PRESS RELEASE - EMBARGOED UNTIL: Monday 7th March 2005.

SURPRISE "PEOPLE'S DELEGATION" AT MARITIME NEGOTIATIONS

A 'people's delegation' will today seek to represent the Australian public at maritime boundary negotiations between the Governments of Australia and East Timor.

The delegation consists of; Bishop Hilton Deakin, Senator Bob Brown, businessman Ian Melrose, 91 year old National Living Treasure Mavis Taylor, former InterFET soldier Chip Henriss-Anderssen and Tom Clarke from the Timor Sea Justice Campaign.

The group claim that they are going to the talks because the official Australian negotiating team is not accurately reflecting the Australian peoples' values of fairness and justice.

"The majority of Australians want our Government to offer a fair deal that reflects East Timor's rightful entitlement under current International Law" claimed Bishop Deakin who said he was compelled to speak out for moral reasons.

While 91 year old Mavis Taylor said, "When I think about what a dramatic difference money from the oil and gas would make to the East Timorse, it makes me furious to think how wicked my government is being by taking what East Timor is legally entitled to."

This group that has been dubbed 'the people's delegation' will present an open letter addressed to the official negotiation team signed by an impressive list of prominent Australians including AOs, QCs, former diplomats, professors, surgeons, MPs and musicians, as well as a number of organizations.

The letter urges the Australian Government to "agree to set the boundaries between the two nations along the median line, halfway between the coastlines of East Timor and Australia, and with equitable lateral boundaries" and claims the "matter is not about charity, but about justice."

Melbourne businessman Ian Melrose has paid for the open letter to appear as an advertisement in the Australian, Age and Canberra Times newspapers and claims his $6 million, 3 year long advertising campaign is only just starting to gain momentum.

Former InterFET soldier Major Chip Henriss-Anderssen was proud of Australia's role in East Timor in 1999, but now questions the Government's motivations, claiming, "We thought we were doing something decent. Now we have to ask the very real question of wether or not we went to East Timor to secure oil assets that aren't ours?"

The talks between the two nations are the first round of discussions held since the negotiations collapsed late last year, when the Australian Government's pre-election optimism about reaching a solution was replaced by a nonnegotiable proposal that would deny East Timor of billions of dollars worth of oil and gas royalties that it is legally entitled to.

East Timor has no legal avenue to take this dispute as the Australian Government pre-emptively withdrew recognition of the maritime boundary jurisdiction of the International Court of Justice two month before East Timor's independence.

[Location: DFAT, Canberra, 12pm.] For further info contact: Tom Clarke, 0422 545 763.

click here to read the open letter with the signatories

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