‘‘impossible and not advisable’’.

His latest verdict: ‘‘We are not ecstatic about it, for sure.’’

But the Coalition insists Natalegawa’s real point has been, as it were, lost in translation and that Jakarta remains open to the plan.