A group of lawyers are calling for a full study into the legacy of Australia's worst offshore oil spill, a move they say could be the start of improving relations with Indonesia.
The Australian Lawyers Alliance on Wednesday released a report on the Montara disaster.
The two-year effort compiles compelling accounts from individuals and communities in Indonesia's East Nusa Tenggara region who have suffered in the six years since the spill.
Thousands of fishermen and seaweed farmers are worse off, many can no longer afford to send their children to school, and some now live with respiratory trouble and skin ailments.
The report calls on the Australian government to finally negotiate with Indonesia for an environmental impact study there, funded by the company responsible, PTTEP Australasia.
The subsidiary of Thai state-owned company PTT found in its own research that oil never reached Indonesia's coast.
But plenty of eyewitnesses say it did and even six years on, it would be possible to study sediment for Montara oil.
ALA national president Greg Phelps says the government has not only an opportunity to do the responsible thing, but to work constructively with Indonesia.
"Our closest neighbours have got this problem," he told AAP.
"They should be the subject of assistance from Australia anyway because they are such close neighbours, and they live in relatively poor and impoverished conditions for the large part.
"I do think that the research program would be a positive step in relations."
The Indonesia-Australia relationship is again under scrutiny after Jakarta's decision to slash the cattle import quota blindsided the industry and government, suggesting a breakdown in communication.
Lawyers are also investigating a class action on behalf of seaweed farmers who have experienced devastating economic losses since 2009.
The federal government-established Montara Commission of Inquiry in 2010 noted evidence indicating that "hydrocarbons entered Indonesian and East Timor waters to a significant degree".
However, trans-boundary damage was not included in its terms of reference.
