3CR
 Community Radio 855am

THE RADIO-ACTIVE SHOW

With Eric Miller and Linda Marks

Saturday at 10.00am

28th November 1998

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 RadioActive Show is a weekly program bringing you news and information on Nuclear, Peace and Energy issues.

On today's show we have a report on the World Heritage Committee's assessment and the potential threat of mining at Jabiluka in Kakadu National Park. Eric also speaks to the Kupa Piti Kungka Tjuta women from Cooper Pedy who are opposing the siting of a radioactive waste dump on their land.

This week there was a very good result from the World Heritage assessment team who have been in Australia recently assessing the impact of the mine a Jabiluka in Kakadu National Park. Eric miller spoke to Dave Sweeney from ACF and asked him what was in the report:

Dave Sweeney: It was a very good result. The World Heritage assessment team handed down their report into Kakadu and the impacts of Jabiluka. They said that there are very severe dangers posed by operations at Jabiluka. They said that there were both real and potential dangers to both the cultural values of the World Heritage listed Kakadu National Part and most importantly and most clearly they called for the cessation of all mining and milling operations to do with uranium at Jabiluka. So what we have is the first fair dinkum, international, independent scrutiny and it's come down absolutely and said, yes there is a problem, yes there is a danger and yes Jabiluka should not proceed.

Eric Miller: Would you say that the Government's on the back foot now?

Dave Sweeney: Absolutely. I think that internationally it is increasingly being seen that Australia has done the wrong thing. That Australia has short circuited the assessment process and has not paid due regard to the concerns of indigenous people or been suitably aware or suitably responsible to our international obligations, such as the World Heritage Convention.

And the Government is on the back foot. You can tell by the venom and the vitriol of Senator Hill's response. He's called the submission that was comprised if 6 international independent experts and two Australian Government. Two of them, the Australians voted that Jabiluka was alright. Six of them, the internationals, said that it was a terrible idea. Now Hill has, instead of looking at the report, considering the report, taking the matter seriously, he's reacted off the top of his head. He's personally attacked the ability, the integrity and the professionalism of those 6 majority members of the assessment team. He's basically acted like a small time bully.

What has happened is that the international umpire has come to Australia and has had access to a full range of information. They have met with all the major players in this debate, the mining company, Senator Hill himself, the mining industry, the Northern Territory and Commonwealth Government, the bureaucrats in offices, the environmental groups and the Mirrar People, the traditional owners. They have walked around the Jabiluka lease, they have walked around the Ranger mine, they have been in Canberra and they have been in Kakadu. They have had access to all the information and they have come down firmly and clearly that Jabiluka should not go ahead. The international umpire has come over, had a look, blown the whistle and cried foul and now Senator Hill has thrown his mouth card. It's an absolutely shabby response from a minister who has presided over a most shoddy process.

Eric Miller: Where does this report go to now?

Dave Sweeney: Next week the report goes to the World heritage Committee. The World Heritage Committee gets together once every year and it's made up of nations that are signatories of the World Heritage Convention. I think that there are 160 or 164 countries that are signed on as members or signatories of this convention. They will all send at least one rep to Kyoto where there will be 5 days of talk on World Heritage Natural and Cultural Values Management.

A key item on the agenda and the hot topic for this meeting is going to be Kakadu. Environment groups and Traditional Aboriginal Owners have called for Kakadu to be listed on a special register that the World Heritage Committee has called Properties In Danger. The argument has been that the risk from Jabiluka would mean an adverse impact on the World Heritage values of Kakadu and so it should be listed as such.

It should be acknowledged. But the In Danger listing doesn't have any legal weight, but what it means is that it's a little bit like underlining, a little bit like highlighting a concern, or an issue, or a risk. We are very pleased that the report of this assessment committee is so unequivocal, is so clear, and says that this is a stupid project. It's the wrong project in the wrong place and it shouldn't go ahead. That's a lesson that's supported by the European Parliament, by the Australian Senate, by 2/3s of the Australian community and 3/4s of Australian women. It's a lesson and a sentiment that is shared increasingly in Australia and overseas that it is an unsafe, unnecessary, unwelcome project. If it goes ahead, it will result in direct and adverse impacts on the Aboriginal Traditional Owners, and the ecological integrity of Australia's largest national park.

I think what we've seen this week is a very bad week for the Government and the company and a very good week for the Mirrar owners, for the environment movement and for the vast majority of the Australian and international community that care about Kakadu and care about leaving a radioactive legacy for the future.

Linda Marks: That was Dave Sweeney from the ACF. This report again puts Jabiluka in the eyes of the world and has given environmentalists around the world added confidence and strength to their belief that it is imperative to stop the mine going ahead and that their continued actions will be successful.

Also this week the world's largest environment federation, that is active in 58 countries and has over a million members, Friends Of The Earth, International, selected Yvonne Margarula, the senior Traditional Owner of the Mirrar People, as recipient of the Friends Of The Earth, International Environment Award for 1998. This is a major international award granted to a group or individual who has excelled in their work against tremendous odds for the environment. Thank you, Yvonne.

