Scott Burchill – Given advance notice that the street bully is about to beat up your neighbour, three courses of action are open to you. The first is to try to dissuade the bully from his violent intent. The second is to warn your neighbour so that he can make preparations to defend himself or flee. The third is to do nothing, sit back and watch the attack.

Last week, Captain Andrew Plunkett claimed the Australian Government failed to act on intelligence that could have prevented the massacre of 47 civilians at a police station in Maliana in September 1999. If his claims are true, it will be the second time in 24 years that Canberra chose option three in its dealings with the people of East Timor.

We know from Des Ball and Hamish McDonald's book Death in Balibo – and from the evidence of the officials themselves – that senior Australian diplomats in Jakarta were given detailed, advanced briefings of how, when and where Indonesia would formally invade East Timor in 1975. In other words, Australian officials had prior knowledge of Indonesia's intention to commit a crime of aggression. At a terrible cost, this information was withheld from the East Timorese and from Australian nationals reporting from the territory at the time.

This week's claims that both East Timorese and Australian civilian police working for the UN were not told of the known dangers in remaining in Maliana after the announcement of the independence ballot result therefore have a strong sense of dij'au about them and are worthy of a serious investigation.

Too often in its dealings with Indonesia and East Timor, Australia's foreign policy establishment has chosen the least morally defensible course of action.

The Foreign Affairs Minister, Alexander Downer, responded: "I have never heard of such an allegation before and I don't think I have ever heard of any Australian government, including the present Government, refusing to pass on information that might have otherwise helped save people's lives."

This response poses two disturbing questions. Is he so ignorant of Australia's recent diplomatic history, or does he think the public suffers from collective amnesia?

Of equivalent concern is Plunkett's assertion that Australian sources had accurately reported on Indonesian plans to kill independence supporters in Maliana, but that their reports were "pushed up the chain of command, hosed down and political-wordsmithed by the Asia division of the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade (DFAT)."

Although it is often claimed that diplomacy is not a domain where normal ethical standards apply, officials gathering and disseminating information, setting policy and advising locals about public safety cannot temporarily suspend their moral agency. They remain responsible for the anticipated consequences of their actions or decision not to act, regardless of whether their field is domestic or international politics.

If true, Captain Plunkett's allegations again confirm the reputation of some recidivists within DFAT as Jakarta's most loyal allies in its brutal occupation of East Timor.

[Scott Burchill is a lecturer in international relations at Deakin University in Victoria.]