My question is to the Minister for Foreign Affairs. I refer the minister to Mr Laurie Oakes’s revelation last night that he opposed the Prime Minister’s East Timor detention centre policy, stating:

It will go off like a firecracker in East Timorese domestic politics.

Given that the foreign minister was right and the East Timorese parliament has passed at least two resolutions opposing the detention centre, why won’t the government drop this doomed proposal?