Publicity aids search

Press, 16 September 1976, Page 3

Publicity aids search

NZPA Brisbane A New Zealand man believes that his search for his 18-year-old daughter is almost over — thanks to publicity given to the Queensland Police raid on a Cape York hippy village, at Cedar Bay. An Auckland real estate manager, Mr George Smith, aged 51, and his wife arrived in Brisbane last Saturday to begin an Australia-wide search for his daughter, Elaine Candida Smith. Elaine, known as “Candy,”

left New Zealand for Australia two years ago, and was last heard of by her family three months ago, when she was working in Darwin. “Candy likes the free life, although she is a trained receptionist, and I wanted to make certain I found her on this trip,” said Mr Smith. Soon after arriving in Brisbane, Mr Smith read in a newspaper report that “G. E. Smith” had signed one of the statements presented to the Senate over the Cedar Bay affair, “I was certain that the G. E. Smith was actually Candy, because in another statement ‘Candy’ was mentioned, and there aren’t many Candy Smiths around,” Mr Smith said.

He made further checks, and it was confirmed that Candy was one of the Cedar Bay residents. “I was really lucky, because I was going to go on to Darwin if we did not find any trace of her around Brisbane,” he said. Mr Smith does not yet know whether his daughter has returned to Cedar Bay, or is somewhere else in north Queensland. Two men were imprisoned on drug charges by a north Queensland court after the Cedar Bay raid. They were freed after it was found that the court was improperly constituted, and are waiting for the Cooktown court to hear

- the original charges, now set s down for September 29. 7 The police action has e caused a storm in the Queensland Cabinet and the Federal Senate; it has been alleged - that the police burned houses 3 and destroyed vegetable i gardens and water tanks.