'Waste Minchin, not SA!'
BY JIM GREEN
ADELAIDE — About 4000 people protested against the federal Coalition government's plan to dump radioactive waste in northern South Australia at a rally on the steps of Parliament House here on August 16.
The rally was hosted by Lee McLuskey from Channel 7's Today Tonight current affairs program and 5DN radio personality Jeremy Cordeaux.
Cordeaux said it was not "radical protesters" campaigning against the planned radioactive waste dump, but "ordinary" South Australians — ignoring the fact that anti-nuclear and environmental activists had been campaigning against the dump long before the media populists, and will continue to do so long after 5DN and Channel 7 end their involvement in the campaign.
The rally organisers agreed to SA senator and federal science minister Nick Minchin's request to address the rally. Presumably, Minchin hoped that he would get some sympathetic media coverage for fronting a hostile crowd. "Waste Minchin, Not SA!", read one placard. For around 10 minutes, Minchin could not be heard over the jeering. It was only after McLuskey and Cordeaux had made three appeals to the crowd that Minchin could be heard.
Other speakers included David Noonan from the Australian Conservation Foundation, anti-nuclear campaigner and paediatrician Helen Caldicott, Ken McDonell, mayor of the Sutherland Shire Council (home to the Lucas Heights reactor plant), and 80-year-old Ivy Skowronski, who gained notoriety last year for a law and order crusade in Adelaide.
Speakers discussed a range of issues including uranium mining in SA, the reactors at Lucas Heights and the medical effects of radiation. Skowronski announced that 125,000 South Australians had signed a petition protesting against the federal government's plan to dump radioactive waste in SA. Singer-guitarist John Williamson expressed solidarity with the traditional owners of northern SA land at the rally and sang three songs. However, the traditional owners were not invited to speak.
Prior to the rally, about 200 protesters, including high school students who walked out of school, rallied at Adelaide University and then marched to "Genocide Corner", outside the SA governor's house, before proceeding to Parliament House.
At Genocide Corner, Rebecca Bear-Wingfield, representing the Kupa Piti Kungka Tjuta, the senior Aboriginal women who are custodians for the proposed dump area, told protesters about the impact on Aborigines of the British weapons tests at Emu Plains and Maralinga, uranium mining and the radioactive waste dump plan.
"We've had atomic testing, uranium mining and now this waste dump. We need to pay respect to our old people and not create this waste in the first place", Bear-Wingfield said.
'Hijacked'
Minchin issued a press release after the rally saying that "prominent international anti-nuclear activists" — he named Caldicott and McDonell — had "hijacked" the campaign against nuclear waste dumping in SA "in a desperate attempt to stop the replacement of the research reactor at Lucas Heights".
"The organisers of the rally, and the broader anti-nuclear lobby, have stated publicly on a number of occasions that if they can prevent the establishment of a national repository for low-level waste and a national store for intermediate-level waste, they will somehow stop the construction of the replacement research reactor", Minchin said.
Minchin was confusing conspiracy with solidarity. The 4000 South Australians at the rally understood that most of the waste the government plans to dump in SA will come from the Lucas Heights reactor plant. They expressed cynicism when Minchin repeated his mantra that a new reactor is "needed" for medical isotope production, and they expressed solidarity with the campaign to stop a new reactor being built.
On August 15, the Australian Democrats and ALP used their numbers to establish a Senate inquiry into the proposed new reactor at Lucas Heights. Key questions to be determined by the inquiry include: whether a new research reactor is justified; the process leading to the signing of a contract in July with INVAP of Argentina for the construction of a new reactor; and the adequacy of proposed fuel and waste management provisions.
However, Labor voted with the Coalition to defeat an amendment from the Democrats for the Senate inquiry to appoint an independent commissioner — a current or former judge of a superior court or a senior counsel — to assist the inquiry.
Media spin
On the evening of August 16, ABC Radio National's Australia Talks Back program dealt with the government's plans to build a new reactor in Sydney and to dump radioactive waste in SA. Later that night, Channel 7 hosted a "debate" on the waste issue in its Adelaide studios. Eighty people faced each other in a screaming match that did nothing to illuminate the issues.
To fill the quota of pro-nuclear, pro-dump participants, the government flew about eight bureaucrats to Adelaide, while the SA Young Liberals were also well represented.
Genuine opponents of nuclear dumping were alarmed to find that SA Labor leader Mike Rann was included in the debate as an opponent of nuclear dumping. Almost all Liberal and Labor politicians in SA support a national underground dump for low-level waste for SA, despite a recent Adelaide Advertiser poll indicating that 87% of South Australians oppose it.
SA Liberal and Labor differentiate themselves from the federal government, and from each other, only in relation to a planned above ground store for long-lived intermediate level waste. The SA Labor Party wants a referendum to be held, while the Liberals say a referendum would be a waste of money.
Dump sites
On August 14, Minchin announced that three SA sites for a near-surface dump for low-level waste had been short-listed. All are located between Woomera and Roxby Downs.
One of the sites is in the Woomera Prohibited Area, and the other two are east of the Woomera/Roxby Downs road on pastoral leases owned by Western Mining Corporation and Kidman Pastoral Holdings. A Western Mining Corporation spokesperson claimed it was "purely a government decision".
The site in the Woomera Prohibited Area is about two kilometres from a RAAF bombing range. The Advertiser reported on August 15 that the federal department of defence opposes the short-listing of the site.
Coondambo station owner Rick Mould said pastoralists were concerned about the impact of a waste dump. The short-listed site in the Woomera Prohibited Area is three kilometres from Mould's boundary fence. "We are concerned about quality assurance for our stock. We rely on the clean and green image", Mould said.
Bob Norton from the Andamooka Progress and Opal Miners Association, said Andamooka residents would continue to resist the planned dump. Norton said one short-listed site is about 40 kilometres from the Andamooka township. "We've got about 1200 children living in Andamooka and Roxby Downs — we don't want this in their backyard. The rest of Australia thinks that this is the empty outback, but there are people here, there are communities living here", Norton told the August 15 Advertiser.
Test drilling at the three sites will be undertaken over the next couple of months. A single preferred site will be identified later this year.
Intermediate-level waste
On August 11, Minchin announced that he intends to establish an "expert, independent high-level scientific committee" to recommend a preferred site for an above ground store for long-lived intermediate-level waste. Minchin said that no state or territory will be ruled out, and that the earliest the preferred site for a national store could be announced would be late 2002.
Western Australian Premier Richard Court said on August 14 that WA would fight any proposal to host a national store for intermediate-level waste in WA. "We've got a simple message — we don't want it. We're quite prepared to look after our own waste that's generated here, and let every state take the same position", he said.
WA Greens upper house member Giz Watson has given notice that she will reintroduce the Nuclear Activities (Prohibition) Bill into WA parliament on August 20. The law would prohibit the dumping of national waste in WA.
WA already has legislation to prevent Pangea Australia, a company which gets most of its funding from British Nuclear Fuels Limited, from setting up an international nuclear waste dump in WA.
Minchin said in an August 16 press release, "The government is not prepared under any circumstances to consider involving bodies in Australia's nuclear waste facilities which may be seen as promoting Australian storage of international radioactive waste.
"Such bodies will not be considered for any involvement in either of Australia's national radioactive waste management facilities, the repository for low-level waste, or the store for intermediate-level waste."
[For full coverage of the struggles against the proposed new reactor at Lucas Heights and nuclear waste dumps, visit Jim Green's web site at <http://www.geocities.com/jimgreen3>.]