Friday, 23 February, 2007

by Jasmin Afianos
NT News

TRADITIONAL owners from an Aboriginal-owned cattle station will meet next Wednesday to decide whether to back a Northern Land Council plan to nominate their land as a site for a nuclear waste repository.

Yapayapa family group member Dianne Stokes said many owners on Muckatty Station, north of Tennant Creek, had been excluded from the decision making.

"We want everyone to be included in the talks because it is an issue that affects us all," she said.

"Some of us were not even told about all the meetings.

"This is about our land, our home, and we want a say in what happens."

Ms Stokes said many of the traditional owners were against having the nuclear waste facility on Muckatty.

"Most people I have spoken to agree that it is not a good idea," she said.

"We are here to care take the land for future generations so we have to make sensible and responsible decisions."

Ms Stokes said the land council had gone back on a promise not to nominate Muckatty.

"We were assured that we had a choice," she said.

"Now many of us are exercising our choice to say 'no'."

The land council has met officials from the Federal Science Department twice this year.

It has asked that the location, nature of discussions and representatives be kept secret.

But the Northern Territory News has learnt that about 40 people met at Renner Springs on February 6-7 to discuss the Muckatty plan.

Another delegation of local Aboriginal people was sent to Sydney for a tour of Lucas Heights on Tuesday.

Twelve owners, representing the five family groups, signed a petition opposing the facility being built on their land and will present the petitition at the next sitting of both Houses of Parliament.