Australia is a bogus and less than honest broker in the present unrest in Timor-Leste. For years Australia has conspired with Indonesia the U.S. and the U.K. to bully and backslide Timor-Leste over the huge oil reserves that lie closer to Timor-Leste than to Australia.

International law recognizes that Timor-Leste has greater rights to these oil and gas reserves than Australia and though Timor-Leste has complied with the internationally recognized Law of the Sea, Australia has simply withdrawn from the World Court jurisdiction so as not to be obligated by the law.
Australia is now using the pretext of restoring order following the recent unrest in Timor-Leste to permanently station elite commandos in Timor-Leste for the sole purpose of ensuring the persistance of Australian oil and gas interest there.

Within weeks of the illegal and brutal invasion of Timor-Leste by Indonesia, Australia recognized Indonesia’s claim to Timor-Leste and negotiated away Timor-Leste’s maritime boundaries and effectively declared Australian territorial waters well inside the internationally recognized maritime boundaries of Timor-Leste. Timor-Leste was not invited to these “negotiations” nor consulted on the matter.
Today and long after the Indonesian withdrawal, Australia continues to recognize only the maritime boundaries it agreed with Indonesia, guaranteeing Australia 100% rights to oil and gas reserves that most international law experts conclude, legally belong to Timor-Leste.

Battling with staggering levels of poverty, illiteracy, preventable disease, and a recent past in which some 300,000 Timorese were killed, it is little wonder that Timor-Leste is presently a violent and politically unstable fledgling nation.
Australia is taking advantage of this situation. Promises of aide and delaying tactics during oil exploration rights negotiations has left Timor-Leste with little option but to sign deals that are unfavorable to them but provide Australia with billions of dollars worth of oil revenue income for tens of years of come. Under an agreement signed with Australia in 2003 Timor-Leste became "the largest foreign contributor to Australia's national budget."

Considering that Timor-Leste is the poorest and most impoverished country in Asia, a greater share of the oil revenues would wean it off dependence on internationally donated aide and enable Timor-Leste to develop. But as the Australian Foreign Minister Alexander Downer told the Timor-Leste Prime Minister Alkatiri during negotiations for oil rights, “Let me give you a tutorial in politics — not a chance.”

The above statement is typical of the ambivalent attitude held by the Australian government towards Timor Leste. During World War Two, over 80,000 Timorese died defending Australia from invasion by Japan. In the entire war, Australia lost less than half that number of its countrymen.
Today Australia is in effect stealing the lifeblood that could move Timor-Leste out of extreme poverty. This is the thanks Australia gives the Timorese for helping to save them from the "Yellow Peril" some sixty years earlier.

Given Australia’s selfish oil and gas interest in Timor-Leste and in the present climate of global energy insecurity, it is should not come as a surprise that at the first hint of inter-communal unrest and without hesitation Australia responded to a spurious call for help from the Timor-Leste government by deploying 1500 elite commandos to restore order. The real reason for this deployment is for Australia to establish a permanent military presence in Timor Leste, an insurance policy that protects Australian oil and gas interest irrespective of inter-communal fighting that could lead to a violent change of the Timor-Leste government to one that is less willing to honor what it feels are unfair terms in the oil revenue sharing agreements with Australia.

This is not an unlikely scenario. China has become an important importer of oil for any country with oil resources to trade. Many people in Timor-Leste have become increasingly dissatisfied with the Australian interpretation of “sharing” the oil reserves of The Timor Sea.

Since its declaration of independence in 2003, Timor-Leste has established close diplomatic relations with China and commenced negotiations to grant China rights to inland oil exploration and provide economic and military aid.

Whatever the world may think of China’s record on human rights, Timor-Leste must at least feel they will get a fairer oil deal from China than the wholesale ripping off of Timor-Leste oil reserves currently practiced by Australia. They would at least be no worse of than at present.

By deploying a small but tactically elite military force to its tiny and weak neighbor, Australia has finally consolidated its ability and desire to exert its influence and control over the internal politics of Timor-Leste and foster a “puppet regime” that will remain sympathetic to Australian energy interest in years to come.
For this reason, the considerations of the Timorese need to develop and move out of sad cycle of aid dependence and poverty, simply don't come into the frame of Australian thinking. .

Read more about Australia’s dishonest dealings with Timor-Leste at :

 http://www.saveeasttimor.org
 http://multinationalmonitor.org/mm2006/012006/scheiner.html
 http://www.etan.org/et2003/august/24-31/25etblood.htm
 http://www.etan.org/et2004/december/13-19/13etturn.htm#E%20Timor%20to%20woo