The Lucky Country: Part 6 - A Laid-Back, Happy People Help their Friends

‘More details revealed over allegations of Australia spying on East Timor’, ABC Radio/The World Today 04.12.13 
http://www.abc.net.au/worldtoday/content/2013/s3904632.htm

ELEANOR HALL: But we begin today with the rapidly developing story of the retired spy who's come forward to back up claims by the Timorese government that Australia's former foreign minister Alexander Downer ordered Australia's overseas spy agency ASIS to carry out a bugging operation against the Timorese cabinet.

ASIO has now cancelled the man's passport, stopping him from leaving Australia to give evidence in a case that starts in The Hague on Thursday.

In a series of dramatic raids, ASIO also seized documents from his Canberra home in what some observers say is a search for evidence to enable the Commonwealth to prosecute the former spy for revealing official secrets, and prevent him from giving evidence against Australia.

Mr Downer has declined a request to respond on this program. But a lawyer involved in the case is calling for him to face a judicial inquiry into his actions.

With the latest, reporter Peter Lloyd joins me now in the studio.

Firstly Peter, what new information do you have about the alleged bugging of the Timorese?

PETER LLOYD: Eleanor, we now know more details about the way the operation was carried out. It's been confirmed to me that the affidavit of the retired spy lays out in detail his personal involvement in this secret mission to Timor that he says was ordered by Alexander Downer.

Back in 2004 the Government was paying for an aid project to refurbish the palace of government in Dili. It's on the waterfront, it's a two storey Portuguese style architecture building which was in some disrepair after the troubles and the transition. And now that is the working offices of the prime minister, Xanana Gusmao, senior ministers and officials and the cabinet room which is two doors, two offices down from the prime minister's office, across the carpark from the parliament.

This is very much the heart and centre of government in Dili.

There were three visits in May, June and August 2004 to the cabinet offices by agents of ASIS, posing in some fashion as members of that work party to renovate this space. These were visits to install, test, operate and run these bugging devices.

They were finally removed, my sources tell me, in December 2004 at the completion of their mission. Now that mission was to spy on the Timorese, say the Timorese, about their tactics, their strategy, their bargaining situation in the 2004 negotiations with the Australian Government over a very rich field of oil and gas called the Sunrise Field, between Timor and Australia. It's worth $20 billion.

And very much at the centre of that isn't just the interests of the Australian Government, but the company that was set to, and still is, set to exploit that field exclusively - Woodside Petroleum. At the time these bugging devices were in these offices, Don Voelte was then the head of Woodside.

The Labor backbencher from WA, Gary Gray, was working for Woodside as senior communications strategist. They were attending meetings in that room, along with Australian government officials - the minister Alexander Downer and the Australian negotiating team. They all held meetings in and out of those offices that the Timorese now say had been bugged by Mr Downer.

Now, the question that many people are wondering today is how does this all connect to an inappropriate use of Australia's overseas spy agency by Mr Downer. Now, the context is this. Is that it wasn't a negotiation just about treaties and boundaries. It was about the Australian Government hand in glove, very much a nexus between Woodside and the Australian diplomatic effort to structure a deal that got the best result against East Timor.

One of the best experts to go to on this topic is a guy called Professor Damien Kingsbury from Deakin University. I got him to set it out for me a short while ago.

DAMIEN KINGSBURY: Woodside essentially got out of having to deal with the Timorese government. It got a very good deal with the Australian Government. Had it had to deal with the Timorese government I think it believes it would have had to have paid more taxes or more royalties for the extraction of gas from the Greater Sunrise field.

And it would have been obliged to go with the Timorese government as to what the Timorese government wanted in terms of the processing of the liquid natural gas. That is onshore processing within East Timor, which the Timorese government wants because it will boost the establishment of the petrochemical industry in that country.

PETER LLOYD: What then is the national interest that Mr Downer and others will talk about in their defence of their position in these treaty negotiations?

DAMIEN KINGSBURY: Well Australia already benefits from having oil refined in Australia, from the Timor Sea. There was some hope from the Australian perspective that Woodside would come onshore with the liquid natural gas processing, which would be a big boost to top end development. It looks like the proposition at the moment is for offshore processing which doesn't benefit either Australia or East Timor. Although Australia would benefit probably more than East Timor on balance.

But really the benefit to Australia is that it's assistance for a large Australian company. It's basically a deal between mates for economic benefit. And not on the basis of national sovereignty.

ELEANOR HALL: That's Professor Damien Kingsbury from Deakin University.

What about the connection now between Mr Downer, the former foreign minister, and Woodside?

PETER LLOYD: That's a very interesting question. It's been confirmed to me that in May 2009 on Independence Day in East Timor, Alexander Downer went to see Xanana Gusmao and disclosed to him that he was now no longer a politician and since 2007 wasn't the foreign minister, but was now acting for Woodside as an advisor. I'm told Xanana Gusmao was extremely unhappy at hearing this and that's the first time in May 2009 that they learnt that the former foreign minister had become a lobbyist for the oil and gas company which they were having so many difficulties with.

