3CR
 Community Radio 855am

THE RADIO-ACTIVE SHOW

With Eric Miller and Linda Marks

Saturday at 10.00am

24th October 1998

Transcript (7 pages)

Good morning, this is the Radio Active Show brought to you by the Sustainable Energy and Anti-Uranium Service. I'm Linda Marks and with me in the studio is Eric Miller. (Good Morning.) The Radio-Active Show is a weekly program bringing you information nuclear, peace and energy issues.

On today's show we have a report from the blockade at North Ltd's headquarters in St Kilda Road from last Wednesday 21st October.

Last week the Jabiluka Action Group organised a blockade at North Ltd in St Kilda Road. North is the parent company of Energy Resources Australia. They own the Jabiluka uranium lease in Kakadu National Park. The blockade started at 7 o'clock in the morning with a large contingent of police already there.

Chanting: Hey, North, you're running out of time, you're never gunna get your Jabiluka mine...

Fiona: The situation, as told to us by our friends, the boys in blue, standing right behind us, standing between the 67% of people who oppose the mine and the company that's building the mine, they have informed us that all the workers came into the building at, you know, some ungodly predawn hour of the day and that the building is fully operational. Now I have to say, I can't see a lot of people inside. But even if that's true, I think it's really important to remember that the whole way through this campaign, ever since North tried their audacious proposal to build a mine in Kakadu National Park, they've been trying to say that everything about this company, everything about it is just business as usual. When we came along here and closed the building down on Hiroshima day in August, shut the building down for the afternoon, they said that they weren't affected, it was business as usual. When we came along here on the Ist of September, closed the building down for the entire day, not a single worker turned up, North was on the television that night saying we hadn't affected them in any way. You know, the head office of a multinational company, forced to close for the day but, we didn't have any affect on them. So, I think it's important to remember that, you know, North is saying that we haven't had any affect, but we can look at the share prices of North and the company that is behind the mine, to have a look at that. When the Liberal Government was elected back in 1996 the share price of Energy Resources of Australia was around the $5.60 mark. It's steadily (dropped) since that time since the campaign against the Jabiluka mine has gathered strength. When the Howard Government was re-elected this year, the shareprice climbed to a staggering $2.30, and since then, since the campaign has been putting pressure on North Ltd, the share price has dropped to $1.90. A $1.90 will now buy you a share in Energy Resources Australia. So, I think, you know, market prices speak for themselves. This campaign is having an affect. The blockades are having an affect. It's not business as usual for North today. And I think we're sending a clear message to North and the Federal Government that we're not going to let them have this Jabiluka mine. Hey, North, you're running out of time, you're never gunna get your Jabiluka mine...

Chanting: Hey, North, you're running out of time, you're never gunna get your Jabiluka mine...

Linda Marks: And that was chanting outside North Ltd and the speaker was Fiona from the Jabiluka Action Group kicking off the blockade. Back to Fiona and the blockaders ...

Chanting: Hey, North, you're running out of time, you're never gunna get your Jabiluka mine...

