Bob Brown (Tasmania, Australian Greens) Share this | Hansard source

Mr President, I ask a supplementary question. I ask Senator Carr: has he read today’s paper in which Mr da Costa said:

… establishing the project—

in Timor-Leste—

was expected to cost $8 billion to $10 billion and … would drive the development of other services in the country of 1 million. “That’s the reason why we see that for Australia this is one drop in a big ocean, but for Timor Leste this is … the single biggest [project] and you can imagine how much attention we put into this.”

What are the social benefits to Timor-Leste which were explained to the minister yesterday—if I read this correctly—and is it true that this development is 200 kilometres from Timor-Leste but 500 kilometres from Australia and logic would dictate that it go ahead in Timor-Leste?