Tribunal Orders Public Hearing in Australia's 2004 Timor-Leste Bugging Case
A ruling on Friday opens portions of a late November hearing over documents concerning an intelligence operation that preceded a $50bn gasfield deal.
By Grace Anderson ·
Australia's administrative review tribunal ruled on Friday that parts of a three-day hearing set for late November must be held in public, rejecting the commonwealth's bid to close even the unclassified portions. The case concerns whether documents exist about a 2004 operation in which Australian Secret Intelligence Service operatives planted listening devices in Timor-Leste government offices.
Former senator Rex Patrick, who filed the request for 2004 cabinet records held by the National Archives of Australia, has pursued disclosure of the matter for years. The government has maintained a Glomar position, neither confirming nor denying the bugging nor the existence of records about it. ASIS argues that releasing such material could damage national security and Australia's relationships with other countries.
The devices were installed to learn Timor-Leste's negotiating position on the Timor Sea maritime boundary, access to the Greater Sunrise gasfields and disagreements within its cabinet. Those fields, located 450km northwest of Darwin and 150km south of Timor-Leste, hold resources estimated at more than $50bn. Australia reached a 50/50 split on Greater Sunrise in 2006, and a new maritime border was signed in 2018.
Government lawyers argued for secrecy. Deputy chief solicitor Justin Davidson told the tribunal last Thursday that the stakes were "very high," and said of the risk of an intelligence official speaking out of turn, "I'm not, frankly, beyond making a mistake." Ewan McMillan, an ASIS deputy director general, and Michelle Chan, a deputy secretary at the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade, are scheduled to testify in late November.
Deputy president Peter Britten-Jones ruled against the commonwealth. He wrote that the officials were "highly qualified and experienced" enough to avoid disclosing protected material, adding, "The risk of an inadvertent disclosure of certificated material is negligible." Patrick has called the operation the "most open secret in the history of Australian spying." He also said, "Only ASIS and DFAT think the operation is still a secret." The operation surfaced publicly in 2013, when a former ASIS officer known as Witness K contacted lawyer Bernard Collaery, and Collaery's office was later raided.
