Anthony Albanese (Grayndler, Australian Labor Party, Leader of the Opposition) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

This is, indeed, uncontroversial legislation but there's been anything but an uncontroversial lead-up to it being presented in this parliament. It must be said that some of that lead-up has not done a great deal for Australia's standing as good neighbours to one of the newest nations on the planet. But Labor will, of course, be supporting this legislation because it is critical, as we move forward with our friends in Timor-Leste. Indeed, I am looking forward to travelling with the Prime Minister to Timor-Leste next month for the 20 years commemoration of the popular consultation which led to Timor-Leste's independence. The treaty enforcement will be an important component of that.

It is important that this legislation pass the parliament during this fortnight's sitting so that the Prime Minister and I can indicate to the leadership and, importantly, to the people of Timor-Leste that Australia does indeed mark that commemoration as friends, not as people in conflict over what is the absolutely critical single factor in economic growth and, therefore, an improvement in living standards for the people of Timor-Leste.

The treaty replaces the treaty and joint administration arrangements between our two nations made in 2003, and the treaty recognises new maritime borders for Timor-Leste. We on this side of the House are proud of the role that we played as a political party. Of course, many people in the Australian Labor Party—I think of my friend Robert Tickner and many others—played a very long role. I think of Laurie Brereton, of the member for Lingiari and of the member for Solomon and the critical roles that they have played. The former member for Page, Janelle Saffin—a very close friend of the leadership and people of Timor-Leste—and, indeed, the member for Sydney, who was shadow minister for foreign affairs, raised the issue of ensuring that Australia behaved honourably on these issues.

While Timor-Leste now has the petroleum rights within its maritime boundaries, it recognises Australian oil and gas companies' current operations in the Timor Gap. The treaty allows for a Greater Sunrise special regime area to be established. That includes the Sunrise and Troubadour gas fields. The special regime area will be jointly administrated by Australia and Timor-Leste, with a revenue-sharing arrangement expected to benefit Australia by between $2 billion and $8 billion over the life of the resource. Two international areas will also be implemented for gas pipeline corridors. The government will introduce a tax amendment to the treaty bill that ensures that no Australian company will be worse off because of the treaty. The treaty demonstrates Australia's commitment to international law and rules, Australia's intention to have robust bilateral relations with Timor-Leste and to jointly develop the Greater Sunrise gas fields.

Labor warmly welcomed the signing of the historic treaty in March 2018 between our two countries, establishing their maritime boundaries in the Timor Sea. The treaty brings to an end more than 40 years of uncertainty over our shared maritime border and vindicates the strong position taken by Labor to take decisive steps to settle our dispute with Timor-Leste. Labor believes the maritime boundary dispute with Timor-Leste strained our bilateral relations and that it was very much in the national interests of both our countries to resolve this dispute in a fashion which didn't see a winner and a loser but saw a winner and another winner. We believe that this is what this legislation codifies. We're therefore very pleased that this treaty is the first ever to be achieved by conciliation under the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea.

Australia and Timor-Leste have agreed that, from the date that the treaty enters into force, Timor-Leste will receive all future upstream revenue derived from petroleum activities from the Kitan oilfield and Bayu-Undan gas field. Previously, both Australia and Timor-Leste received benefits from revenue derived from petroleum activities in the JPDA, including these two fields. In addition, Australia and Timor-Leste have agreed that the Buffalo oilfield, which previously fell within the continental shelf of Australia, will fall within the continental shelf of Timor-Leste and that Timor-Leste will receive all future revenue from that oilfield.

The development of the Greater Sunrise fields is expected to yield significant revenue over the life of the project. The divergent revenue estimate of $2 billion to $8 billion is dependent on the terms of the development concept that is still to be agreed between Australia, Timor-Leste and the Greater Sunrise joint venture for the development of the Greater Sunrise fields. The exact financial benefit to Australia will depend upon a range of factors, including this concept, as well as the economics of the project and prevailing market prices for oil and gas.

