Richard Di Natale (Victoria, Australian Greens) Share this | Hansard source

I rise to speak on the Timor Sea Maritime Boundaries Treaty Consequential Amendments Bill 2019 and related bills. The Greens want to see this bill passed as soon as possible. It is our view that the Timor Sea Maritime Boundaries Treaty must be ratified without further delay, and the passage of these bills is critical to that.

The people of Timor-Leste have been waiting long enough to finally settle with Australia the borders of their nation. They have been waiting long enough for justice. I'd like to think that the ratification of the Timor Sea Maritime Boundaries Treaty signals the beginning of a new and positive bilateral relationship between our two countries, but if that is to happen we must also reflect on, acknowledge and apologise for the wrongs of the past. Prior to the negotiation of this treaty, Australia's behaviour in its relationship with Timor-Leste has been a textbook lesson in how to squander the goodwill of a neighbour and good friend.

At the time of Timor-Leste's independence, despite a vexed history, Australia came to Timor's aid. We organised and led the International Force East Timor after their overwhelming vote for independence led to a spiral of violence and the death and displacement of countless Timorese. Ordinary Australians were appalled by the violence that occurred there after the referendum and many contributed financially to humanitarian efforts. Indeed, I was privileged to be able to witness this firsthand.

When thousands of East Timorese were evacuated to Darwin, I flew up to Darwin and helped with the assessment, triage and processing of these East Timorese refugees. I'll never forget the look on some of those people's faces, people who were malnourished, many of them hiding in the hills, scared for their lives, some of them sick, all of them deeply traumatised. They were men, women and children who had been through the most horrific period that that nation has endured.

That experience was just one of many thousands of examples of Australians helping their Timorese neighbours as Timor was born a nation. Sadly, that moment in Australia's history, that support we gave to Timor-Leste as their nation was born, is a bright spot in what has been a very dark and troubled history. We know that in the 1970s Gough Whitlam, then the Prime Minister, assented to Indonesian President Suharto's plan to occupy what was then Portuguese Timor. We failed to investigate and hold anyone to account as Australian journalists, the Balibo Five, were murdered by Indonesian security forces, in Timor, in 1975. Indeed, subsequent to the Whitlam prime ministership, according to author Clinton Fernandes, the governments of Malcolm Fraser, Bob Hawke and Paul Keating all cooperated with the Indonesian military and President Suharto to obscure details about conditions in Timor-Leste and to preserve Indonesian control of the region. It seems that, while we may have had some sympathy for the plight of the East Timorese, the relationship with Indonesia was something that would be maintained at all costs.

Now, if that wasn't bad enough, subsequent to Timor-Leste's independence Australia spent much of the next decade undermining our newest neighbour. For the first two decades of this century, successive Australian governments have behaved in reprehensible way in our maritime boundary dispute with Timor-Leste. These negotiations weren't conducted in good faith. They were more interested in Australia's self-interest than in securing a fair and just outcome. We withdrew recognition of international maritime boundaries, taking billions of dollars of resource revenue that we now agree is not ours and that was taken from Timor in contravention of international legal principles.

Perhaps most shockingly, we spied on East Timor during negotiations, under the guise of an AusAID project. That illegal and unethical spying operation was of course exposed by whistleblower Witness K, who, along with his lawyer, Bernard Collaery, is facing ongoing prosecution from the Australian government. Journalist Bernard Keane has referred to the Witness K prosecution as 'the biggest national security story in a generation'. It's hard to argue with that. In his words, it's 'the ongoing cover-up of a crime committed by the Howard government to help a major Australian company, exposed by two patriots with decades of service to Australia'. Just think about that: two brave individuals interested in decency, in supporting transparency and in ensuring that justice is done are now being prosecuted by the Australian government. And it was our foreign minister at the time, Alexander Downer, who ordered this illegal spying operation to the benefit of Australian companies, like the fossil fuel behemoth, Woodside. It should surprise no-one that Mr Downer went to work for Woodside as a consultant after leaving office.

The government's treatment of Witness K and his lawyer is yet another example of Australia inching towards a police state, something that's being enabled by what is a bipartisan consensus that, somehow, if something is called 'national security legislation' it doesn't deserve proper scrutiny. Well, that is failing us. It's failing us big time. We need more transparency. We need to open up national security legislation to all members of this chamber, not to engage in closed inquiries where evidence is given under the cloak of darkness and where draconian laws are signed off on by both the Liberal Party and the Labor Party without any opportunity to question or scrutinise the evidence that has been provided.

When you live in a democracy that spends years prosecuting a whistleblower who exposed illegal spying activity on a much less powerful neighbour and friend during oil negotiations, you know that something is rotten. Once again the Greens urge and implore the government to drop its prosecution of Witness K and his lawyer, Bernard Collaery.

While we welcome the impending ratification of this treaty, we are disappointed that it includes restrictions that prevent Timor from seeking compensation for its loss of revenue—something that effectively amounts to theft. The Australian government could return this stolen money. As Timor-Leste civil society organisation La'o Hamutuk notes in its submission to the JSCOT inquiry, Australia should follow through on the principles and values that the treaty promotes and inspires, like cooperation and friendship, and give back the revenue that we took. Sadly, I'm not holding my breath.

Let me finish by making a heartfelt apology to the people of Timor-Leste for the behaviour of past and current Australian governments. We have ignored you when you needed us most. We have used our might against a small emerging nation to pressure you into accepting unfair deals, even when the revenue from those resources that are rightly yours would have helped you find your feet and lift you out of poverty. As the Uniting Church points out in its submission, this is funding that could have been used to provide schools, health clinics, age care and support for people with disabilities. Having visited East Timor and seen the urgent health needs in that country, the lack of infrastructure and the lack of basic transport infrastructure, that funding could have been used to help that nation develop much more quickly, to lift people out of poverty, to get access to decent health care and for young people to get access to an education. No, the Australian government came to the negotiating table many years too late, after many of the resources in the contested area—resources that rightly belong to you—had already been drained. So to the people of Timor-Leste: on behalf of the Australian Greens, I say sorry. May the ratification of this treaty open up a new chapter in both of our nations' histories. We can and must do better.

On that note, I move:

At the end of the motion, add:

", but the Senate, in welcoming the ratification of the Timor Sea Maritime Boundaries Treaty, calls upon the Government to apologise to the people of Timor-Leste for the unscrupulous behaviour of successive Australian governments including illegal and unethical spying operations."