The struggle against uranium enters the labour movement
By Greg Adamson
Commercial mining of uranium in Australia got off to a slow start. The industry was ready to enter large-scale production in the early 1970s to meet an expected world boom in nuclear power. But the Gough Whitlam-led Labor federal government, elected in 1972, decided to suspend exports of uranium oxide ore pending an evaluation of Aboriginal land rights issues and until the market price was right.
This put the industry on ice until the Labor government was sacked in November 1975. The incoming Liberal-National Country Party Coalition had no obligations to resolve the land rights issue, and in October 1976 the first report of the royal commission headed by Justice R.W. Fox gave guarded approval for mining.
However, between 1972 and 1976, a world movement against nuclear power had emerged. In Australia, thousands of activists had begun to demonstrate and campaign against the mining and export of uranium.
In early 1977 the campaign escalated rapidly, mainly under the leadership of environmental groups. At least 20,000 people took part in nationwide demonstrations on April 1. On May 25, the second Fox report, dealing with uranium mining in the Northern Territory, was released.
Like the first report, it failed to decisively reject uranium mining, thus giving it the green light. The only unequivocal position the report adopted was that the uranium deposit at Koongarra in the Alligator River district should not be developed, to protect surrounding wetlands. The report's recommendations on environmental safeguards, though strict, were not binding on the government or the mining companies.
The report was bitterly criticised by Aboriginal activists. Its conclusion, according to Neville Perkins, then a member of the NT Legislative Assembly, was that "Aboriginal needs must come second to mining demands".
The federal Land Rights Act stated that Aborigines had the right to claim vacant crown land where they could establish traditional ownership. There was no question that the uranium-rich Alligator River district came into this category, and Fox recommended that it be declared Aboriginal land.
However, under the act, an Aboriginal veto of mining on their land could be overridden if the government considered mining to be in the "national interest". To the Fox commission, the right of mining companies to make profits was more important than the right of Aborigines to protect their land and culture.
Despite calls from the pro-uranium lobby for an immediate go-ahead, the government delayed announcing a decision while it made plans to use uranium exports as a weapon in international trade negotiations. "If Europeans want stability of access to supplies of energy, it is reasonable enough for us to seek to have that principle of stability applied to access to their markets", Prime Minister Malcolm Fraser said on July 3, 1977.
Waterfront battle
Meanwhile, several state governments indicated that they could be relied on to help a decision to step up exports. In Sydney and Melbourne, police violently attacked wharf pickets protesting against the shipping of uranium.
The police attacks provoked a revolt by the Victorian branch of the Waterside Workers Federation, which defied its national leadership and imposed a complete ban on ships carrying uranium. On July 7, the national conference of the ALP voted to call for an indefinite moratorium on uranium mining.
This decision, carried unanimously, represented a considerable toughening of the motion put by the party leadership. The new policy also stated bluntly that Labor would "repudiate any commitment of a non-Labor government to the mining, processing or export of Australia's uranium".
The party's ranks proved to be far in advance of the leaders. Within a month, the Victorian branch adopted a motion rebuking ACTU president Bob Hawke for stating that he supported the eventual mining and export of uranium, and that the ALP would ultimately approve mining and export.
The strength of the movement was shown in Hiroshima Day rallies and marches on August 5-6, 1977, when at least 50,000 people mobilised.
On August 25, the government's expected go-ahead for uranium mining was announced. Contrary to most predictions, the government rejected the Fox commission's clear recommendation that the NT mines be developed sequentially, in order to minimise the impact on local Aboriginal communities. This decision appears to have been motivated by a desire, common to the government and mining lobby, to mine and sell as much uranium as possible before a Labor government could be elected and shut the mines down.
The Fraser government could not ignore the fact that the mobilisations were having a big political impact, and as opposition to uranium mining mounted, the ALP's anti-uranium stand was a vote-winner.
Through 1977, public opposition to uranium kept growing. A poll in six capital cities in March 1977 showed that 64% of respondents supported uranium mining, with 24% opposed. In September, a survey for the Sydney Morning Herald found 53% in favour and 42% opposed. The Herald survey found that in Melbourne, where the anti-uranium movement had been especially active, 50% were opposed and 45% in favour.
