Britain must compensate Aboriginal people for radioactive fallout

Australians for Native Title and Reconciliation (ANTaR) & Aboriginal Legal Rights Movement of SA (ALRM)

Joint Statement, Hiroshima Day, 6 August 2009

Britain must compensate Aboriginal people for radioactive fallout

Signatories to the statement below call on the British, Australian and South Australian governments to immediately redress this ongoing and gross abuse of human rights.

Australians for Native Title and Reconciliation (ANTaR), the Aboriginal Legal Rights Movement of South Australia (ALRM) and the signatories below endorse the recent public statement by South Australian Premier Mike Rann that the British Government has, “absolute responsibility to do the right thing by its and our service personnel and of course our Aboriginal people.”

State Premier Rann made the statement following the decision of the British High Court to allow military veterans from Australia, New Zealand, Fiji and the UK to sue the British Ministry of Defence for compensation for damages related to radiation exposure from atmospheric nuclear tests that Britain carried out in Australia during the 1950s, seven of them in South Australia on Anangu country. UK legislation has previously prevented British ex-servicemen from suing their government; while in Australia only a handful of test veterans and even fewer Aboriginal people have won compensation through the courts, the Australian Government fighting the claims vigorously.

1,200 desert Aboriginal people were exposed to radiation, while only five have been paid a total of $200,000 in health compensation and claims by another 14 Aboriginal people rejected.

Attempts to ensure the safety of desert Aboriginal people during the tests demonstrated “...ignorance, incompetence and cynicism,” according to the 1985 Royal Commission into British Nuclear Tests in Australia. Many Aboriginal people subsequently suffered conditions such as leukaemia and other cancers, birth defects, thyroid problems, blindness, infertility and growth deficiencies.

Aboriginal people should expect to have the same rights as our test veterans to achieve redress and treatment for radioactive injury in any reappraisal of entitlements coming out of the UK decision. Our organisations and supporters want to see equitable access to legal processes for Aboriginal people affected by the British tests carried out in the Monte Bello Islands; and then at Emu Field and Maralinga in Anangu lands.

Aboriginal people should be properly compensated for any adverse health and well-being outcomes they and their families have and will continue to suffer, as well as for the contamination of Aboriginal lands and waters, and ongoing effects of the fallout from the tests.

Many Anangu were forcibly removed from their traditional lands in the lead up to the tests. At the same time, the boundaries of the test fields were inadequately patrolled and the British dismissed concerns for Aboriginal people's safety with the heartless comment that, “a dying race couldn't influence the defence of Western civilization.”

Many hundreds of Anangu and other Aboriginal people were affected by what the Yankuntjatjara call the ‘puyu’ or black mist, the radioactive fallout that led to sore eyes, skin rashes, diarrhoea, vomiting, fever and early death, particularly amongst the elderly. Health testing of Aboriginal people in the 1980s identified a variety of health issues such as cancer and lung disease.

In 1991-92 a once-off payment was made to Aboriginal groups around Maralinga of $618,000 for land contamination; although the Australian Government then announced the resumption of uranium sales to France worth $60 million a year in government revenue.

The effectiveness of efforts to bury extensive plutonium contamination have been mixed. Vast tracts of the Maralinga-Tjarutja lands remain uninhabitable due to radioactive contamination, and indemnity issues surrounding the final handover of Maralinga Village remain unresolved.

Our organisations and supporters condemn the British and Australian Governments of the day for the breaches of the 1836 Letters Patent, establishing South Australia and vesting perpetual Aboriginal land rights in the South Australian Aboriginal people, and for breaches of the 1948 Universal Declaration on Human Rights and the 1948 Genocide Convention, in holding the atomic tests on Aboriginal lands.

We note that the tests occurred on Aboriginal lands prior to the 1967 Referendum when constitutionally the Commonwealth was legally incapable of offering an indemnity or indemnifying Britain against the impact of the atomic tests on Australian Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples, their lands and waters.

Our organisations and supporters call on Premier Rann and the Commonwealth Government to assist South Australian Aboriginal people and their families affected by radiation exposure by providing adequate financial, legal and other support to enable them to pursue their claims against the British Ministry of Defence.

We also recommend that stories given by Anangu as evidence to Royal Commissioners Jim McClelland and Bill Jonas during the 1985 Royal Commission be made available in an appropriate form, noting that the Royal Commission made open findings, due to limited documentary evidence.

In addition, we call on the Commonwealth Government and other relevant State and Territory jurisdictions to provide financial, legal and other support for Aboriginal peoples beyond South Australia who were similarly affected, as a result of radioactive clouds travelling beyond the South Australian borders.

ANTaR President, Janet Hunt
ALRM CEO, Neil Gillespie