Government spending is soaked up by a bloated inefficient public service, veterans payments and poorly thought through and executed infrastructure projects (eg the brand new but unoccupied finance building that is structurally unsound as well as the Tasi Mane “gas dreaming” project).

While Australia has given Timor-Leste a raw deal, its own government has and continues to mismanaged its oil / gas inheritance and robbed future generations of Timorese of alternative industries that could support sustainable livelihoods for its predominantly rural population.

The political and economic elite of Timor, who have reaped the benefits of government largesse and contracts, should bear responsibility for running the economy into the ground (its now unavoidable trajectory).