Rebuttal to Martin Hardie's claims

March 20, 2025

Martin Hardie may wish the best for Timor-Leste. But rather than address Dili’s lack of economic sustainability, he makes critical factual mistakes.

Timor-Leste’s Petroleum Fund pays for most government spending and drives the economy. The $18.5 billion fund no longer receives oil revenues and has a finite life, as the 2024 budget statement states.

Hardie claims: “Dogma casts the fund as a sacred idol, not to be touched for development, only preserved for some distant future.” He is wrong. Sustainable withdrawals are meant for budget expenditure and are a legislated requirement.

This pays for development of the Timor Sea’s Greater Sunrise liquid natural gas field, in which Timor-Leste has a 56% stake. Hardie agrees the field is worth about $33 billion, but says 56% “promises ‘$50–$100 billion over decades”. Nonsense.

Disagreement between Timor-Leste and developer, Woodside Petroleum (not ‘Australia’) over processing has stopped development for 18 years.

Critically, Hardie falsely claim Woodside’s commissioned 2024 (not “2025”) “Wood Report” into the field’s development says processing in Timor-Leste is “viable” and “echoes” a Timor Gap (Timor-Leste government agency) concept study. He is wrong; the report presents four options, none of which propose particular “viability” or “echo” the Timor Gap study.