My Manifesto: The Incoherent Ramblings of a Madman

Oxfam (http://www.oxfam.org.uk/) reports:

Two years after achieving independence, East Timor is at risk of becoming a failed state, with the Australian Government’s approach to negotiating a maritime boundary impeding the new nation’s capacity to finance its long term development.

A new report by Oxfam Community Aid Abroad released to coincide with the 2nd anniversary of East Timor’s independence highlights the mounting poverty of the East Timorese people, where less than half the adult population can read and write, 41% live below the poverty line and one in ten East Timorese children born today will die before the age of five.

Although Australia has been a generous donor to East Timor, the Australian Government is reaping over $1 million per day from oil and gas in a disputed area of the Timor Sea that is twice as close to East Timor as it is to Australia. Australia has received nearly ten times as much revenue from Timor Sea oil and gas than it has provided in aid to East Timor since 1999.

“The vast oil and gas reserves of the Timor Sea provide East Timor with a window of opportunity for providing for its people and future generations” says James Ensor, Oxfam Community Aid Abroad’s Director of Public Policy. “However Australia is not displaying good faith in its current negotiations with our neighbour”.

Under a temporary treaty signed with East Timor, Australia has access to two-thirds of the known oil and gas deposits in the Timor Sea, even though a maritime boundary set according to international law could deliver most, if not all, these resources to East Timor.


You go for it Australia! Following in the footsteps of America, Australia, too, is changing governments so that they can instill sympathetic governments to rule over a country that they want to rape and pillage the natural resources of. To be honest, who can blame us, we're just doing what America would want us to do, we're following the great example set in the Gulf Wars. What gives us the right to take what is not ours? What gives us the audacity to think we can even try and get away with it?

There is always a catch - the trouble is - most people don't realise it until it's to late.