George Brandis (Queensland, Liberal Party, Attorney-General) Share this | Hansard source

No doubt, there will be some cost. What the actual figure is I have not been able to obtain in the time since I have had notice of your question but I will get back to you on that. Australia is represented by the Solicitor-General, Mr Gleeson. It is also represented by Professor James Crawford, who is, as I said yesterday, the Whewell Professor of Public International Law at the University of Cambridge. So there will no doubt be some costs in Australia defending these proceedings in the arbitral tribunal. However, those costs I am sure are negligible by comparison to the benefit to Australia of its rights under the CMATS treaty, which we appear before this arbitration to defend.