Dili – Australian Green Party leader Bob Brown said in Dili on Wednesday he is pessimistic about negotiations between East Timor and Australia over the disputed maritime boundary between the two countries.

Talking to reporters after meeting with East Timor Prime Minister Mari Alkatiri, Brown said Australia would not change its mind on the boundary.

"I don't think the negotiation this week will succeed because I don't think the Australian government is listening to (East) Timor," Brown said, adding he was "embarrassed as a member of the Australian Parliament" that his government was not listening.

"We are doing the wrong thing," he said. Brown, during two days in East Timor, met with Alkatiri, as well as nongovernmental organizations and ordinary East Timorese, explaining Australian opposition parties are "fully in favor" of East Timor on the border issue.

Admitting the Labor Party backed the government, despite their stated policies of opposition last month, Brown charged the Labor Party itself was under the pressure from the oil companies that want to maintain their access to the rich oil fields in the area of dispute.

"So, I want to challenge the Labor Party when I go back to Australia to put a distance between themselves and the government, to stick by their own policy, so that we can renegotiate if there is a change in government," Brown said.

Commenting on the Australian delegation now in East Timor for negotiations, he said: "I believe the Australian delegation came here with its mind shut. They did not know what to say, they did not know how to listen. This is no way to negotiate."

On the coming election in Australia, he said that if the Labor Party wins he is going to pressure Labor to change the government policy in "to have a fair and just" maritime boundary with East Timor.

Before leaving for Australia this afternoon, Brown joined protesters marching to Hotel Timor, the site of the boundary negotiations.

The talks, in which East Timor wants Australia to change the "unfair" sea boundary negotiated when East Timor became an independent country into a more equitable sharing of the massive oil resources in the Timor Sea. Australia has so far rejected East Timor's requests.