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The effort to tackle terrorism and people smuggling will be at the forefront of issues facing UWA graduate Greg Moriarty who has been nominated as Australia's next ambassador to Indonesia.

Mr Moriarty holds a Bachelor of Arts Degree with Honours from The University of Western Australia and a Masters Degree in Strategic and Defence Studies from the Australian National University. He has studied Indonesian and Tok Pisin.

Mr Moriarty, a former ambassador to Iran, replaces career public servant Bill Farmer, who has served in the role since 2005.

Foreign Minister Stephen Smith said Mr Moriarty would make a ''first-class ambassador'' and was already well known to Indonesian Foreign Minister Marty Natalegawa.

Australia and Indonesia work closely on shared interests including trade and investment, defence, development assistance, law enforcement, disaster management, counter-terrorism, climate change, and people smuggling.

Australia and Indonesia co-chair the Bali Process to further strengthen regional efforts to combat people smuggling, human trafficking and transnational crime.

People-to-people links are broad and long standing. In 2009, almost 18,000 Indonesian students studied in Australian educational institutions. Around 550,000 Australians visited Indonesia in 2009, a record number.

Mr Moriarty previously served as counsellor and head of the political section at the Australian embassy in Jakarta. He has also completed a posting to Tehran, was director of the Foreign Affairs Department's Papua New Guinea section and a senior negotiator with the Peace Monitoring Group on Bougainville.

Most recently, he has been arranging for the repatriation of bodies from plane crashes in the Congo and PNG.

As is the case with all foreign ambassadors in Indonesia, Mr Moriarty's appointment will be subject to agrément from the Government of Indonesia.

This process includes consideration by Indonesia's Parliament.

He has served previously in Indonesia, in Papua New Guinea, and as senior negotiator with the Peace Monitoring Group on Bougainville.