First contact with group

Press, 24 October 1984, Page 8

First contact with group

NZPA-AAP Canberra A small family of western desert Aboriginal people had made what was believed to be their first contact with modern Australia, said the Minister of Aboriginal Affairs, Mr Clyde Holding, yesterday. The group of nine including two men, three women, two boys and two girls, were living in central Australia, he said. The Department of Aboriginal Affairs was tak-

ing appropriate steps to ensure that the group’s contact was made in such a way as to ease the culture shock and minimise health risks. It was possible that a common cold, or any modern virus, could prove fatal to members of the group because they were unlikely to have immunity to these diseases, said Mr Holding. “We want to make sure that this group’s introduction to modern Australia is

better than the introduction of Aboriginal people generally to white Australians since 1788,” said Mr Holding. “I am delighted to note, as the land rights debate goes on throughout Australia, that here is a group of people who — with their forebears — have maintained traditional contact with their land and occupied it since the beginning of human time on this continent,” said Mr Holding.