The truth about the murder of five journalists at Balibo on October 16, 1975, in the lead-up to the Indonesian invasion of East Timor is one of the longest and saddest cases of government abuse of Australians' right to know. The present Government engaged in two inquiries, the 1996 Sherman report and the 1999 review of the Sherman report, which have now been revealed as whitewashes. Thanks to a coronial inquest that is due to deliver its report next week, Australians have finally heard evidence from eyewitnesses that Australians Greg Shackleton and Tony Stewart, New Zealander Gary Cunningham and Britons Brian Peters and Malcolm Rennie were murdered in cold blood by Indonesian soldiers led by former Indonesian information minister and special forces officer Yunus Yosfiah. They have also heard that the Whitlam government learned of the deaths the day they occurred but did not tell the families for 10 days.

In evidence that tests credulity, former prime minister Gough Whitlam claimed earlier this year that he was not told about the deaths because he was in Sydney and could not be reached on a secure line. This was contradicted by his former defence minister, Bill Morrison, who said he did not tell Mr Whitlam because the prime minister "had enough problems on his hands" dealing with a bill to block the government's money supply. Either way, it seems no more credible that Mr Whitlam would have been kept in the dark about the journalists' deaths than that a much later defence minister, Peter Reith, would decide not to inform Prime Minister John Howard in 2001 that reports were false that the children of asylum-seekers had been thrown overboard.

As The Australian reports today, only the former foreign minister Don Willesee took steps to inform the families, which unfortunately came to nothing. Initially, the families were kept in the dark to protect the fact that knowledge of the journalists' deaths was obtained by Australians eavesdropping on the Indonesian military. Yet at some point, the Australian government had an obligation to tell the families and the nation what it knew. It is only thanks to the persistence of the journalists' families that the truth is finally coming out. This is not good enough. The culture of secrecy that allowed the murder of the Balibo Five to be covered up for 32 years must come to an end.