Fiona: ... Jabiluka Uranium Mine, number 1, it's going to leave behind 20 million tonnes of radioactive waste in the middle of a world heritage area. Number 2, it's vehemently and unanimously opposed by the Aboriginal People of the area, the Mirrar people. They have stated time and time again, they have made their wishes categorically clear, to this company, to Energy Resources of Australia, which is owned by this company, to the media, to the Government, through legal means, through protesting on the mine site, that they do not want the mine to go ahead on their land. Now,Yvonne Margarula who's the senior traditional owner of the Jabiluka area, she's the elder, she holds native title rights, you know, the highest form of land ownership that Aboriginal People can hold in this land, in this country, and yet, she has been arrested on the Jabiluka mineral lease and found guilty of trespassing on her own land. Now that is disgusting, that's an absolute outrage. This is the kind of crime that this company is perpetrating, turning Aboriginal People into trespassers on their own land. That's another reason we're opposing the Jabiluka mine development. And finally it's a question of radioactivity. When you dig uranium out of the ground, from the moment you start digging it up, until no matter what use you put it to, whether you take it to put it in nuclear weapons that are capable of killing humanity many times over, whether you take it and put it in nuclear power plants like Chernobyl, whether you take it and use it for whatever purpose, at every stage along the way it creates radioactive waste. There is no known method to humanity of safely containing or disposing of this waste. So this company is going into area where it's not wanted, where it's been told that (they don't) want (them) to be there by the people who actually own the land and have owned it for 40,000 years, it's going in and digging this stuff up out of the ground and leaving behind the results for people to deal with for 250,000 years. Well, we say that shouldn't go ahead. We say that (the opinions of the) 67% of the population (who have) said that they don't want the Jabiluka mine, should prevail, should prevail over the naked profit greed of this company. Human rights, the protection of the environment should prevail over the need for this company to pull in a profit. So that's why we're standing here. There's more people turning up every minute as we stand here and I'd like to encourage people, to just remind people what we're doing here today is physically blockading this company. There's been a blockade of the mine site up in the Northern Territory which is gone from the 23rd March and it's closing only recently. Closed down because of the wet season up there. And that's what we're doing here, we're bringing the blockade to Melbourne, putting our bodies on the line for Jabiluka to stop this mining development. And I want to remind people to link arms and keep the chanting going. Land Rights Not Mining Rights Stop Jabiluka Mine...

Chanting: Land rights not mining rights, stop Jabiluka mine...

Linda Marks: Only a few people breached the blockade and entered North Ltd's building. It seemed most of the public and the workers in the building were now familiar with the blockade procedure and turned away when they saw the protesters and the lines of police. While the blockade was in progress, there was also some great street theatre performed ...

Street Theatre:

.... I've got the company executives of the Jabiluka Action Group here and they're looking for something. We're not quite sure what they're looking for at this stage, but they're just going to dig down until they find something, and I'm going to ask Chris one of the JAG executives here to explain what the hell he thinks he's doing down here.

Chris: OK I'm here to manage this dig today. That's why I don't have a shovel because managers don't work, and in line with most workers who end up doing very dirty jobs these workers actually won't get paid, but we are here today claiming this plot of land in the name of the Jabiluka Action Group. We also claim the entire land that that ugly building there is on, and if we chop that down we'd probably improve the environment unlike what's going on at Kakadu. And we're claiming this land using the legal precedent that North set up in Kakadu, that is, take what you want and try to get away with it. Of course we don't have like North does, a multi-million dollar corporation behind us, friendly government, friendly banks, friendly police forces, so we're stuck out here on the footpath. But nonetheless, because some people have suggested that the corporate executives of North Ltd, the liberal government ministers who are so determined to let the Jabiluka mine go ahead, have no hearts or minds, we thought we'd give them a chance. Maybe those minds, maybe those hearts are buried very deep beneath their drive for profit. And we think we'll try to exhume them here today. See if we can't find John Howard's one brain cell and Campbell Anderson's maybe one and a half...

Voice: I've heard that there's a melt down in Howard's cranium. Does that mean that any brain cell that you find here could be radioactive?

Chris: It is, that's why some of the workers have suits, of course we had to make cut backs so only one of the workers has a suit, the rest of you, well, you might get cancer in 20 years. I suppose it's also worth saying we're here to unearth the reasons behind the Jabiluka mine. And I think what we're going to find when we dig deep enough today, is an absolute disregard for anything else except profit. A complete disregard for the environment of Kakadu, which is on the World Heritage endangered list. There's a team of inspectors coming out from the UN later this month. We also suspect...

Voice: Just a question, does that drive for profit that you're talking about, that drive for profit that's lead you to, you know, that you might find here, I've heard that a drive for profit like that behind Jabiluka can be pretty dangerous. Have you got any safe guards for what you're going to do with this drive for profit if you unearth it?