In the previous parliament these bills were referred to a committee and evidence was provided that the length of time required for a treaty that recognised Timor-Leste's claims to be negotiated and signed had in some quarters undermined Australia's international standing. It is important that Australia is recognised as a trusted partner with our closest neighbours. The Australian government has had six years to work on the treaty and now there is timing pressure to pass the bills before those 20th anniversary celebrations. Yesterday the government introduced tax legislation to ensure that the treaty can come into force. Labor has agreed to not send the tax legislation to a committee, because we want to make sure that there is speedy passage of this legislation over the next fortnight. It is, indeed, time critical. It shouldn't be viewed that this is a precedent for how we deal with tax legislation. We recognise this as a one-off occasion. It is in our national interest that this occurs.

It is important to recognise though—and I say this to the new Leader of the House, who's struggling with the procedures before this House—that these bills were first introduced on 28 November last year and were not dealt with in the 45th Parliament. It is up to the government to prioritise its legislation. I suggest they prioritise legislation based upon the national interest rather than play politics. This is a good example of bills that should have been an absolute priority. Labor will ensure that they go through.

I've been very pleased to have an association on a personal level with Timor-Leste. Tom Uren was my father figure and mentor. Tom was captured in Timor in World War II before he went on what he called his tour throughout Asia, which included the Burma-Siam railway, Changi Prison in Singapore, and Japan, where he saw from a distance the second nuclear bomb dropped on Nagasaki. He never forgot the support that Australian troops were given by the people of what we then called East Timor. Australia has particular obligations to this fledgling nation because of the sacrifice that they made to assist Australia's troops during our darkest hour in World War II when our nation was under threat. Australia hasn't always repaid that debt in an appropriate way. This legislation does that.

When Tom passed away, having received the highest honour from the government of East Timor—the Order of Timor-Leste medal—the government issued a release describing him as a man of dignity and courage, who always stood up. The one memorial in Australia to the troops who were captured in East Timor—and it's a joint one acknowledging the sacrifice of the people of East Timor—is in my electorate in Marrickville Park. It's unfortunate that there is not more recognition of what occurred.

In June I appointed the member for Solomon to head our special regional trade task force of the caucus to work with the shadow minister for trade and to work with caucus colleagues. That will focus on trade links with the Asia-Pacific region. It is particularly important that we increase our engagement with Timor-Leste, as well as with Papua New Guinea—and I got to meet the PNG Prime Minister earlier this week—Indonesia, Singapore and Malaysia.

There is a real prospect of us being good neighbours in terms of how we deal with them. We need to deal with them in a way that is mutually beneficial to our economies. We live in a region in which we are seeing an explosion in the growth of the middle class. The growth in our region is the fastest economic growth that we have seen at any time in human history, including the Industrial Revolution that spurred Europe into dominance for a long period of time. That pales into insignificance compared with the growth we're seeing in our region at the moment. We need to be good neighbours. We need to recognise the opportunity that is there to assist our neighbours, particularly assisting people to get out of poverty. That is in our interest. It is also in our economic interest and our interest in the way that we stand in the world, our place in the world, to be good neighbours. Because it's gone through a conciliation process rather than the big guys trying to use their power over the little guys through economic dominance, this is a very good thing indeed. I commend the legislation to the House, I thank the shadow minister for the work that he has done and I look forward to being in Timor-Leste next month.

Joel Fitzgibbon (Hunter, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Minister for Agriculture and Resources) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I begin by congratulating the Leader of the Opposition, who just demonstrated here in this place his deep understanding of the people of Timor-Leste, his deep understanding of the relationship between our two countries, his very strong knowledge of the history between our two countries, his deep commitment to further developing and strengthening our relationship and, most importantly, his remembering what the East Timorese people have done for Australia in the past and the importance of remembering and acknowledging that whenever we're engaged in conversation or negotiation with our near neighbour.

Next month, as the opposition leader reminded us, our friends to the north will celebrate 20 years of independence. It's a source of joy for all of us that this treaty will be ratified in time for the celebration of that occasion. As the opposition leader indicated, Labor will not ask again for this bill to go to any committee process, because we want to ensure that it is ratified in time for that very important celebration.

As the opposition leader also said, this is an uncontroversial bill, but the path to securing this place has been anything but uncontroversial. We've been too long arriving here, and as a nation we have to be frank and say we have not covered ourselves in glory. It's been a rough road, a tough road and a long road. Like the Leader of the Opposition, I want to acknowledge some people in our party who have played significant roles in bringing us to this point today. The first is my good friend Laurie Brereton, the former member for Kingsford Smith, who in my view pushed the greatest shift in foreign policy in this country that we've seen since the Second World War but did so from opposition. In my view, that is an extraordinary achievement. As the Leader of the Opposition did, I also acknowledge the member for Sydney who, as the shadow minister for foreign affairs, recommitted Labor and redoubled our efforts to ensure that the treaty negotiations were put back on track and absolutely committed us to subjecting ourselves to international legal arbitration and to accepting the outcomes of that arbitration and conciliation. It was something, sadly, the Howard government refused to do.

