N-experiments confirmed

Press, 4 May 1984, Page 6

N-experiments confirmed

NZPA-AAP Adelaide Special experiments had been conducted with nuclear testing at Maralinga over seven years until 1963, the South Australian Parliament was told yesterday. The Deputy Prime Minister, Mr Jack Wright, said that the details had been contained in an Australian Weapons Research Establishment report which investigated the amount of residual radioactivity at Maralinga. Mr Wright read from a section of the 1979 report which said, “In addition to the firings at the major trial sites, experiments in support of the weapon development programme were performed at selected sites for a few months each year from 1956 to 1963.” He said that the information could be related to radio reports yesterday concerning secret nuclear tests at Maralinga in 1963. The British Ministry of Defence has been reported as saying that the tests were small and no radioactive material was released into the atmosphere. An Adelaide radio station has quoted a Defence Ministry spokesman as saying that the tests had been

agreed to by the then Australian Prime Minister, Sir Robert Menzies, who had kept them secret from the puDlic. The then Defence Minister, Sir William McMahon, was quoted as saying that he had not been aware of the tests and that the Australian Government should pursue the matter. A former Royal Air Force technician, John Burke, has asserted that he found the bodies of four Aboriginals in a bomb crater after previously unknown atomic bomb tests during 1963. Mr Burke died on Tuesday night from stomach cancer which he said had been a result of the tests. In Canberra a Federal Government back-bencher called yesterday for a full judicial inquiry into British atomic weapons tests at Monte Bello, in Western Australia, and at Emu and Maralinga in the 1950 s and 60s. Mr John Scott said that there had been denials and cover-ups concerning the storage of operational tactical atomic bombs at Maralinga, the probable testing of an enhanced radiation or “dirty” bomb, and the levels of radiation recorded after atomic tests.