March 10, 2004 6:12am
AP Online

CANBERRA, Australia_Australian opposition lawmakers on Wednesday held up legislation to ratify an oil and gas field development deal with East Timor, saying the agreement exploited the impoverished nation.

Bob Brown of the Australian Greens Party said the deal _ to develop lucrative oil and gas reserves in the Timor Sea _ allowed Prime Minister John Howard's government to cheat the world's newest country out of billions of dollars worth of natural resources.

"It's an act of piracy by the Howard government," Brown told reporters. "It really is degrading to East Timor."

The deal, agreed a year ago, gives Australia 80 percent of the royalties from the massive Greater Sunrise gas and oil field _ the richest in the area and which industry analysts have valued at US$40 billion.

The bill introduced by the government on Wednesday was to ratify the agreement. Drilling cannot begin at the field until Canberra has ratified the agreement by making it law.

Speaking to The Associated Press last year, East Timor Prime Minister Mari Alkatiri said his tiny country, desperate to get oil and gas revenue flowing, had been pressured into signing the agreement.

The main opposition Labor Party called for more discussion of the bill late Wednesday, after Brown urged its members to reject the legislation.

Kirsty Boazman, a spokeswoman for Industry Minister Ian Macfarlane, said it was now unclear when the legislation would be passed.

"I don't understand. Labor has already agreed to this, and it's been through committee. They've already had the chance to discuss any aspects of it," she said. "It's opposition for opposition's sake."

Boazman also rejected Brown's claim that Australia was cheating East Timor and argued that a delay in development of the oil and gas field would be more harmful to the country.