Canberra – A cabinet minister from the Whitlam government today apologised to the people of East Timor for the Australia's inaction over the Indonesian invasion of the former Portuguese colony.

Doug Everingham, health minister in the Whitlam government from 1972 to 1975, said he was ashamed to have belonged to a cabinet which refused to protest against the Indonesian invasion.

"I apologise to the East Timorese people," Mr Everingham said in a letter published in The Australian newspaper. "I am ashamed to have belonged to the first of a series of Australian cabinets which failed to protest while our prime minister, unlike the world community, recognised the takeover of East Timor."

His comments come after opposition foreign affairs spokesman Laurie Brereton openly criticised the Whitlam government's handling of the East Timor issue, sparking heated debate within the ALP.

Mr Everingham later said the policy of accepting the annexation of East Timor damaged Australia's long-term interests, but was designed to help secure access to the rich Timor Gap oil fields.

"The reason why successive governments and not just the Whitlam government, have recognised Indonesia and East Timor is to get hold of the oil for big oil companies in the Timor Gap," he told ABC radio.

"And now the same sort of thing has been happening in Papua New Guinea and Bougainville and it's a matter of the whole world going pretty mad on defending so-called national interests which really are big money interests.

"In the long term, anything that rides over human rights, particularly the rights of people that help and save a lot of Australian lives in World War II, is going to damage Australia's long-term interests and it's already done that."