Following an explosion on August 21, 2009, the Montara rig spewed oil and gas into the Timor Sea in Australian waters 250 kilometres from Rote Island in Indonesia for more than 70 days. Farmers and fishermen say the spill destroyed seaweed - a lucrative crop exported for use in agar, a cooking ingredient - and killed fish supplies. The Indonesian government will also launch a $US2 billion ($2.5 billion) lawsuit against PTTEP Australasia, which is based in Perth, its parent company Thai state-owned oil company PTTEP and another subsidiary in the Central Jakarta District Court on August 23. Lawyers will ask the court to freeze the assets of the three companies and seek 27 trillion rupiah in compensation for environmental damage and restoration of hundreds of hectares of mangroves, seagrass meadows and coral reefs. Mr Pandjaitan said he was yet to receive a response from Australia. "We'll see soon, I think," he said. "I think we are going to take very firm action on this because the victims in the Montara case are the people of Indonesia." Fairfax Media is seeking a response from Senator Brandis. However it is unclear what Senator Brandis could do given a politician has no influence in Australian Federal Court proceedings. Mr Pandjaitan said he had just sent a team to East Nusa Tenggara. "We saw the damage in the area because of the accident," he said. Maurice Blackburn class action principal Ben Slade called on the oil rig operator, PTTEP Australasia, to expedite a "fair and compensatory" resolution for the 15,000 seaweed farmers affected by the oil spill. "The company has caused long term suffering and needs to do the responsible thing and remedy this," he said. In a hearing this week, Maurice Blackburn applied for an extension of the statute of limitation period, which sets a maximum time after an event within which legal proceedings may be initiated. Mr Slade said Daniel Sanda - a 58-year-old seaweed farmer from West Timor representing thousands of seaweed farmers who don't speak English - didn't know who dumped the oil on their shores that killed their crops. The farmers also didn't know they had rights under Australian law. "[Mr Sanda] has asked a Federal Court judge to let him have his day in court to hold the oil company accountable." The judge has reserved his decision. The judge has the discretionary powers to extend the limitation period if it is deemed the delay in commencing proceedings was not unreasonable given the lack of knowledge Mr Sanda had about the spill until much later and how quickly action was taken once he did. Maurice Blackburn cited several precedents where extensions to the limitation period had been granted. These included the case of Bruce Allan Trevorrow, an Aboriginal man who sued the state of South Australia over his suffering as a result of being removed from his family when he was 13 months old. Loading In 2007 the Supreme Court of South Australia granted him an extension to the limitation period and ruled that he should be awarded damages. Follow Jewel Topsfield on Facebook Jewel Topsfield is Melbourne Editor of The Age.
Almost seven years after an oil spill near the Central Jakarta District Court in Indonesia, seaweed farmers in the region are calling on Australian Attorney General George Brandis to speed up the AUD200m ($158m) class-action lawsuit launched in August last year. Thousands of seaweed farmers from East Nusa Tenggara, one of Indonesia's poorest regions, said their industry has been devastated by the oil spill.