Prime minister Tony Abbott has insisted that Australia does not spy for commercial purposes after it was revealed the country spied on an American law firm representing Indonesia in a trade dispute with the US.

A document leaked by whistleblower Edward Snowden to the New York Times revealed that the Defence Signals Directorate, now the Australian Signals Directorate, “has been able to continue to cover the talks, providing highly useful intelligence for interested US customers” by putting the unnamed law firm under surveillance.

Abbott was asked to comment on the language of the memo, specifically the use of the word “customers”.

“You’re assuming these things are correct and I don’t comment on this kind of allegation, but the fact is we don’t collect intelligence for commercial purposes,” he told ABC radio.

“We collect intelligence to save Australian lives, to save the lives of Australian people, to promote Australian values, to promote the universal decencies of humanity and to help our friends and neighbours, including Indonesia, and as I said our intelligence has been instrumental in defending many terrorist attacks in Indonesia and elsewhere.”

Abbott’s comments come as a court case continues in the international court of justice in which East Timor has accused Australia of “unprecedented, improper and inexplicable” conduct after it raided the offices of a lawyer representing the country in a dispute over an oil and gas treaty.

When asked if the latest revelations are likely to damage what is becoming a strained relationship with Indonesia, Abbott replied: “If the media wants to talk constantly about this kind of thing, inevitably it will dominate conversations and I guess unhelpfully dominate conversations and look, I’m not being critical of the media. I suppose it’s your job maybe to dwell on these difficult things.”

He added: “But my job is trying to get us talking about the strength, not the weaknesses, and on intelligence co-operation with Indonesia – it’s important for both our countries. As far as I’m concerned it will continue and no intelligence that Australia gathers is ever used except to help our friends and neighbours.”

Australia and Indonesia are currently negotiating a code of conduct between the countries after Guardian Australia and the ABC revealed last year Australia had spied on the phones of Indonesian president Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono and his inner circle, including his wife.

Abbott said he would prefer if the negotiations on the code were progressing more quickly.

“It’s progressing slowly, I’d like it to progress much faster but Australia has a strong relationship with Indonesia, it’s a very, very important relationship. I’ve had numerous discussions over the years with [foreign minister] Marty Natalegawa who I think is a good friend of Australia’s, and certainly President Yudhoyono has been a very good friend of Australia as well as being a great president of Indonesia,” he said. “I am confident that our relationship is going to go from strength to strength.”

When asked if he had given Indonesia assurances after the latest spying stories, Abbott said he was not going to talk publicly about the allegations.

Indonesian presidential adviser and spokesman on foreign affairs, Teuku Faizasyah, said the president had been advised of the revelations by foreign minister Marty Natalegawa on Sunday.



“Indeed, it is another perplexing revelation of spying toward Indonesia’s national interest,” he told Guardian Australia via text message. “I wonder what more Snowden has in store? Therefore, it is the responsibility of countries US & Australia] engaged in this complicity to clean up the mess, to salvage their bilateral relations with Indonesia.”

The documents used in the latest reports came from whistleblower Edward Snowden and also revealed that Americans “mentored” Australians on how to crack encrypted communication used by Papua New Guinea in 2003, and that the US had given Australia access to mass telecommunications data from Indonesia, which included information on officials working in ministries.