Veronica Brooks, Canberra – The Australian government Wednesday said it welcomes the passage of East Timor's legislation implementing the Timor Sea Treaty.

A spokesman for Foreign Affairs Minister Alexander Downer also told Dow Jones Newswires that Australia's legislation on the treaty will be ready for introduction into parliament in early 2003.

The Timor Sea Treaty sets out the terms for exploiting oil and gas reserves in the Joint Petroleum Development Area of the Timor Sea in which East Timor has a 90% entitlement and Australia has 10%.

Australia has pushed back its parliamentary debate to early next year to provide time to sort out a dispute over the Greater Sunrise gas field, which falls largely outside the Joint Development Area, and is therefore not covered by the Timor Sea Treaty.

Greater Sunrise contains an estimated 8.35 trillion cubic feet of natural gas. Under current maritime boundaries, agreed with Indonesia in the 1970s, 80% of Sunrise falls in Australian waters.

But East Timor – which became formally independent in March after three decades of Indonesian occupation – is claiming a maritime boundary with Australia that would potentially take in all of the Sunrise fields.