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Before you listen to anything @AlexanderDowner says tonight on #QandA about the legality of pilfering Timor's oil & gas, just remember that as foreign minister he withdrew Australia's recognition of the maritime boundary jurisdiction of the International Court of Justice...
...Preemptively turning your back on the independent umpire is not the actions of someone confident in their own legal arguments...
...Also remember this is man who thought it was ok to deploy Australian secret service agents (under the guise of aid workers) to bug the Timorese cabinet room to get an unfair advantage in treaty negotiations...
...and don't forget that when he left office, he scored a consulting gig with Woodside Petroleum, the very corporation that stood to benefit the most from those negotiations...
...of course the men who played a role in exposing this moral bankruptcy – Witness K & his lawyer Bernard Collaery, are now facing time in jail for breaching "national security" laws after the current AG @cporterwa approved prosecutions once treaty negotiations had wrapped up...
...And keep in mind that at the time Timor was the second poorest country in Asia. Australia shunned international law & unilaterally depleted contested oil fields & jostles Timor into a series of agreements that aimed to short-change the Timorese out of BILLIONS of dollars...
...And now after decades of the delays caused by The Australian Government's stonewalling & bullying, the value of the remaining gas fields are likely to drop as the world moves away from fossil fuels, as of course we should, but will the Timorese receive any compensation or...
...be perhaps, & just floating the idea here, be paid by western countries who have polluted our way to prosperity, to keep the fuels in the ground. Such funds could be invested in clean energy technilogies likely to bring more local benefits in terms of jobs & less risk...
Anyway all up, this whole affair has meant that East Timor became Australia's biggest foreign aid donor. This is not a typo. Because of @AlexanderDowner, Aus took billions we had no right to take & would have taken more if Witness K, grassroots campaigns & media hadn't exposed it
Rant over. For now.
(Oh, on another topic, if he starts criticising the evidence-based public health response to the pandemic, just remember back in March he was trying to tell us covid was no worse than the seasonal flu etc. ie he’s dealt himself out of that conversation/no credibility.)
