The Wire

A senate committee is once again going to resurrect the issue of compensation for those who worked in the desert during the British bomb tests in the 1950’s. The remaining veterans are now in their seventies and they’re still asking to be given the same entitlements as returned soldiers. Rick Johnston is president of the Nuclear Veterans Association He’s hopeful that this committee might mean that men like him can have access to the high levels of healthcare that returned servicemen get. Meanwhile the political message of the Maralinga victims continues to be spread by a theatre production which first came into being four years ago. Dr Paul Brown of the University of New South Wales is one of the originators of the idea and he says the hope is to eventually get it into schools.