Last weekend, the Global Survival and Indigenous Rights Gathering was held at Pipemakers Park on the banks of the Maribyrnong River in Melbourne. Sixteen women from the Kupa Piti Kunga Tjuta community came all the way from Cooper Pedy and Port Augusta to tell the gathering about the Federal Government's plans to put a radioactive waste dump in the Billa Kalina area. Billa Kalina stretches from just North of the Port Augusta all the way up to just South of Cooper Pedy. The women are a union of Kokatha, Arabunna and Anti-Karinya Aboriginal communities. Eric Miller spoke with them:

Eric Miller: I'm speaking to June Lennon and how do you know about Maralinga?

June Lennon: My family was there when the bomb went off. I was in the tent with my sister and my mother, father and brother stood watching the blast. Twenty kilometres in there were other people who got covered with black dust.

Eric Miller: And your name is?

Mrs Lennon: Mrs Lennon.

Eric Miller: And do you know about Maralinga as well?

Mrs Lennon: It was Emu, they tested that thing there. It was '53. And I had my children there. This one was a baby, the other one was 8 or 9. And this big smoke, you know, when the bomb went off. I was that scared. They didn't tell us about it. They just went out there and done the tests and we were scared. We thought we were going to all die. When it went off I was in Mintabie and the dust went over us and we couldn't see anything. It was so dark. We couldn't ever see the sun. One of them, he's dead now, he was walking around with a handkerchief and we were all laughing, we didn't know it was dangerous. We was all walking around. We all got sick. Vomiting. We didn't have … then, but afterwards when it fall away from us we started to … the skin was burning. A lot of people died from it, I don't know how we lived, but we did. So I had to take them into Cooper Pedy looking for help. To get some help. We couldn't get any. They just didn't know what to give us. We were using olive oil all over us. This and that, you know. We didn't have much water then. It was just a dug out.

Eric Miller: Did you find out that this was radiation later on?

Mrs Lennon: Long time after, long time after, we found that out.

Eric Miller: So you know what it means if they want to dump this radioactive stuff?

Mrs Lennon: Yes, I know what it means. I don't like it.

Eric Miller: And you believe that it shouldn't be anywhere near where you're going to stay or where you're going to collect your food or anything like that.

Mrs Lennon: Yes, I'm thinking about the water where they put that thing and it might leak and it will just go through the water. That's what we are frightened of.

Eric Miller: So you really don't want the Government to bring it out to Cooper Pedy.

Mrs Lennon: No, we don't want it there, at Billa Kalina, we don't want it there at all. And all these people, that's what they are fighting for.

Eric Miller: And you have come all the way from Cooper Pedy to attend this conference.

Mrs Lennon: I came from Port Augusta, they came from Cooper Pedy, this lot here. I'm from Port Augusta. But I always go up there and have meetings with them.

Eric Miller: I suppose it was years after that you found out it was radiation and it was from the nuclear weapons.

June Lennon: Yes, well I suppose we didn't know much about it when we were growing up. Then you find out when you are growing up that that's where you were, that you were, in fact, exposed to all this stuff. You wonder about different illnesses that you have in your life after that.

Eric Miller: You really do understand that this stuff is poisonous.

June Lennon: Oh, yes. Definitely, and that's why we don't want it on our land.
We don't want it on land anywhere in Australia. Because we say that it is not only an issue that affects the indigenous people but the non-indigenous people, ethnic groups, whatever, in this land. We've already said that we'll fight to the death. We are going to die fighting for this issue. Whether it's a long time from now or not. It's very important to us. That's our kid's ground. That's where we take them back when they are sick. That's where we go to stop them committing suicide. You know, all of those things, the land is very important to stop all that, because the land is the healing place. Now, they want to go in and poison our hospitals, if you like, they want to poison our water holes, they want to poison our hospitals, what else? Are going to poison us next?

Eric Miller: Eileen, how do you feel about this land where they want to put the waste?

Eileen Wingfield: I feel the same way about it because the place where we want to take our children back, away from where they are doing everything wrong, where they are suiciding, when they are living in town because they see nothing there. They get onto something and we don't know what they are on. Most of us have lost our loved ones and this is where we would really like to keep it clean so we can take them away. I've got a couple of my grandchildren that I'm teaching how to live and how to control the sites and whatever, the land, what the old people left for us. We were lucky to sit there and listen to the old people telling us about our water and our campsites and everything. This is the main thing we worry about, water and things. But the mining companies and that, they don't listen. I know we'll take all the young ones away and make them, sort of, heal it. This is what we like to have, clean country. We want them to leave it alone. Take the waste stuff elsewhere.

Linda Marks: That was Archie Roach with 'No, no, no.' Before that Eric was speaking to June Lennon, her mother Mrs Lennon and Eileen Wingfield who have come all the way from Cooper Pedy.

Their message about the dump was a strong and unequivocal 'No" and that was the message they gave the Indigenous Gathering. The women's message is urgent because the drilling of test holes has already started in the Billa Kalina area near Cooper Pedy and .at Roxby Downs.

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

Linda Marks: And it's goodbye from Linda.

Transcript produced by Linda Marks - with much thanks!!!
Page last updated January 8, 1999.
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