Australia and Indonesia will have to go through relationship rehab to get relations back on track, former Howard government foreign minister Alexander Downer says.
Mr Downer said an apology would be the wrong thing as it would acknowledge Australia was spying on Indonesia's leaders.
But with careful diplomacy, rehabilitation could be achieved in a matter of weeks.
He said Australia and Indonesia could put together some protocols which would not compromise Australia's intelligence activities.
As well, Prime Minister Tony Abbott was also keen to upgrade the intelligence relationship.
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"That isn't going to offer the Indonesians everything they want here but it does seem to me that if Tony Abbott goes down this path, it offers a sense of goodwill in the field of intelligence," he told Sky News.
Mr Downer said Mr Abbott, who has now responded to the letter from Indonesian President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono, would be working on diplomatic formulas which preserve the integrity of our intelligence services and contribute to rehabilitating the relationship.
"Both sides are going to have to try to rehabilitate this relationship because it's in both sides' interests," he said
In the escalating row over reports that Australian intelligence monitored President Yudhoyono's mobile phone, Indonesia has halted joint defence activities with the prospect of further retaliation.
But Mr Downer, foreign minister at the time of the 1999 East Timor crisis when relations with Indonesia hit an all-time low, said this wasn't as bad.
Despite predictions the freeze could last decades, it only lasted a couple of years and from the ashes an even better relationship emerged, he said.
"I would have thought over a few weeks with a bit of creative diplomacy, it would be possible to put this particular crisis behind us," he said.
Mr Downer said this would not have the lasting ramifications of the East Timor crisis.
"Coming out of the east Timor crisis, Indonesia lost a province. It was hugely humiliating for Indonesia," he said.