As defence minister, I had the very good fortune of visiting East Timor on more than one occasion. My last visit there was on 6 March 2009, and it was a particularly rewarding one. I was joined by then Prime Minister Xanana Gusmao to officially open the specialist training wing for the East Timor defence force, which we had built for them. We flew by helicopter to Metanaro and opened that facility, and it was most rewarding to know we were doing such substantial things to assist them in their efforts to keep stability in the country and to protect their sovereignty as a nation. Of course, that defence cooperation program was not begun by the Rudd government; it was well and truly commenced by the Howard government, and I acknowledge that. There was good work done by both the major political parties on that front.

I just want to acknowledge a couple of other people. First of all, there is the member for Lingiari. I have with me, just by chance, speeches by the member for Lingiari that go back to 1987. I spoke about the Leader of the Opposition's full comprehension of the history of East Timor, both the positives and the negatives, the happy and the sad. But, in my view, no-one in this place would have a more comprehensive understanding of the issues and the people of East Timor than the member for Lingiari, who has been a very solid defender of their interests in this place for all of that time. Not all his words have necessarily been totally consistent on every occasion with the policies of the Australian Labor Party, and I give him very great credit for that. It's something of which he should be very proud. Over that time he has scoped well beyond the issue of maritime boundaries to the complexities of our relationship with Indonesia, the role of oil and gas companies—particularly throughout the 2000s—our attitude on the maritime boundaries and our intervention through the defence forces. Of course, the member for Lingiari was the Minister for Veterans' Affairs when I was the Minister for Defence. He's had a deep-seated interest in these matters for many, many years.

The Leader of the Opposition referred to the enormous assistance that the East Timorese gave Australia throughout the course of the Second World War. He reminded me that, in 1942, the 2/2 and 2/4 independent companies—now known as the commandos—were well known to many Australians who were actively engaged in East Timor. But he also reminded me that some 40,000 East Timorese lost their lives throughout the course of the Second World War. That should be something that's always at the forefront of our minds when we're entering into negotiations with our near and, of course, very, very poor neighbour. It is a country with, we all trust and hope, a very bright future. But it is a country still very much in its developing stage. It is a country that will have a lot of work to do if it is to meet our aspirations for it and, of course, its own people's aspirations for their own country.

I also want to mention the member for Solomon. I was just referring to the commandos, and the member for Solomon is himself a former member of the commandos and, of course, the Australian Army. He's done his country great honour with his contribution as a soldier under the Australian flag, but he continues to make a contribution towards our relationship and towards the growth and prosperity of Indonesia here, as a member of parliament. Indeed, his brother, Lieutenant Colonel Dan Gosling, is currently serving in East Timor. His family has made a magnificent contribution.

I'm not going to read into the record the technical details, because the Leader of the Opposition has done that for me by taking the opportunity to speak first. For those listening in galleries, I'm going to try to simplify what we're trying to achieve with these bills, which will give effect to or ratify a treaty, a treaty which has been 15 years at least in the making.

Below the oceans, in the gap between our two countries, are very, very rich oil and gas fields which will deliver in the future great revenues to a very poor country. But for many, many years, we've had a dispute about who owns those revenues. We've had various attempts to change the boundaries in a way which delivers a better outcome for the East Timorese people. So, obviously, if a gas field, or oil field, on one side of the boundary is closer to Timor-Leste, it's their revenue. If it's on this side of the border closer to Australia, it's our revenue.

There are two approaches to where those boundaries historically lie. There's the idea of using Australia's continental shelf. There is still a land mass beyond our seashore or taking an equal distance approach—that is, the halfway line between the two countries. We, for many years, took a continental shelf approach, which delivered more ownership for Australia at the expense of the poor fledgling nation of Timor-Leste. It gets more complicated than that because, for a period, we had a joint development area which was a sharing arrangement. However, finally this treaty will give effect to a new boundary which is much closer to Timor-Leste—sorry, the other way, actually—and will put more of the resources into the area of that underground land mass which falls into the jurisdiction of Timor-Leste.

