Aborigines get tainted land back, but no compensation for cancers
Just as the Maralinga army veterans find no justice from the Australian government, in their fight for compensation for radiation-induced illness, so those surviving aborigines affected by the atomic tests still go unrecognised.
In the true tradition of British and Australian governments, it is hoped that they will just all die out and be forgotten.
It sounds fine for SA’s Minister for Aboriginal Affairs Jay Weatherill to claim that this land handover is the” final chapter of a 50-year struggle for justice.” But it’s not – those victims of nuclear radiation are still there, and so are their children. The veterans are taking their case to Britain, particularly on behalf of their children and grandchildren. Why should the aboriginal victims continue to be ignored, in the pretense that their health was not affected?
Nuclear site handover ends fight for justice ABC News 18 Dec
A ceremony in the South Australian outback today will mark the formal handover of the former nuclear test site at Maralinga to Indigenous people.
The British Government tested weapons at Maralinga in the state’s far west in the 1950s and 1960s, including seven full-scale nuclear tests.
The South Australian Government says the land has been decontaminated but some will be fenced off because it remains unsafe.
A parcel of land known as Section 400 will be handed back to the Maralinga Tjarutja people.
SA’s Minister for Aboriginal Affairs Jay Weatherill says it will be the final chapter of a 50-year struggle for justice.
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