The language in the border negotiations between Australia and East Timor is heating up. East Timor says Australia is trying to steal its oil reserves while Canberra responds that Dili is trying to stir up emotion to create controversy. The latest idea from East Timor is a call for a third country or neutral umpire to step in to the border negotiations.

Presenter/Interviewer: Graeme Dobell

Speakers: Alexander Downer, Australia's Foreign Minister; Cecilio Caminha Freitas of the Independent Centre for Information on the Timor Sea Sound Effects: Xanana Gusmao

Dobell: East Timor's President Xanana Gusmao has stepped up the rhetoric telling his people that Australia is trying to steal Timor's oil in the negotiations over a sea-bed boundary.

East Timor says Australia wants to hold on to territory which could yield oil and gas worth eight to ten billion dollars to the newly independent nation. Australia's Foreign Minister, Alexander Downer, responds that Australia has already been generous.

DOWNER: "The tactics that are being used by East Timor, a country Which we helped to bring to independence and to which we have been enormously generous and supportive over recent years and on oil and gas we have given them 90 per cent of the government revenue from the joint development area and we only get 10 per cent, whereas we had a 50-50 split with Indonesian before."

"The tactic here is to try to create public controversy in Australia by a lot of emotive criticism of Australia. I think in the end when two countries are adjacent with each other if one is richer than the other that isn't an argument for the poorer country being able to take territory from the richer country."

Dobell: The argument, though, is not about the joint development zone but about resources outside the zone – claimed by Australia. East Timor says that a permanent seabed boundary set at the mid point between Australia and Timor in the Timor Sea would give it ownership.

Canberra, though, says its claim rests on the extent of Australia's continental shelf. Australia, two years ago, said it'd no longer accept the role of the International Court of Justice in determining border issues. Now, non-government groups from East Timor argue the best way to resolve the issue is to agree to mediation by a neutral third country.

Cecilio Caminha Freitas represents a coalition of non-government groups that have created the Independent Centre for Information on the Timor Sea.

Freitas: "And the best thing is probably we need neutral country to help out to be as a mediator, to mediate the whole negotiation process particularly for whole discussion how to figure out how to resolve and work out a settlement for the seabed boundary."

Dobell: Can East Timor put enough pressure on Australia? Is the relationship important enough for Australia for you to be able to force Australia to accept some outside mediation?

Freitas: "East Timor as a state, East Timor as a government I think we have very limited capacity, we have limited power to enforce Australia to change their mind. But at least the civil society has a very, very important role in this case to be neutralise, at least to deciminate it what is the bad thing, what then the right thing that is so far going on so far at the moment, particularly around Timor Sea Treaty ratification, that exploration so far."

"So I think in my visit also this is the part of our moral responsibility to try to recommence and I do believe because Australian people are a democratic people and they have to see, they have to create a strength in their good neighbour relationship in the future."