22. The representative of Australia said that his delegation was not disputing the right of any delegation to come forward with a paper. It only drew Members' attention to the mandate of this Special Session and, in particular, to the way the EC paper sought to confuse and introduce issues that were not relevant to these negotiations. The key point that his delegation was making was that it failed to see how it could engage in a discussion on a paper that introduced all of these issues in a way that was clearly prejudicial to his delegation's position on issues under discussion in other fora and on issues that were not negotiating ones. The records of the past meetings showed that his delegation had been extremely engaged in these discussions by, inter alia, asking many questions and putting forward proposals. The sponsors of the joint proposal had shown that they wanted to move these discussions forward. Regarding the comment made by the European Communities that Australia did not want to discuss the new EC proposal, he said that this was contradicted by their own statement at paragraph 33 of the minutes of the last meeting in document TN/IP/M/12, where the European Communities said that the new joint proposal in document TN/IP/W/10 could not be considered as a basis for an agreement or for further negotiation.
