When government ministers get caught up in "scandal", few foreigners jump to their defense. With finance minister Emilia Pires, however, it's been a different story. As you may recall from my last post, Pires has been in the firing line for some comments she made in a private email four years ago. The Timor Post last week ran a front page story about some students who had made banners and were calling for the finance minster to go back to Australia.

The situation had become somewhat farcical, but Pat Walsh came to her defense recently:

I simply want to say that I have worked with Emilia Pires in the service of Timor-Leste for some 30 years and I can guarantee she is not a traitor. On the contrary, she is and remains an exceptional Timorese woman and patriot who has contributed significantly to the independence of this country.

From the time of their arrival in Melbourne in the late 1970s everyone in the Pires family including Emilia, her parents and siblings, worked hard for Timor-Leste at many levels engaging tirelessly in community organising, information dissemination, cultural promotion and political campaigning in and outside Australia. This much admired family has very obviously continued this commitment in Timor post-independence.

Emailgate, as I've called it, is really a storm in a teacup. It's an attempt to damage the character of one of key members of the government, and it's a timely attempt given the current nationalist sentiment, which those students were evidently caught up in.