Lisa Singh (Tasmania, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Parliamentary Secretary to the Shadow Attorney General) Share this | Hansard source

I inform the chamber that Senator Xenophon will also sponsor this motion, and I seek leave to amend general business notice of motion No. 466 standing in my name and the name of Senator Xenophon for today relating to Timor Leste.

Leave granted.

I, and also on behalf of Senator Xenophon, move the motion as amended:

That the Senate—

(a) notes that, on 30 August 2017, an agreement regarding the legal status of maritime boundaries in the Timor Sea was concluded between Australia and Timor-Leste;

(b) acknowledges that this agreement was reached through good faith negotiations following Timor-Leste's invocation of the compulsory conciliation procedures in the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS);

(c) further acknowledges:

(i) the significance of Australia's ongoing relationship with Timor-Leste,

(ii) the capacity for that relationship to contribute positively to regional prosperity and stability, and

(iii) the potential for this agreement to resolve more than 40 years of tension and uncertainty between Australia and Timor-Leste, serving as a catalyst for a new era of collaboration and cooperation;

(d) recognises and affirms:

(i) the importance of a rules-based international order to the maintenance of international peace and security,

(ii) the capacity for instruments, such as UNCLOS, to contribute to the preservation of that order, by facilitating peaceful resolutions to disputes between states, and

(iii) the necessity of cooperative state engagement with the procedures of international law to that law's successful operation; and

(e) calls upon the Government to adhere to and implement in good faith the terms of this agreement.

Question agreed to.