Govt acts quickly on defoliant reports

Press, 29 March 1980, Page 11

Govt acts quickly on defoliant reports

NZPA Sydney The Australian Minister of Defence (Mr James Killen) has called for an urgent report on assertions made on Wednesday by the president of the Vietnam Veterans’ Association (Mr Holt McMinn) concerning the defoliant, Agent Orange. A spokesman for Mr Killen said the investigation was being treated “as a matter of urgency." Mr McMinn asserted Australian scientists were flown to Vietnam to mix chemicals for use by troops during the war there. He said he could supply the Government with the names of scientists involved, the identification of the Army units that used and sprayed Agent Orange, and the name of extra chemicals used in Vietnam that had not yet come to light. Mr Killen told the Federal Parliament that there was no evidence that Agent Oriange was used by Australian servicemen during the Vietnam war.

Any person who had information to the contrary should place it before him, he said. Mr McMinn asserted that the Government had lied about the chemicals used in Vietnam and would continue to do so.

"J can produce any evidence he (Mr Killen) wishes to call,” Mr McMinn said.

The legal adviser to the Vietnam. Veterans’ Action Association (Mr W. T. McMillan) said there could soon be a spate of claims against the Government for compensation. Mr McMillan said the claims, which could be made in about three weeks, would be based on evidence that Australian servicemen had handled Agent Orange and had suffered as a result. He said defoliant was sprayed in the Australian operational area. Phuoc Thui province, especially from 1967 tp 1970. As 'Mr Killen called for evidence, several veterans

and their families spoke oui on the issue. A Vietnam veteran, Mi Robert Gibson, said he hat sprayed defoliant from tht back of trucks along the barbed wire perimeter of the Australian camp at Nui Dat. The New South Wales sec retary of the Vietnam Veter ans’ Action Association (Mi Gary Adams) said that ir the last three days abou eight veterans in Sydney had come forward savin? they had first-hand know ledge of the use of toxie chemicals by Australians ir Vietnam. In Perth, Mrs Caroline Gill the wife of a former Royal Australian Air Force helicopter pilot who has said he handled very strong defoliants, confirmed that she could be a possible party ir a compensation claim.

She said her husband, Mr William Gill, aged 54, now an examiner of airmen with

the West Australian Government, had flown helicopter mission during the Vietnam War. She said she had suffered three miscarriages in 1975, 1978, and 1979. In Melbourne two men, who did not want to be named. said that during their service in Vietnam they were seconded to spray defoilants round the Australian base at Nui Dat.

t ; Government officials are to jque’stion a television team ri which filmed deformed childdlren in Vietnam whose defore.mities could have been causeied by Agent Orange. e| On Sunday evening a 60mtnute programme showed :- Vietnamese children suffer- ■- ing severe deformities whose r fathers, the authorities said, nihad fought in South Vietltinam in areas which had been ■ v I sprayed with Agent Orange. 8 The programme did not ’"'show the worst cases as they c were too horrifying to be n shown on television. H "What we were actually , confronted with was quite 1 shattering,” said a programme producer (Mr Anthe ony McClellan). „ “At Tu Du Hospital in the e south we saw five or six jars n containing foetuses with different deformities. One had a

head with two faces and one had three legs. I had nightmares about it.” he said.

_ The television crew also visited on orphanage in Ho Chi Minh City (Saigon) where it found 300 war orphans either deformed or mentally retarded. “The most common deformities were missing digits and limbs and blindness. There were children with what looked like feet growing out of their elborvs,” said Mr McClellan.