With high hopes for a compromise, Australia and East Timor are to resume talks over multi-billion dollar oil and gas reserves in the Timor Sea.
The talks, drawn out over the past year, have stalled repeatedly over the disputed maritime boundary between Australia and its tiny neighbour.
Australia has in the past been accused of playing hardball over the resources – worth an estimated $41 billion.
It withdrew from the International Court of Justice's maritime boundary dispute mechanisms two months before East Timor gained independence from Indonesia in 2002, preventing an independent arbiter from settling the issue.
Instead, it clings to a 1972 boundary that hands Australia two-thirds of the sea area between the two nations – and the bulk of the oil and gas reserves, including the Greater Sunrise gas field worth around $9 billion.
Australia and East Timor signed an interim deal in 2002 – the Timor Sea Treaty – to handle the oil and gas resources in what is known as the Joint Petroleum Development Area (JPDA).
Under the deal, East Timor receives 90 per cent of more than $10.2 billion generated from inside the area and Australia gets 10 per cent.
Both governments have indicated the dispute is moving closer to a compromise solution ahead of the resumption of talks in Dili on Tuesday.
Australia has asked East Timor to pass laws allowing Sunrise to go ahead without conditions and to hold off on its permanent boundary claims in return for a guarantee of 90 per cent of revenues from the JPDA for a century.
But advocates for the tiny nation – where 40 per cent of the population lives on less that 71 cents a day – say Australia's economic greed is a disgrace.
The Timor Sea Justice Campaign (TSJC) has organised rallies in three capital cities – Sydney, Melbourne and Adelaide – to coincide with the resumption of talks.
TSJC coordinator Tom Clarke said a permanent maritime boundary half way between the countries would solve the issue and settle the dispute over royalties, while delivering a fair share to the Timorese. Australia is earning $1 million a day from an oil field in disputed territory, he said.
That was unfair to a nation with an annual budget of just $A96.3 million, where more than 50 per cent of adults are illiterate and life expectancy is more than 20 years below that of Australia.
"East Timor just can't afford for these negotiations to drag on," Mr Clarke said. "We are just concerned for the plight of our neighbours and disgraced with our government's actions."
Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade (DFAT) deputy secretary Doug Chester will lead the Australian delegation in Dili.