Alexander Downer called Timor-Leste an ‘open book’ for Australia in 2000, tribunal hears

Former foreign minister Alexander Downer privately boasted that Timor-Leste was an "open book" to the Australian government in the year 2000, well before the infamous bugging scandal revealed by Witness K, a tribunal has heard.

The Administrative Appeals Tribunal is hearing an application by independent senator Rex Patrick, who is seeking the release of previously secret cabinet documents about Australia's dealings with Timor-Leste following its 1999 independence vote.

As part of the case, Philip Dorling, a then foreign affairs department officer and adviser to shadow foreign affairs minister Laurie Brereton, has given evidence of a private conversation with Downer on 31 August 2000 during an RAAF flight from Dili to Maroochydore.

Dorling recalls Downer speaking of the second world war, describing Winston Churchill's mistakes and suggesting the war "could have been brought to a more rapid and victorious conclusion" if he had been in Churchill's position.

According to Dorling, Downer spoke of the importance of signals intelligence to the allied war effort and remarked that "clandestine intelligence gathering" remained vital for diplomacy.

He then recalls Downer saying: "You know. There's not much back there [in Dili] we don't know. We know what they're saying about Laurie. They're an open book to us."

Dorling, who went on to become a journalist and now works in Patrick's office, made a contemporaneous handwritten note about the conversation, which has also been filed to the tribunal.