On October 22, as many as 70,000 people mobilised in every capital city and many provincial centres. Thousands of workers marched behind trade union banners, and the ALP rank and file were heavily represented.
Despite the militancy of the Labor ranks, only in the lead-up to the December 10 federal election did Labor's leaders grudgingly begin campaigning on uranium mining. Although the Coalition was returned to office, the ALP and Australian Democrats, both opposed to uranium mining and export, gained a majority of votes.
Debate in the unions
Early in 1978, 10 major unions were represented at a national consultation of the Movement Against Uranium Mining (MAUM). At this time, members of the Waterside Workers Federation affirmed their total opposition to handling uranium shipments, including existing contracts. In a national ballot of major ports, wharfies voted by 3486 to 0 in favour of rejecting uranium shipments.
On February 10, the ACTU at a special conference on uranium accepted the advice of its president, Bob Hawke, and decided to allow existing uranium contracts to be fulfilled. However, the conference recommended that "labour not be made available" for the opening of new mines, pending assurances from the government that adequate safeguards existed in relation to nuclear waste disposal, and that "the legitimate demands of the Aboriginal people" over land rights were satisfied.
Within a week, the Victorian and South Australian trades and labour councils had voted to reject this sell-out. The confusion and demoralisation produced by the ACTU's backdown was shown on February 14, when 500 waterside workers in Sydney voted by a margin of 3-1 to endorse the ACTU decision.
Responsibility for leading the anti-uranium movement fell once again to the anti-uranium groups in each state. The movement had entered 1978 with morale high. Late in the previous year, MAUM in Victoria had more than 100 local groups operating. A poll published in the Sydney Morning Herald in early 1978 showed that 66% of people aged between 18 and 21, and 57% of those between 21 and 24, opposed uranium mining.
Nationwide demonstrations on March 31 and April 1 attracted 30,000 people despite heavy rain in some cities. Soon afterwards, preparations began for the mobilisations on Hiroshima Day, August 5.
An early victory was notched when the Victorian branch of the ALP, at a special conference on May 14, endorsed the Hiroshima Day demonstration and expressed full support for the anti-uranium movement.
The peace movement
1978 represented a maturing of the Australian anti-uranium movement. After two years of massive but chaotic efforts, the movement was beginning to affect national politics. It is not surprising that in that year distinct positions on what the movement should be doing developed.
The largest left party at that time, the Communist Party of Australia, had a long tradition of campaigning against nuclear weapons, both in its own name and with the Congress for International Cooperation and Disarmament in Melbourne, and the Association for International Cooperation and Disarmament in Sydney.
The CPA saw the anti-uranium movement as a potential adjunct to the traditional peace movement, despite the fact that the vast majority of anti-uranium activists had no previous affiliation to the peace movement and were opposed to all aspects of the nuclear fuel cycle.
The CPA view was most clearly presented to a MAUM meeting in Melbourne on May 20, 1978, when it successfully argued that the demand "Land Rights not Uranium" be dropped from the Hiroshima Day demonstration.
The smaller pro-Moscow Socialist Party of Australia, with significant influence in some militant unions, publicly supported aspects of the nuclear fuel cycle because the Stalinist leaders of the Soviet Union claimed nuclear power could be safe. This position had been disproved by the anti-nuclear power movement many years before the Chernobyl nuclear plant spewed death across Europe.
An SPA leaflet distributed in Brisbane in May 1978 summarised its view: "Opposition to the mining and processing of uranium, and through it the production of nuclear power, is unrealistic and flying in the face of the facts".
Such an obviously silly position had only limited influence in the trade unions where the SPA was based.
[This is the second in a series on the history of the anti-nuclear movement. Greg Adamson has been active in the movement since the 1970s and is the author of We All Live on Three Mile Island: the case against nuclear power (Pathfinder Press, 1981). He is a member of the Democratic Socialist Party.]