As the government scores a win in its shameful secret prosecution of Bernard Collaery, it seems like Labor is finally starting to wake up.

It seems as though Attorney-General Christian Porter will be successful in maintaining his cover-up of the Howard government's crime of bugging the cabinet room of Timor-Leste in 2004 to benefit political donor Woodside, with an ACT magistrate granting Porter's application that parts of the prosecution of Bernard Collaery be held behind closed doors for national security reasons.

That also means that, in a Kafkaesque absurdity, Porter will be allowed to use documents against Collaery that Collaery and his legal term are prohibited from seeing.

ACT Supreme Court magistrate David Mossop ruled in Porter's favour on Friday after several days of secret hearings that some media outlets have shied away from reporting. Former foreign minister Gareth Evans, former chief of the defence force Chris Barrie and former ambassador to Indonesia John McCarthy all gave evidence as part of Collaery's case against Porter's application.