dChan - Q Origins Project Archive

Alexander Downer Aus Diplomat who kicked off Trump Russia Investigation ordered survailance on East Timor Gov back in 2004 regarding oil trade deal when he was the foreign minister

The Story of the Shameful Timor Prosecution

This month the Attorney-General approved the prosecution of a former ASIS operative and his lawyer linked to the Timor Sea dispute. Should the freedom of political communication argument prevail, they may emerge from the High Court as free speech heroes rather than as villains.

Earlier this month the Attorney-General, Christian Porter, announced that he had approved the prosecution of Witness K, a former ASIS operative and his lawyer, Bernard Collaery, a former Attorney-General of the ACT. They are to be prosecuted for a breach of s.39 of the Intelligence Services Act 2001 (Cth). The prosecution arises out of the involvement of Witness K and Collaery in legal disputation between the governments of Australia and Timor-Leste concerning their respective entitlements to revenues from oil and gas fields located in the Timor Sea.

From 2002-2004, the two countries were locked in intense and heated negotiations as to the proper allocation of the oil and gas revenues. That allocation, in turn, depended critically on where the maritime boundary between Timor and Australia should be drawn. As to this, the governments’ positions were categorically opposed.

The Timorese Government proposed that the boundary dispute should go to the International Court of Justice for independent determination. The Australian Government responded by withdrawing from the Court’s maritime boundary jurisdiction, thus depriving Timor-Leste of the opportunity to pursue its case.

Nevertheless, further negotiations produced an initial agreement as to the division of revenues in that part of the Timor Sea defined as the Joint Petroleum Development Area. There was no agreement, however, as to the relevant maritime boundary upon which the division of the oil revenues from the adjacent, lucrative Sunrise oil and gas field depended.

A first round of talks on this issue was held in Dili between April 19 and 22, 2004. Correspondingly, then Foreign Minister, Alexander Downer, instructed ASIS to undertake surveillance activity in Timor-Leste in order to ascertain the Timorese Government’s position as to the location of the maritime boundary and its impact upon the distribution of the potential oil riches from the Sunrise field.

Whether at the behest of the Minister or otherwise, it appears that ASIS operatives posed as aid workers, deployed by Ausaid, who assisted with the construction of the Palacio Governo in Dili. This was the building in which the Timorese Prime Minister and Cabinet held their meetings. During the course of construction, it seems that ASIS agents placed surveillance devices in meeting rooms which allowed ASIS to listen in to Timor-Leste’s Cabinet discussions. These included Cabinet’s deliberations as to Timor’s negotiating position with respect to the maritime boundary and the future carve up of the Greater Sunrise revenues. The Australian Government thereby obtained critical information about Timor’s negotiation strategy, providing it with a substantial but hugely unfair advantage in the oil and gas argumentation.

The negotiations continued and, in May 2005, a joint agreement was reached on a formula for revenue sharing from Greater Sunrise. Timor got more money but caved in to Australia’s demand that the maritime boundary issue should be indefinitely deferred. Timor’s position in those negotiations had been weak, given the parlous state of its economy and the government’s pressing need to obtain oil revenues to undertake desperately needed infrastructure development. So, the Government still believed that the agreement reached was very unfair.

In 2007, following the Howard Government’s loss at the 2006 election, Alexander Downer obtained a highly paid consultancy with Woodside Petroleum, the company responsible for exploiting the oil and gas reserves in the Timor Sea. This prompted Witness K, who had been part of the ASIS team engaged in bugging the Timor government’s offices, to complain to the Inspector-General of Intelligence about the legality of the operation. The Inspector-General agreed that Witness K’s evidence could be disclosed in any related legal proceedings. After that, information as to the Cabinet surveillance operation made its way progressively into the Australian and Timorese media.