This treaty will give them enormous amounts of revenue—probably more than we ever give in foreign aid. It will give them a new source of independence. It's very, very good news for them and it's very good news for us because what we are doing today is honouring what we say about our own approach to the international community, our approach to social justice and our approach to fairness and equity. It's exactly where Australia should be, and we can all collectively be proud of where we've landed with the consideration of these bills.

The oil and gas industry is a very, very important one to Australia. I'm very proud to be, once again, serving as the Labor Party's spokesperson in this area. I said at a petroleum and gas function here in Parliament House last night that the Leader of the Opposition has put me in this role as a clear signal to the industry that we support it, we acknowledge its importance and we recognise its amazing contribution to the economy and to jobs in this country. I intend to ensure that that is Labor's very strong message and that we will continue to produce policies conducive to facilitating more and more investment in the sector and therefore more growth in the sector, more output in the sector and more jobs in the sector. I'm very happy, in terms of doing that work, to have the member for Burt assisting me as the assistant shadow minister with a particular focus on Western Australia—Western Australia, a resource-rich state, critical to our national economy and a state in which we want to help further develop revenue opportunities in the near and the long-term future. I was very, very happy to attend a celebration last Wednesday night in Perth, hosted by Shell, where we marked the occasion of the first shipment of LNG from the Prelude project—a massive undertaking. It's a project now providing very significant jobs in the west, adding to the economy and providing much-needed gas to both Australia and the rest of the world.

We need to be facilitating more gas exploration and exploitation in this country. Our economy—our manufacturing industry in particular—desperately needs supplies of gas. As a parliament, we need to be facilitating, at every opportunity, the further exploitation of those valuable reserves.

I said last night that sometimes government can get in the way by doing things but government can also get in the way by not doing things. Our reluctance to extract more gas from our ground is a threat to our local economy. For example, dragging out decisions on tenements can be almost as bad as denying applications for further exploitation. We need to be very, very aware of that and conscious of it. We do need to work with state jurisdictions to ensure that, while we apply the most stringent environmental tests and put the appropriate hurdles in the way of these projects, we don't put the hurdles so high that they become unviable. This is not just important for our economy and our manufacturing sector but also important to households in Australia who desperately need affordable supplies of gas to their homes. The only way we're going to put long-term downward pressure on consumer prices and prices for businesses is to get more supply into the market, and it's absolutely critical that we do so.

Going back to the bill, the Leader of the Opposition made the point that there will be amendments to our taxation arrangements to ensure that no Australian company is disadvantaged by the changes to the maritime boundaries. We'll do so by ensuring that the capital expenditure can still be deducted into the future, even though there won't be revenue sources from those same areas of investment—that's very, very important. The opposition supports those changes. There are also changes to the passenger movement charge, which make absolute sense. On that front, we'll be supporting those changes. We are very pleased, after a long and unhappy period of time, that the government is now putting these issues to bed. I won't have the opportunity to be there celebrating, as will the Leader of the Opposition, the 20th anniversary next week. I would dearly love to be there.

My engagement with the people of Timor-Leste, both here and in their own country, leaves me with very, very fond memories. They were all very, very happy occasions. They are a wonderful people and they deserve to be given every opportunity to meet their aspirations and the aspirations of the international community for them. Let's hope that, together, we watch them rapidly grow and prosper over the coming decade. They've certainly earned that right. The road to independence, of course, wasn't an easy one. In fact, it was a violent one and an unhappy one, involving at one point the attempted assassination of President Ramos-Horta. They were very, very difficult times. I very fondly remember spending some time with the now Prime Minister—the chief of the defence force at that time. I'm just going to call him TMR, as most people do, because I have no idea how to pronounce his name properly, so I won't try. But I could see in his eyes, each time I had a conversation with him, the pain of many years in the jungles fighting for his people, and it was a wonderful thing to see him now in uniform, heading, at that time at least, the defence force. He's a remarkable person and a person I've developed a great deal of respect for.

So, we all look forward to the ratification and the celebrations. It will be a good day for Australia, but it will certainly be a good day for Timor-Leste.