Chris: No, I think it's worth saying there are no safeguards behind the drive for profit. Wherever profit rears its ugly head destruction will follow. Whether it's destruction of people or destruction of the environment, I think the only thing we can safely do with the drive for profit is abolish it, bury it further deep down than they can ever dig in Kakadu. And it looks like the crew still haven't found anything. We can't find those brain cells, we can't find the heart. It seems like there is nothing behind the corporate facade whatsoever. We might have to leave it here...

Worker: Excuse me Mr. Manager if I can say a few words here. Excuse me fellow workers. It's been drawn to my attention, while a number of things, first of all, this isn't actually our land. We just nicked it, you know these bastards here just walked over the land and grabbed it. The second thing is, what we were digging up was actually pretty dangerous. There's no safe way to dispose of it. I don't know that we should be doing it any more. And the third thing is, actually, this work is killing us. If you look at the figures, if you look at the figures for the World Health Organisation, this work is dangerous work. There's no way to make it safe and basically, if you work in this mine for more than three years, you're going to die of cancer more likely than not...

Voice:But I've got a family and I've have to feed them and I don't know what else to do.

Chris: That's right, if you want a job, if you want to live, you work...

Worker: What I was going to propose to our fellow workers is that we hold a stop work meeting basically. That we assess the situation and that maybe we reconsider what we're doing, you know, we should go off the to union, and we should say, "Look, there's only one, two, three, there's only half a dozen of us or so, you know, this sort of mining doesn't actually create many jobs. It creates a lot of profit." What I want to propose to my fellow workers, is that we black ban, or should I say, white ban, this particular mine from now on. No longer will corporate profit mean that we just dig up whatever the fuck the boss tells us. I'm chucking my shovel in.

Chanting: Land rights not mining rights stop Jabiluka mine...

Linda Marks: That was street theatre outside North's on Wednesday.

Singing:

Please will you listen police,

We're ordinary people trying to right what we know is wrong,

And shouldn't you as well.

Small crime we do some time,

We try to stop Jabiluka mine.

Why?

'Cos they're out of line.

We've said "No" enough times.

We're camping in Kakadu,

We're on Mirrar land a

And we're helping them stand up against a stronger force,

But the obstacles are the laws of course.

Because we are in T-shirts and wearing shorts,

And ERA have suits and officers,

We sleep in tents and that's our only defense

Against their barbed wire fence.

It doesn't make much sense to ERA, only billions of dollars,

Can't they find another way, instead of digging up and selling off Mirrar land.

They think it's bland,

But this is what most of us have to say,

Uranium mine, how can you live with that on your mind?

I guess the money's making you blind,

Can't you see what you leave behind?

And you know

You can't just easily paste millions of tonnes of radioactive waste back into the ground.

There's a fortune

And we've found to be very valuable sold around the world,

We here to say what for?

Nuclear Energy or Nuclear War.

Linda Marks: And that was Tim Scannon performing at Wednesday's blockade outside North Ltd. Large mining transnationals like North Ltd try to manage the opposition that they get when they do damage through their mining operations, and included in this management is giving their slanted interpretation of the violation of human rights that most often goes hand in hand with their mining activities. Here's Jerome Small of the Jabiluka Action Group talking to the blockaders outside North Ltd again.

Jerome Small: I'd like you all to reach deep into your pockets and pull out $1075, and if we can scramble that much together between us, that will enable us to get one ticket for one person to a conference that's happening in Melbourne, starting actually this weekend and going all of next week. This is a conference organised by the Minerals Council of Australia. North Ltd of course has its representative on the Minerals Council of Australia. And it's a conference about managing environmental outrage basically. Now I'll read you a couple of extracts from this sort of conference. This is the sort of stuff that corporate Australia spends its money on, this is the sort of strategies that corporate Australia, this is the sort of place where corporate Australia develops its strategies for handling people like us. Now one of the... this conference is being held at the Hilton, by the way, just near the MCG. One of the key speakers at this conference is known by, is known as Dr. Sandman Ph.D. Now you and I might know Sandman as someone who talks a bit like this and says 'I choose to start the story now.' But this Dr. Sandman is a rather different sort of breed. According to the blurb in the conference program Dr. Sandman has helped his clients through a wide range of public controversies that threatened corporate or government reputation. From oil spills to labour management battles, from ecoli contamination to the sting of hazardous waste facilities. And I assume nuclear sort of stuff as well. Dr. Sandman advises his clients to learn the dynamics of 'outrage'. Now, these people think that they own the earth, they think that they can just sort of, roam all over the planet, basically digging up what they want. It seems that they also think that they own the English language, because this Dr. Sandman's company has registered 'outrage', with a capital 'O', as a trademark. So any time you use the word 'Outrage', you should be paying a bit of cash to Dr. Sandman Ph.D.

