Protest outside Indonesian NT consulate

Protesters outside the Indonesian consulate in Darwin have called on the country to "stop murdering people".

A small group gathered for a global day of action for media access in West Papua on Wednesday with about half a dozen police present.

Similar protests will take place in Adelaide, Melbourne, Sydney, Brisbane, Perth, as well as internationally.

Protesters said the event had been planned for some time and the timing was coincidental after the executions of Australian drug smugglers Andrew Chan and Myuran Sukumaran in Indonesia overnight.

"We're very disappointed with (Indonesian president) Joko Widodo for taking this action," protester Rob Wesley-Smith told AAP.

"If they want to be a modern, contemporary country they should do away with the death penalty."

He said he had hoped President Widodo would have been more liberal than his militaristic predecessors.

"We're calling on Indonesia to stop murdering people," he said.

He welcomed Prime Minister Tony Abbott's announcement on Wednesday that ambassador Paul Grigson would be recalled from Jakarta, but said there could be economic ramifications for the Northern Territory if Indonesia retaliated, such as by reducing its quota of NT cattle.

Meanwhile, Chief Minister Adam Giles issued a statement on the executions, saying his thoughts were with the Chan and Sukumaran families.

"The loss of a child is a tragedy for any parent, let alone in the circumstances witnessed in Indonesia overnight," he said.