Luke Gosling (Solomon, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I want to acknowledge the Labor leader for his contribution to this debate on the Timor Sea Maritime Boundaries Treaty Consequential Amendments Bill 2019 and related legislation, and also the member for Hunter. Hopefully we'll hear from the member for Lingiari, my colleague from the Northern Territory, who's had a very long history working in solidarity with the people of Timor-Leste and supporters of Timor-Leste in Australia to assist in getting us to the position we're in today where we can have a fairer treaty that's a credit to both nations. The Labor leader acknowledged my friend Janelle Saffin, formerly the member for Page in this place. I really got to know her through my time working in Timor-Leste, and she did an enormous amount to get us to where we are today.

There's a lot of history in these bills, which I'll refer to later. I've been very privileged to be part of Timor's story in more recent years through a time of development, through a time of restoring their independence. As the member for Hunter said, my brother Daniel is a lieutenant colonel in the Australian Army and is currently the team leader for the Defence Cooperation Program in Timor-Leste and continues to do a great job over there. I might be a bit biased in saying that my brother's doing a great job, but he really is. As a Portuguese and Tetum linguist, he was one of the first troops ashore with INTERFET 20 years ago, and he's there again now, continuing to assist the F-FDTL become a professional force and helping them to establish their own international peacekeeping capability, which is very important and a great credit to all of those countries and of course a great credit to TMR—Taur Matan Ruak—whom the member for Hunter mentioned was a guerrilla leader who became the chief of their defence force and is now the Prime Minister of Timor-Leste.

So there's a lot of history here, and it would be remiss of me not to point out and get onto the Hansard some of it that we can be less proud of but also some of it that we can be extremely proud of. Kim McGrath's book Crossing the Line: Australia's Secret History in the Timor Sea sets out Australia's role in negotiations with Timor-Leste over the maritime boundary between the two nations and, sadly, the bullying tactics Australia used to gain greater access to the oil wealth in the Timor Sea. Allegedly, these tactics went as far as the installation of listening devices in the room used by the Timorese negotiating team during the 2004-05 negotiations on the Sunrise field.

The principal negotiator for Australia during this period was the foreign minister of the time, Alexander Downer, a former member of this place. McGrath describes how Downer pounded the table as he bluntly warned that Australia could leave all the Timor Sea resources where they were until he got his way. That period—and I was in Timor-Leste in that period—did great damage to our relationship. Alexander Downer at the time said, 'We don't have to exploit the resources. They can stay there for 20, 40, 50 years,' whilst the Timorese tried to rebuild their country, one of the poorest countries in Asia, very dependent on that oil and gas revenue. The former foreign minister, Mr Downer, then retired from politics in 2008 and set-up a lobbying company with certain petroleum companies as his clients. I'm glad that we've moved past that. I'm very proud of the role that Labor has played to getting us where we are today, where the bills before the House give effect to a treaty between Australia and Timor-Leste recognising the extended maritime boundaries for Timor-Leste and making new arrangements for petroleum development and revenues.

These bills go a long way to repairing our relationship with Timor-Leste, a relationship, as we've heard from the Labor leader, in which Australia has not always acted with honour.

We did sign a new treaty in March of 2018, which did bring to an end more than 40 years of uncertainty over our shared maritime border. It also vindicated the strong position taken two years earlier by Labor under the leadership of the then deputy leader, Tanya Plibersek, the member for Sydney, where we took decisive steps to settle our dispute with Timor-Leste.

I think it is worth reminding the House of what the member for Sydney said on 10 February 2016 at the National Press Club. The member for Sydney said:

If we want to insist that other nations play by the rules, we also need to adhere to them.

We have a good record in doing so, but not a flawless one.

Timor-Leste suffered decades of war and starvation before gaining independence. Australia played a key role in securing that independence – a proud moment for many Australians.

The maritime boundary dispute has poisoned relations with our newest neighbour. This must change, for their sake, and for ours.

A Shorten Labor government will redouble efforts to enter good-faith negotiations with Timor-Leste to settle the maritime boundaries between our two countries.

If we are not successful in negotiating a settlement with our neighbour we are prepared to submit ourselves to international adjudication or arbitration.

It is in the national interest of both Australia and Timor-Leste that we do so, but just as importantly it is in the interest of the system itself that we are willing to freely participate in it.

That address to the National Press Club was a result of many, many people's efforts, and certainly the leadership of the member for Sydney on this issue, to get us to that point which provided the catalyst which changed the nexus of this issue and got us on a path towards the treaty being signed.

