In mid-November, as diplomatic tensions between Jakarta and Canberra escalated, it was suggested to Indonesia's Foreign Minister Marty Natalegawa that the road back to normal relations with Australia appeared quite long.
Natalegawa had just spent five hours briefing a closed-door session of the Indonesian parliament's foreign affairs and defence committee on the spying claims that have seen relations with Australia ebb to their lowest point in more than a decade.
"Ah, the long and winding road; what's that other song called? Sorry seems to be ...," the usually earnest Natalegawa, with a wry smile, quipped back to journalists waiting in a hallway outside the committee room.
The reference to the Elton John song, Sorry Seems To Be the Hardest Word, revealed much about Jakarta's view of Tony Abbott's refusal to apologise for an Australian spying operation that, in November four years earlier, had targeted the Indonesian president and his inner-sanctum, including his wife.
Indonesia has since made it abundantly clear that cooperation on various fronts, including in the key area of people smuggling, will not be restored until Australia signs up to a new code of conduct, which will include protocols around spying.
But the "roadmap" back to normal relations, as set out by Indonesia, means it would be optimistic to believe the rift will be healed sooner rather than later.
Natalegawa has warned that there must also be "a revival of a sense of trust" - the sixth point in Dr Yudhoyono's plan - before Indonesia would look at restoring bilateral co-operation with Australia.
The spying drama has already had repercussions for the issue which in recent history had been the dominant factor in relations between Australia and its northern neighbour - people smuggling.
While the flow of asylum-seeker boats has slowed to a trickle compared to highs seen under the Rudd and Gillard governments - and arguably due to Labor's decision to process refugees on Nauru and in PNG - Indonesia's suspension of cooperation has the potential to damage Abbott who cannot walk away from his promise to stop the boats.
Mr Abbott concedes Indonesia's withdrawal of cooperation in combating people smuggling is a problem.
"There's no doubt that the suspension of cooperation by the Indonesian authorities has been unhelpful; it's been singularly unhelpful," he said on December 14.
"And given that people-smuggling is a crime in Indonesia, just as it's a crime in Australia, I think it's high time that cooperation was resumed. But I accept that in the end, what Indonesia does is a matter for Indonesia and what Australia does is a matter for Australia."
There have also been suggestions that the ongoing stoush is delaying a parole bid by convicted drug smuggler Schapelle Corby.
While Indonesian officials insist the spying fallout has no impact on Corby's parole, the process which months ago appeared to moving ahead quickly, even prompting suggestions the 36-year-old would be out of Kerobokan before the end of the year, slowed to a glacial pace as relations soured.
Comments from the Indonesian president, including a number of tweets, since the espionage scandal emerged suggest an apology could have healed some of the damage, and perhaps quickened the healing process.
"I also regret the statement by the Australian PM that belittles this surveillance to Indonesia, as if no wrong has been done," Dr Yudhoyono said of Abbott's initial response to the espionage claims.
"The actions of US and Australia has very much wounded the strategic partnership with Indonesia, a fellow democratic state," he also tweeted.
Dr Yudhoyono said a week before Christmas that the spying games had hurt him personally, but that he was determined to repair the relationship with Australia as part of his legacy when he completes his second and final presidential term in November 2014.
Dr Yudhoyono also said that the healing process must happen in a way that satisfied his domestic needs, while the elections and the inevitable nationalist fervour that comes with them, will also make it difficult for a quick fix to be negotiated.
With Mr Abbott having tied himself to a foreign policy agenda that has a focus that is "more Jakarta, less Geneva" - dealing with the diplomatic tensions that bookend 2013 will be a priority for the Coalition in the year ahead.
