Native title owners don't want nuke dump, have brawl over land

By ERWIN CHLANDA
 
A nuclear dump is not wanted near Alice Springs and the Aboriginal people promoting it do not have native title rights, nor the right to land north of Alice Springs.
 
This is the email message yesterday from Lhere Artepe (LA), the town’s native title organisation, to Chief Minister Adam Giles, with copies to Senator Nigel Scullion and MHR Warren Snowdon.
 
LA chairman Noel Kruger, and directors Mathew Palmer and Benedict Stevens say “over the past few years, Mr Lesley Tickner and Mr Russell Bray have been actively seeking acceptance and status of traditional owners of 16 Mile Outstation” on the Stuart Highway, some 25 kms north of Alice Springs.
 
The writers say Mr Tickner and Mr Bray had been asked twice “to prove their legitimacy” but could not do so, and both LA and its Irlpme estate group “do not support their claims as native title holders”.
 
The writers say on invitation from Maurie Ryan, the now suspended chairman of the Central Land Council (CLC), Mr Bray and Mr Tickner – seeking to “overrule decisions made by the native title holders” – put the matter of the 16 Mile before a full meeting of the CLC in Tennant Creek on June 22 and 24.
 
Although the meeting “purported to deal with the traditional owner status of the 16 Mile Outstation” – understood to be conferring traditional owner status on Mr Bray and Mr Tickner and family members – that decision “is not legitimate and is being strongly disputed” by LA.
 
LA says the CLC executive had “noted” that the decision is “is incapable of being given effect and that due process was not followed” and the decision will be referred back to the CLC full council for review.
 
The email says the proposal by Mr Bray and Mr Tickner to establish a nuclear dump on Irlpme land does not have support from LA which “has not been consulted or even notified” of the proposal.