The Foreign Minister has delivered a careful rebuke to Timor Leste's President José Ramos-Horta, who has been demanding the federal government intervene to help his country resolve a lengthy stand-off with energy giant Woodside over a contentious gas project.
Mr Ramos-Horta has used a series of media interviews to warn that his country may turn to a Chinese company to fund the project if the Australian government does not "intervene" and lean on Woodside to back Timor Leste's plan to pipe gas from the Greater Sunrise fields to its south coast, where it wants to build a processing plant.