I also wanted to mention the efforts of our current shadow minister for foreign affairs, Senator Penny Wong, who reconfirmed Labor's commitment to multilateralism and a rules-based international system, and who said at the time of the treaty signing:

We believe all nations benefit from abiding by international norms. If we want to insist that other nations play by the rules, we would adhere to them.

We, of course, therefore are very pleased that this treaty is the first ever to be achieved by conciliation under the United Nations Convention of the Law of the Sea. Now that that treaty has been signed, bringing certainty over this region in the Timor Sea—north of my electorate in Darwin—we'll see the development of the Greater Sunrise gas field for the benefit of both Australia and Timor-Leste. I've indicated Labor's position, and I am very pleased that the signing of this brings to an end more than 40 years of uncertainty over this maritime border.

I also want to mention quickly another aspect of the bill, which was alluded to by the member for Hunter, and that is in relation to the passenger movement charge amendments. I just want to make a quick ad: the Australian carrier that you can fly to Dili with, Airnorth, flies from Darwin to Dili daily. They currently have great tourism packages where you can fly to Darwin and then go over to East Timor, have a tour and stay in great accommodation. In addition to the oil and gas industry, the tourism industry is going to become a really sustainable part of Timor-Leste's economic future. So I commend travelling to Timor to everyone, with a warning: once you travel to Timor-Leste, it gets under your skin and you'll be going back again and again. My friend and former boss Jose Ramos-Horta—the former prime minister, foreign minister and President of Timor-Leste was one of the people I worked for when I was there—strongly believes Timor-Leste coffee to be to some form of aphrodisiac. So that is just a quick warning. Yes, it's true. Indeed, that's from Jose Ramos-Horta, and I'm not making it up.

Just quickly, I want to acknowledge some of the people that introduced me to Timor-Leste's history. It has been a great privilege to get to know that country and people over the last 20 years. I've worked over there in a variety of roles. I established a charity in Timor-Leste; we built schools in the mountainous and isolated regions of Timor-Leste, education being such an important part of their future. Maternal health—maternal morbidity and mortality—is a serious problem in Timor-Leste. It's improving slightly, but it requires more focus from us. I was proud that we ran maternal health education programs in the districts of Timor-Leste.

Serving in the Australian military, with the Timorese military, gave me an appreciation for the resilience of those people who lived and fought in the hills of Timor-Leste to restore their independence over those very difficult decades when they were very much isolated and weren't receiving much support at all. But some that were supporting the East Timorese during those difficult years were the veterans of the 2/2nd and 2/4th independent commando companies—Australian soldiers, like Paddy Kenneally.

I want to acknowledge Paddy and his family—his lovely wife, Nora, and their children. Over the decades, Paddy never forgot the assistance that he was given by the East Timorese people. He's gone to God now, but Paddy used to always say that the Australian soldiers in East Timor would not have lasted five minutes in 1942 without the assistance of the Timorese people, who sheltered them and fed the commandos in the hills as they conducted what has come to be known as one of the greatest examples of guerilla warfare in modern times.

With the assistance of the Timorese, a couple of hundred Australian commandos, at the height of the Japanese occupation of Timor-Leste, kept 20,000 Japanese soldiers away from places like the Kokoda Trail, where those Japanese troops could have been very important and might even have led to the Japanese taking Port Moresby. Many people don't appreciate the importance of the Timorese support to Australia during those very difficult years. In fact, the bombing in my electorate, the bombing of Darwin, was to stop the counterattack on the invasion of Timor-Leste. The invasion of Timor-Leste occurred on 19 and 20 February 1942, and the bombing of Darwin on 19 February 1942 was very much to stop us from going into Timor. A couple of hundred Australian commandos, with the assistance of the Timorese, fought on there without assistance for many months. But one thing they were always gutted by was the fact that we had then gone and turned our back on the people of Timor-Leste.

I'm very proud to say that coming up is not only the 20th anniversary of them reclaiming their independence but also the 20th anniversary, on 20 September, of our Australian-led INTERFET force going back into Timor-Leste and helping to restore order, which, of course, led the way for the new nation of Timor-Leste to start self-governing. We wish them all the best. I want to again say how much I support this bill for both of our nations.

Debate adjourned.