The crowd: It's an outrage.

Jerome Small: There we go, there we go, alright, you want to pay up. Now, according to Dr. Sandman, whether an event hurts people or harms the environment, that is, whether it's a hazard, has little to do with whether it upsets people. That is the outrage it causes. And what he talks about of course is not managing the hazard. He talks about managing the outrage. Get it? So you can do whatever the hell you want in whatever sensitive environmental area you want, to whoever people you want, but the trick is to manage the outrage. Session one of this conference will outline the 'hazard' verses 'outrage' distinction and describe the twelve principal components of 'Outrage'. It goes into what it is. The session will focus on the most important strategy to reduce and prevent 'Outrage'. Then, session two, it's not just this person talking about 'Outrage', you can actually get computer software to simulate 'Outrage'. And session two of this conference is a demonstration of Dr. Peter Sandman's 'Outrage' prediction and management software. This will be a workshop scenario with a group of high profile personalities including politicians, green activists, that's us, managing directors and media personalities involved in the assessment of a high 'Outrage' scenario, followed by the development of management options. Hopefully you've gathered by now that this is exactly the sort of conference we should be attending, and I don't think we should worry too much about the $1075 that we need to pay. I think we should probably just turn up. And I think the best time to turn up is actually on Thursday, the 29th of October, so this the bit where I'm actually announcing the demonstration, I'm not just rabbitting on, Thursday the 29th of October, at 8am, at the Hilton Hotel. Because speaking there as part of this 'Outrage' management conference are two environmental scientists from Energy Resources Australia, and the head of environmental operations and the head of occupational health and safety from our good friends at North Ltd here. So I think it would be very good if we turned up to show them some 'Outrage' in person and see how they manage to manage it. See whether their $1075 is well spent or not. So we only found out about this a couple of days ago. Strangely they didn't actually fax the Jabiluka Action Group and say can you get some 'Outrage' for us to manage, but we'll help them out by providing it anyway. So the details again, hopefully we'll have leaflets in the Jabiluka Action Group office this afternoon or tomorrow at the latest, 8am, at the Hilton Hotel, next Thursday the 29th, the Hilton on the park is right near the MCG. So if you can stick that in your diaries that would be really good.

Linda Marks: That was Jerome Small from the Jabiluka Action Group talking about some 'Outrage' and some more 'Outrage' that's going to happen on the 29th October outside the Hilton Hotel at 8am. But what happened to the blockade last Wednesday?

Fiona: OK, the moment has finally arrived, when we're going to move the portable blockade to a mystery location associated with the Jabiluka blockade...

Linda Marks: And that was Fiona, Fiona from the Jabiluka Action Group. So the blockaders moved off at about 10 o'clock to High Street, Armadale and stopped outside Peter Costello's office, the Federal Treasurer, to dispose of their waste from the street theatre mining operation.

Street Theatre:

Chris Corruption: We've decided, I've decided executively as an executive of the Jabiluka Action Group, you can call me Chris Corruption, to ditch my principals and follow the lead of North Ltd. And, so, what we did earlier this morning, we did some exploratory mining on the footpath. We've ended up with a whole lot of waste. We propose to deal with this waste in the same way that North Ltd proposes to deal with this waste, after all, they're the good corporate citizens. They've got the legal right to do this, why can't we? So, what we've decided to do is take no responsibility for our waste. And just like North is going to dump their waste on Aboriginal land, in the middle of a World Heritage listed environment, World Heritage listed wetlands, we have our waste, here today, a bit of dirt in a bag, that we propose to dump on Liberal Party territory. So if the protesters could clear a little path, we'll put our bag of dirt out the front of Peter Costello's office. If anyone has a problem with that we're only acting as North acts, we're following their example. What is the problem? It appears that nothing we could do, no matter how evil we decide to get, compares with what North is doing. The dirt there can be swept away in five minutes. The radiation, the uranium, will be there for 250,000 years, and I think that is an absolute disgrace.

