Adam Morton, Melbourne – Australia will have to step in and "sort out" East Timorese politics within five years unless the Timor Sea Treaty is balanced, the ACTU said today.

ACTU international manager Alan Matheson told a Federal Parliament Treaties Committee hearing in Melbourne that it was in Australia's national interests to ensure the treaty benefited the newly independent East Timor.

The treaty was unique because East Timor was reliant on revenue from oil and gas in the Timor Gap, he said.

"There can be no doubt from all our contacts in East Timor that this is an issue of considerable anxiety," he said. "I believe if we don't get the treaty right we will have the Australian government up there in five years trying to sort out governance."

The committee is hearing submissions on the treaty, due to be ratified next month, which will carve up energy resource revenue from the gap.

East Timorese private sector groups urged the committee not to ratify the treaty at a hearing in Darwin yesterday, arguing new maritime boundaries were needed.

The Uniting Church today told the Melbourne hearing the treaty should not be ratified in its current form. Uniting Church spokesman the Reverend David Pargeter told the hearing the East Timorese believed Australia was "robbing" them under the terms of the treaty.

Mr Pargeter said East Timor had no other income and had to accept whatever Australia offered. "What prevents us from putting ourselves in the shoes of the East Timor government who are being required to choose between little and nothing?" he said. "Many East Timorese see the situation as a wealthy, powerful nation robbing a weak and impoverished one."

The committee is hearing submissions around the country before the treaty is ratified by the Australian parliament.

United States-owned Phillips Petroleum is waiting on ratification of the treaty, having set a November deadline to start work on a pipeline from its Bayu-Undan gas field to Darwin.