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

Senator Xenophon, that is not correct. It has been the policy of successive Australian governments that Australia should delimit its maritime boundaries through negotiations rather than resort to third-party dispute settlement, and that is the case here. You are also wrong, Senator Xenophon, in the suggestion that a median line is the only applicable principle. One thing your question ignores is the fact that the Australian continental shelf to the north-west of Western Australia runs beneath the Timor Sea very close to the southern coastline of East Timor. The median line principle, or the equidistance principle as it is sometimes referred to, is sometimes used, as the International Court of Justice affirmed in the North Sea continental shelf case in 1969 and again at the beginning of the Guinea-Bissau arbitration in 1986. It may be displaced by other circumstances.