Prime Minister John Howard had ignored the difficult task facing East Timor in the wake of the ruinous Indonesian occupation, Australian Democrats Leader Lyn Allison said today. Australia should have done more to help, she said.

Her comments follow the collapse of law and order in East Timor in recent days, necessitating a new deployment of international troops including 1300 Australians soldiers.

"The prime minister maintains that East Timor has not been well governed, ignoring its grave difficulties in building the country from the ruinous legacy of Indonesian occupation," Senator Allison said in a statement.

"Extreme poverty, lack of economic activity and jobs and poor health, education and family planning services are the problems that Australia should have done more to help solve.

"Instead, the Howard Government has focused aid on security and last year robbed East Timor of its rightful share to majority revenue from the Timor Gap oil and gas field.

"The Australian Government continues to kowtow to Indonesia, ignoring warnings that the Indonesian military was still chipping away at East Timor's sovereignty and still had troops amassed at the border of West Timor."

Senator Allison said the shocking findings of the East Timorese Reception, Truth and Reconciliation Commission in January were ignored by the Australian Government, as were human rights abuses in Papua.

East Timor voted for independence in 1999, ending 25 years of Indonesian occupation but resulting in widespread killings and destruction, chiefly by Indonesian-backed militias, as the occupiers left.