Compere: Well, supporters of East Timor have long interpreted Australia's actions as a betrayal on the broad international stage of an entire people, but there's also that narrower focus of betrayal of our own people, especially the five young men from Channel 9 and Channel 7 who died at Balibo. Scratchily down the years comes that last report by Seven's Greg Shackleton as Indonesian troops advanced down the road towards them.

Greg Shackleton: There's been no attack today, but the 60-man Fretilin garrison is pulling back to Maliana. They've been told that Indonesian soldiers are heading this way up the road from Batugade. At any rate, we look like being the last people left in the town, and we'll make a decision very shortly on whether we too should pull back.

In the meantime, we've daubed our house with the word "Australia" in red, and the Australian flag in the house where we spent the night. We're hoping it will afford us some protection.

Compere: It was a forlorn hope. Soon Shackleton and his four Australian colleagues were dead, victims of the Indonesian invasion. For 25 years, Greg Shackleton's widow, Shirley, has been insisting that the Australian Government did know more than it was letting on. You might think she'd see today's release of the documents as a complete vindication, but instead Shirley Shackleton sees them as a farce. She told Mark Willacy that key cables relating to the death of the Balibo five have been left out.

Shirley Shackleton: It's just another part of the bizarre and horrible story where you end up saying, "What do they think – who do they think they're fooling?"

Mark Willacy: So it sheds no light about the death of your husband or his colleagues?

Shirley Shackleton: Nothing.

Mark Willacy: Obviously the documents show that Australia did have three days notice of the invasion, it knew when and where the attack would begin, that the main thrust would be through Balibo.

Shirley Shackleton: Yes.

Mark Willacy: What does that tell you about, I suppose, the feeling at the time and the fact that there were journalists in the field?

Shirley Shackleton: We're supposed to be Indonesia's best friend. It would have been perfectly reasonable for Whitlam to have told Woolcott to approach the Indonesians and say, "Make certain that the journalists at Balibo are not hurt or harmed in any way." That's what Woolcott was for. That was not an unreasonable expectation. The Government consistently does these stupid shopfront things, of saying, 'here, we're releasing all these documents.' Then at the last minute they change their minds, and there's not really much to be found, I'm told. As I say, I haven't read them, I can't claim that without seeing them.

Mark Willacy: It is an 885 page book. What other documents do you think are out there that should have been included, in your opinion?

Shirley Shackleton: Well, this is what Hamish McDonald said in the Sydney Morning Herald this morning. At the last minute insistence of defence officials, even the slightest reference to intelligence sources, such as intercepts of Indonesian military radio signals were deleted from the text of the published cables officials. So he's got people telling him what's really going on, and you just wonder at the gall of continuing to spend taxpayers' money on these pretend, you know, investigations whilst family refusing – see, I happen to believe things should be done in court. This is a matter of murder.

Mark Willacy: The Minister, Alexander Downer, says the only documents that were left out were left out because the editors of the book said they were not of sufficient interest.

Shirley Shackleton: [Laughing] I'm sorry, I can't take that seriously. Why not leave them there and let us decide what's interesting and what is not. It's not his place to withhold information, surely. Researchers need access to everything. It's time it was done, and I'm calling again for a full judicial inquiry. I think it's absolutely time for the Australian Government to stop this farce at once and do the only practical and moral thing, and that is have a full judicial inquiry into the murders at Balibo.

Compere: Shirley Shackleton whose husband, Greg, was one of the Balibo five killed during the Indonesian invasion of East Timor. She was talking to Mark Willacy.