Twelve-year wait for DFAT documents

February 11, 2010

AAP

A coronial inquiry into the murder of an Australian man in Cambodia has been waiting more than a decade for a government department to hand over documents, a Senate hearing has been told.

David Wilson, 29, of Melbourne was murdered by the Khmer Rouge on November 1, 1994, following his kidnapping from a train in southern Cambodia the previous July.

A coronial inquiry has waited 12 years for the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade to produce requested documents.

Liberal senator Bill Heffernan questioned bureaucrats from the department, demanding to know "why the hell" had it taken so long.

Hundreds of documents have been provided in the interim to the Wilson family under Freedom of Information applications, but the coroner's office is still waiting, a Senate estimates hearing in Canberra on Thursday was told.

Government frontbencher John Faulkner, representing Foreign Minister Stephen Smith, agreed there was a problem that needed to be fixed but asked for time to find answers.

"There may be considerable complexities in this," he said.