ELEANOR HALL: And how does that connection between Mr Downer and Woodside influence the motivation of the whistleblower or the former spy, coming forward to make these allegations?

PETER LLOYD: Bernard Collaery is the lawyer for the East Timorese. He told me that the reason this spy, retired spy, has decided to come forward and tell what he knows about this operation, is because he feels a sense of betrayal. He says that in hindsight what he did wasn't in the Australian national interest, but was in fact to benefit a corporate big oil and gas company's interests and that he believes is not an appropriate use of the agency's time and capacity.

He describes it as wrong and he wants his day in court. He's furious that yesterday he was the target of a raid by ASIO officers in Canberra, who simultaneously took down his house and took from it documents and other records and at the same time also there was a raid on the offices of the lawyer Bernard Collaery whilst he was in The Hague.

Now the question is what happens to this guy? This is a man who potentially could be prosecuted for being, for revealing the secrets of a spy agency that he worked for. The argument being put forward by Bernard Collaery and co is that he will claim whistleblower status under the federal legislation and that that will protect him from any prosecution.

The problem is is that there's great debate now that there's been a raid. What happens to this guy in the future - he's lost his passport. Will he lose his liberty? No-one knows for sure. But Frank Brennan, the lawyer, priest and expert on all matters Timor, certainly has his thoughts about what may happen.

FRANK BRENNAN: I think it's a very ineffective means of trying to silence the whistleblower in that it's already known that he has sworn an affidavit. That affidavit is in the possession of the lawyers in The Hague. On Thursday there are supposed to be preliminary proceedings where both parties - Timor and Australia - the lawyers were concerned to ensure that the security and the anonymity of any Australian agents would be maintained.

I would have thought the more sensible way to proceed would be to have the lawyers do that behind closed doors rather than this provocative act, which though it might force other agents into silence, risks retaliation, which would be very unhelpful.

PETER LLOYD: That's Frank Brennan speaking there in Canberra a short while ago. Frank Brennan also says that he believes that this act by ASIO is an act really of public intimidation, that any other whistleblowers who might be thinking about coming forward will now know what happens to them.

FRANK BRENNAN: There clearly must be a strategy. In part I think it would be to try and silence other agents who might have been minded to give evidence. It could also be that the Australian authorities were not aware of how advanced was the preparation by the Timorese lawyers in terms of the affidavit having been prepared of their primary witness.

ELEANOR HALL: That's Father Frank Brennan, Professor of Law at the Australian Catholic University. Now Peter, this relates to a court case in The Hague on Thursday. Tell us about the significance of that.

PETER LLOYD: Indeed it does. Bernard Collaery, the lawyer for the East Timorese, is concerned about this. This is his smoking gun against Australia in a case where he wants to overturn the treaty that he thinks was obtained through foul means by the spying on the Timorese. He wants to invalidate that treaty and go back to the drawing board, which has all sorts of huge financial penalties and consequences for the Woodside company and others involved. And of course for the Australian Government a huge loss of face.

He is beginning that case on Thursday in The Hague. It's a three person arbitration panel. Each country, Australia and Timor, has chosen their advocate. There's been a third one agreed by both of them. The case will begin on Thursday as I say.

The first thing they have to do is establish that this is the forum that accepts this is the place to have the argument. Then there'll be a long running fight and at the end of it the Timorese believe the treaty will be invalidated. Australia will have to renegotiate that treaty.

Woodside will have to go back to the Timorese and renegotiate the terms of their deal, possibly face rival bidders, a different oil and gas commodity price market and at the end of the day the sea boundary between Australia and Timor will, in their view, be redrawn as it is with other countries, down the middle, instead of this wonky little road of the map which is structured around oil treaties which doesn't do a great benefit to the Timorese. And they say is a great and gross act of natural injustice.

ELEANOR HALL: Peter Lloyd, our reporter there, thank you. And Peter did work for the Timorese government for six months in 2012 on an unrelated project to do with reform of global aid and development.

And The World Today invited former prime minister John Howard and former foreign minister Alexander Downer onto the program. Both declined our offer. We also sought responses from the former Labor foreign minister Bob Carr and former Labor prime minister Julia Gillard.

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Strongly recommended:

> Video of Australian Foreign Minister Gareth Evans toasting Indonesian Foreign Minister Ali Alitas on 11.12.89 in a plane above Timor Gap to celebrate the signing of the Timor Gap Treaty between the two nations for the exploitation of the oil and gas resources below

> Shakedown - Australia’s grab for Timor oil, Paul Cleary, Allen & Unwin, 2007

Part Six/To be continued…