NPE during template expansion with misplaced "template" statement

If the "template" statement does not precede the first rule in the template file, a NPE occurs:
xception in thread "main" java.lang.NullPointerException
at org.drools.template.parser.DefaultTemplateColumn.createCellCondition(DefaultTemplateColumn.java:68)
at org.drools.template.parser.DefaultTemplateColumn.addCondition(DefaultTemplateColumn.java:91)
at org.drools.template.parser.DefaultTemplateRuleBase.createColumnConditions(DefaultTemplateRuleBase.java:105)
at org.drools.template.parser.DefaultTemplateRuleBase.createTemplateRule(DefaultTemplateRuleBase.java:98)
at org.drools.template.parser.DefaultTemplateRuleBase.getDTRules(DefaultTemplateRuleBase.java:85)
at org.drools.template.parser.DefaultTemplateRuleBase.<init>(DefaultTemplateRuleBase.java:64)
at org.drools.template.parser.TemplateDataListener.<init>(TemplateDataListener.java:76)
at org.drools.template.parser.TemplateDataListener.<init>(TemplateDataListener.java:52)
at org.drools.template.ObjectDataCompiler.compile(ObjectDataCompiler.java:44)
at resource.Main.compilePackage(Main.java:80)
at resource.Main.main(Main.java:92)