Linda Marks: Chris Corruption disposing of the radioactive waste outside Peter Costello's office on Wednesday after the blockade of North Ltd. And so, we've got a few things happening on the Jabiluka Action front in the next couple of weeks: the World Heritage group from Europe (UN) arrive in Australia tomorrow and they'll be met by various people, various environmentalists, representatives of the Mirrar, but they'll also be meeting with the company people and also members of the Northern Territory government to talk about what's happening up in Kakadu National Park, and whether that park is under threat and doesn't really deserve its World Heritage status any longer. And that'll be a very interesting week in Australia for those people.

There's also a demonstration on the 1st of November, that's Sunday the 1st of November, people meet outside the State Library on the lawns at 1pm and then march around the city to outside the Victorian Arts Centre. And that's going to be a very important spot on Monday. The North Ltd 'Report to Shareholders' is happening at the Arts Centre on Monday, starting at 10am, Members of the Jabiluka Action Group and others are going to have a sleep over opposite in the gardens and they're going to greet the people who, the shareholders who go to that meeting on Monday the 2nd of November.

And there's a uranium forum happening in Melbourne on the 4th and 5th of December, and the Radio-Active Show will be there and will be reporting on that uranium forum. People who want to find out about the forum and would like to attend can get in contact with Friends of the Earth in Melbourne. Eric we've got some news...

Eric Miller: Yes, just over the last month we reported on the pigeons from Sellafield. They were found to be radioactive. That is, pigeons found feeding in the Sellafield area, and on the Sellafield reprocessing plant, in England. And now it's found that people who have been feeding these pigeons off site in their backyards, the people who like feeding their pigeons in their backyards, have found that their gardens are now radioactive. Greenpeace has estimated that there is over 200 tonnes of radioactive waste that will have to be dug up from people's backyards, from streets, from sewerage outlets, waste water piping, and stored at Sellafield as radioactive waste. This is what happens to our uranium, it gets reprocessed at Sellafield, the pigeons who are feeding around the Sellafield plant have been picking up that radiation because it gets out of that reprocessing plant, and then it gets into people's backyards and gardens. And this one of the reasons why we have to stop this industry.

Linda Marks: And of course, next week on 3CR is a listener sponsor drive and any people who are not listener sponsors already, get your subscriptions in. It's very important that everybody is a subscriber to 3CR so we can keep this information on the air because it's the only place you'll find it. If you wondered why you didn't see much about the demonstrations outside North on Wednesday on TV, hear it on the radio or read about it in the newspapers, (and it was a fantastically, visually event with lots of newsworthy things there), if you wonder why you didn't see it, it's because, well, you really only hear it on 3CR.

Eric Miller: Yes, so there's prizes for that listener sponsor drive, so get in because the Radioactive Show really needs to get more listener sponsors to keep the Radioactive Show on the air. So become a listener sponsor of 3CR.

Linda Marks: And it you're interested in getting transcripts of the Radio-Active Show, they are now available on the Net at http://home.vicnet.net.au/~seaus/. And if you don't have access to the Net and you want copies of those transcripts they are available at $5, and you can write to the Radio-Active Show C/- Friends of the Earth, 312 Smith Street Collingwood, 3066 for those transcripts.

Eric Miller: And that's all we have time for the Radio-Active Show this week Linda, so it's goodbye from Eric

Linda Marks: And goodbye from Linda.

Transcript produced by Linda Marks - with much thanks!!!
Page last updated November 7, 1998.
Back to the Radio-Active Show Archivesor Back to the SEA-US Front Page

Copyright © SEA-US 1998