7 June 2009

Media release - Nuclear Testing Compensation

New Zealand's veterans of French nuclear testing at Mururoa Atoll have congratulated the New Zealand and allied survivors of British nuclear testing in the Pacific on winning clearance to sue the British Ministry of Defence for radiation exposure.

Mururoa Veterans' Society president Peter Mitchell has called for the same treatment from the New Zealand Government for radiation exposure of New Zealand veterans at Mururoa in the South Pacific in 1973.

In London, the British High Court has given veterans from New Zealand, Australia, Fiji and Britain clearance to sue the British Ministry of Defence for radiation exposure from British nuclear testing in the 1950s.

Mr Mitchell says when the New Zealand Government sent the figates Otago and Canterbury to Mururoa to draw world attention to French atmospheric nuclear testing, the total 500 sailors had no idea of the danger they would be put in.

"Each frigate witnessed one atmospheric nuclear test at fairly close quarters, with crews allowed on deck within a minute of the explosion to watch the mushroom cloud form," he says. "Nobody told us that many of us, and our children and grandchildren, would subsequently suffer radiation effects."

Mr Mitchell says a plea to the government last month to open talks has drawn an inconclusive response from the Minister for Veteran Affairs Judith Collins who spent her entire letter setting out pensions and benefits currently available.

"When will the government realise that this is not just about pensions but about compensation for the wrong that has been done."

Mr Mitchell says the French government has already started a process to compensate French servicemen and island residents exposed to the effects of Mururoa nuclear testing - and the British government is facing a similar demand.

"Is it too much to ask for justice for New Zealand sailors who, having served their country so spectacularly that France stopped atmospheric nuclear testing, have now been discarded?'