Minister for

*7

$500,000 FOR ABORIGINALS AFFECTED BY ATOMIC TESTS

Aboriginal communities will receive relocation compensation to the  value of $500,000 in 1986-87 in response to the Recommendation of  the McCelland Royal Commission into British Nuclear Tests in  Australia.

Announcing this today, the Federal Minister for Aboriginal Affairs,  Mr Clyde Holding, said that the compensation would be provided to  communities with a traditional interest in land within the former  Maralinga Prohibited area.

The McClelland Royal Commission recommended that the Maralinga  people be specifically compensated for the disruption of the  community and their traditional lifestyles that resulted from the  conduct of the tests and that services and technologies that would  allow them to re-establish - their links with their land should be  provided.

Mr Holding said: "The compensation will assist the provision of  roads, a permanent water supply and basic communications among  other facilities.

"The details of the programs will be worked out with the Maralinga  peoples".

In 1984, the South Australian Government granted title to 76,000 sq  km of the Maralinga lands to the Maralinga Tjarutja through the  Maralinga Tjarutja Land Rights Act.

This grant did not include the Maralinga and Emu test sites and the  areas surrounding them which are owned by the Commonwealth and the  South Australian governments respectively.

Contact: Mr R. j. Beadman (89 3340)

CANBERRA, ACT  24 August 1986

H199/86

