The Australian, June 07, 2005. Opinion.

Hosing down the East Timor gas fire
Steve Lewis

AFTER years of haggling, Australia and East Timor are close to resolving a dispute over the carve-up of royalties from one of the lucrative gas fields that lie beneath the Timor Sea.

A political breakthrough should come in the next few months and not before time. A multi-billion-dollar gas field, Greater Sunrise, remains on hold until East Timor and Australia sort out the sensitive issue of who gets what.

The politics of East Timor are complex and emotive. At first blush, it's easy to argue that Australia has been too heavy-handed, that we have denied this tiny impoverished nation access to revenues urgently needed to build hospitals, schools and roads.

Many have advocated the cause of East Timor in Australia, calling on the Government to adopt a more humane stance. Conviction politicians such as Australian Greens leader Bob Brown have advocated the Timorese cause. Brown has been joined by many Australians who argue that Canberra's hard-hearted stance cannot be justified.

People such as Ian Melrose. A political novice, this Melbourne-based millionaire operates a chain of optical outlets and swears he has always voted Liberal. But his views on this administration, and Foreign Minister Alexander Downer in particular, are not fit to print.

Melrose sees the Timor issue in black-and-white terms. It's our biggest foreign-policy shame, he says. And he wants to make sure that as many Australians, and potentially people in Asia, get to hear about his views.

Since last September, he has spent millions of dollars broadcasting his message through a series of hard-hitting television advertisements. He has become a one-man billboard for the East Timorese, arguing that the Government has adopted a callous position that has cost the lives of many.

One of his provocative ads says: "Since 1999 our Government, on average, has taken $1 million a day in contested oil and gas royalties." Got that?

Another quotes Barry Mendelwitz, who worked as East Timor's only obstetrician: "Every day when I worked there I delivered a dead baby. In 30 years in Australia I saw two women die in childbirth. In those three months in East Timor I saw 10 die."

It's brazen stuff. Melrose fiercely believes that this Government has been doing the wrong thing by the Timorese and has set out to create a bloody nuisance of himself.

Two weeks ago, Melrose hired a lobbyist and ventured to Canberra to meet as many decision-makers as he could. He was hoping to meet a swag of Government backbenchers, too, although most were too busy to meet this Timor zealot.

Over a cup of coffee in one of the parliamentary courtyards, Melrose spoke with great passion and conviction of the health scandal in which more than 30 people have died from dengue fever this year alone; of the worm infestations that regularly make many Timorese children very, very ill; of the "walking dead" with tuberculosis in the rickety health clinics.

But is this campaign (which he is threatening to take international) doing any good? The view of the Howard Government is clear. Melrose is a pest who doesn't understand the vagaries of foreign policy. He may be well-intentioned but doesn't have a clue about Australia's determination to resolve this issue.

Some within Dili also question the motives of people such as Melrose and worry that this fusillade of abuse against the Howard Government may be counterproductive.

Jose Ramos Horta, East Timor's Foreign Minister, outlined a changing sentiment towards Australia in an opinion piece carried in The Age last week.

In comments that would have been considered treasonous a few years ago, he said John Howard had been "a true friend" of East Timor and "so has Alexander Downer".

"Any other characterisation of the two in regard to East Timor is simply unfair. I have witnessed from the dark days of September 1999 'til our more hopeful and peaceful country of 2005 the generosity of the Australian people and of their leaders," Ramos Horta wrote. It was a ringing endorsement, no doubt galling to figures such as Melrose who characterise Howard and Downer as barbarous criminals rather than would-be saviours.

After years of haggling over the carve-up of royalties from the gas fields that lie between the two countries, Australia and East Timor are close to resolving how much both countries get.

Essentially, the in-principle agreement will offer a 50:50 split of revenues from the Greater Sunrise area, which lies on the eastern boundary of an area known as the Joint Petroleum Development Area.

The Greater Sunrise partners, led by Woodside, have put the ambitious gas project on hold until there is a resolution. About $7 billion in capital development alone has been parked elsewhere.

If the two countries can reach agreement, then Greater Sunrise can proceed, delivering billions of dollars in royalties to the poor folk of East Timor. It will then be up to the East Timorese Government (which has parked tens of millions of dollars in a bank account in Dili) to work out how to spend the money efficiently and without corruption.

Giving the people of East Timor a decent chance to live healthy and more prosperous lives should be a top priority for this wealthy country.

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