Australia's highest military officer has admitted there was a lapse by his officers in the case of East Timorese woman Gracinda da Costa, who died last month after being hit by an Australian military vehicle.

The Australian opposition is describing it as delinquent. The chief of the Australian Defence Force made the admission at a Parliamentary committee in Canberra, raising new questions about the accountability and transparency of the Australian military presence in East Timor.

Presenter: Linda Mottram, Canberra correspondent
Speakers: Air Chief Marshal Angus Houston, chief, Australian Defence Force; Russell Trood, Australian Liberal Senator; Anna Powles, security researcher, former East Timor government advisor

MOTTRAM: The case of 65-year-old Gracinda da Costa, came to light in Australia when the Australian Defence Force issued a brief public statement on January 21. It referred to a woman, unnamed at that stage, who'd died in a Dili hospital from injuries sustained after being hit by an Australian army vehicle, more than a month earlier. It attracted criticism that the Australian military had done too little to attend to the woman, whose injuries were initially portrayed by East Timorese doctors as managable. Now, under questioning by Liberal Senator Russell Trood in an Australian Palriamentary committee, the Australian military's most senior official, Air Chief Marshal Angus Houston, has made this admission.

HOUSTON: I guess the ah, it's a lapse and unfortunately our people didn't keep track of how she was, she was going and she died and we were not aware of it until sometime later.

TROOD: Not just a lapse, they would appear to have been delinquent in the matter.
She was injured by an Australian Defence Force vehicle, subsequently went to hospital, was obviously in a serious condition, so serious that subsequently she died and yet there was no follow up.

HOUSTON: No, there was no follow up and eventually we found out about it.

MOTTRAM: Air Chief Marshal Houston's officers explained that after being hit, Gracinda da Costa was taken to Dili hospital. An Australian military medical officer visited there on the day and was told by doctors she was stable with leg fractures and scalp lacerations. But it wasn't until two weeks later that they learned she had died within hours of her arrival in hospital. In between time, the Australians had made just two phone calls to the hospital inquiring about Gracinda da Costa.

Senator Russell Trood told the committee he accepted that the initial assessment by Dili hospital of her condition may have been a misdiagnosis that led the Australians to see no cause for alarm. But he pressed the Australian Defence chief on the wider issues.

TROOD: These are matters of immense sensitivity and they're the kinds of things that undermine all the good work we do both in Afghanistan or East Timor or everywhere else, so I would have thought there might have been some interest taken in her condition to ensure that she was making a good recovery and that everything was being done to ensure that her interests were being protected.

HOUSTON: Senator I agree with everything you've said.

MOTTRAM: And the Defence chief promised change in how such situations are handled in the future.

HOUSTON: You have an undertaking from me that we will basically put in place processes to ensure that that happens.

MOTTRAM: But there's been no Australian Defence Force inquiry into the handling of Gracinda da Costa's case. So far the only inquiry has been a traffic accident investigation by the East Timorese police.

The admission of a lapse reflects a wider view in East Timor about how Australia has handled civil-military relations in the country. Australian researcher Anna Powles is a former advisor to east Timor's government and is a specialist in Australia East Timor civil-military relations.

POWLES: Yes I would certainly agree with that comment and I think that it is to the detriment of Australia here because there is this expectation on the part of the internatoinal community here that standards of accountability and transparency will be upheld by the Timorese security forces. When these standards have not been similarly upheld by international security forces such as the ADF it does raise some questions amongst the Timorese community here.

MOTTRAM: In the case of Gracinda da Costa, Australia has paid funeral costs, while on the question of compensation, now a routine matter where civilians are hurt or killed in Afghanistan, Defence says it hasn't reached the end of the decision-making process.

10 February 2010