It has been 38 years since the Indonesian military murdered five Australian journalists – including Maitland’s Malcolm Rennie – but the debate about whether their bodies should come home continues.
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Mr Rennie, 29, was born in Scotland and came to Maitland with his parents when he was nine.
His career as a television reporter for Channel Nine led him to Balibo with his colleague Brian Peters, aged 24, to report on Indonesia’s invasion of East Timor.
Channel Seven reporters Greg Shackleton, 29, Gary Cunningham,27, and Tony Stewart, 21, were also there to report on the situation.
All five journalists were killed at dawn on October 16, 1975, and, according to former East Timor president Jose Ramos-Horta, they were brutally tortured and their bodies burnt.
Mr Shackleton’s wife, Shirley, has been trying to bring her husband’s remains home ever since.
She met with the former Labor government to try to make this happen, but there was no progress.
The remains of the five men now lie in a single grave at a South Jakarta cemetery.
Paterson MP Bob Baldwin said yesterday that he would speak to Foreign Minister Julie Bishop and fight for the remains to be brought home if that was
the wish of the reporters’ families.
He said the families would need to approach the government before it could act.
“What happened to those men was a terrible series of events,” Mr Baldwin said.
“It’s awful when anyone who loses their life, but this was particularly horrific.”
A Fairfax Media report from last year said that Senator Nick Xenophon thought Ms Shackleton’s wish to bring her husband’s remains home should not be delayed even if the families of the other men did not want the remains brought home.
He said that developments in DNA could possibly identify Mr Shackleton’s remains and remove them.
“If the remains of the DNA can be isolated, which they should be, then we should be able to resolve this in a way that is dignified,” he said at the time.