3CR
 Community Radio 855am

THE RADIO-ACTIVE SHOW

With Eric Miller and Linda Marks

Saturday at 10.00am

3rd April 1999

Hello and welcome to the Radioactive 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 from last Sunday’s Palm Sunday Rally. We hear from Lyn Allison, spokesperson for Nuclear Issues for the Australian Democrats, Greg Combey, assistant secretary of the Australian Council of Trade Unions and Dr Alan Roberts from the Graduate School of Environmental Science at Monash University.

The Palm Sunday Rally was a huge success despite the unpredictable weather. The media had the crowd at 2,500 people but that was a very conservative estimate. The Rally began in the traditional way with speeches on the Library steps and we have selected bits from 3 of them for the show. We hear first from Lyn Allison who is spokesperson on Nuclear Issues for the Australian Democrats, speaking about Jabiluka.

Lyn Allison: I want to talk today about Kakadu. One of the outstanding places on the planet and one of the few where the original inhabitants are still there today in continuous residence. I think we should be asking today how much respect we give the people of Kakadu. Just how much we value their remarkable culture and their achievement.

Less than 20 years ago we imposed a uranium mine on the people of Kakadu and that mine was called Ranger. We told them it would make them better off. Well, I think we know that it hasn’t done that. The rest of the world has recognised Kakadu’s importance in the association of humans and landscape, an association that has lasted for more than 40,000 years. It is simply not possible for mining and miners to be respectful of an ancient culture and its landscape. The facilities brought into Kakadu have made the miners very comfortable but they have made the traditional owners foreigners in their own land.

When the Australian Government was opening the way for Ranger anthropologists were called in to study the aboriginal clans in the area and to count them. Now less than a quarter of a century later there are less than half the number of clans in Kakadu. And again, we arrest Traditional Owners on their own land and we are still telling them they will be better off. I wonder if in a few year’s time, just as we are opening the way for a third uranium mine in Kakadu, we will be telling half as many clans in Kakadu that the Koongarra mine will be making them better off. Just as Ranger did and just as Jabiluka did. Of course this is not genocide in the same way that Yugoslavia is, but we are pushing an ancient and a fragile people because they are in the way of our economic plans. And it may well be having exactly the same affect.

ERA has asked for another 20 years to mine another ore body at Ranger and there are not less than 38 export licences in the East Alligator River. The world is watching what we are doing in Kakadu. Later this year the World Heritage Committee may well decide that Australia’s efforts to protect its landscapes and the people of Kakadu has been so inadequate that the area should be put on the World Heritage In Danger List. The Federal Government is, of course, very desperate that this should not happen and I think as we have shown in the Senate in the last few weeks, they are willing to spend enormous sums of money and do deals overseas to stop that international censure. This is all so they can give their support to another polluting and culture destroying uranium mine in the heart of Kakadu. Stop Uranium Mining In Kakadu!

That was part of Lyn Allison’s speech. Lyn is spokesperson on Nuclear Issues for the Australian Democrats. Next we hear a snatch of Greg Combey’s speech. He talked about the need for Trade Unionists and environmentalists to work together. Greg is Assistant Secretary of the Australian Council of Trade Unions.

Grey Combey: ACTU policy for the better part of 20 years has been opposed to uranium mining and that remains our position. We support what’s being put forward here today. So the message I think that is important that we all need to join together to resist a lot of these changes. The changes in the workplace that are being forced by Howard and Reith are extremely important for society as a whole and we do need to join forces to resist those types of changes. We need to resist the expansion of uranium mining, to resist the attacks on the welfare system and to promote effective changes in the labour market that will make employment for people, not take it away.

That was a snippet of Greg Combey’s speech. Greg is Assistant Secretary of the Australian council of Trade Unions. Our final speaker from the rally is Dr Alan Roberts from the Graduate School of Environmental Science at Monash University. Alan spoke on the proposed international nuclear waste dump for Australia.

Dr Alan Roberts: I just want to tell you a couple of facts about this proposed waste dump that for some reason has not hit the headlines in the papers and hasn’t been the item on TV news. First fact is such a dump can explode with a nuclear explosion. Now this is not just an outside chance that it might happen in some remote circumstances. A dump like this, it was a military dump with the waste from reactors and so on, exploded with the force calculated to be between 50 and 100 tonnes of TNT in Russia. Over a quarter of a million people were affected, over 200 towns and villages evacuated. Now, this something we should bear in mind when the possibility of taking what’s called ‘high level waste’ into Australia is brought up.

It has been brought up. At first the Government simply said they had nothing to do with it, they hadn’t talked to Pangea and so on. We now know that was untrue. At least two Government Ministers have talked to Pangea. You can bet your bottom dollar that ANSTO, the Australian Nuclear Science and Technology Association, has been talking to them for years. They are confident enough to have set up an office in Melbourne and to have engaged in quite an expensive publicity campaign about it, including making a video.

Now how could the Government go back on its word? How could it go back on its present position of saying, ‘We’ll have nothing to do with it?’ Nothing would be easier. Nothing would be easier. All they have to do is say this, ‘Yes, we were against bringing that nuclear rubbish here to Australia, but it has now been brought to our attention that, in fact we can treat it as the raw material for a new industry. That is to say, the reprocessing of nuclear waste from which we can sell new fuel for nuclear reactors. And there are billions in it, billions in it. So, therefore for Australia’s sake and the economy and the balance of payments and all that we have changed our view. And now we are going to support a reprocessing industry in Australia.’ Nothing would be easier!

Can I just point out briefly some of the things that would not be good about such a dump. In the first place, half of the plutonium that was in it would still be there 24,000 years later. The idea that a private firm can guarantee that in 20,000 year’s time, or if it comes to that, in a 1,000 year’s time, or if comes to that, in 10 year’s time, or if it comes to that, in 6 month’s time, that firm will still be around exercising such a responsibility over such a dump is ridiculous.

They will tell you, and they have already told you, there are absolutely safe methods of storage. This is a lie, they know it is a lie and have been lying in that way for at least 30 years. It’s 30 years since I heard the head of Oakridge Laboratory, the big nuclear installation in the US, assure a questioner and an audience that the disposal of nuclear waste, and I quote his exact words, ‘a non-problem, a non-problem.’ This is also the favourite phrase of Sir Philip Baxter when he was Chairman of the Atomic Energy Commission. This ‘non-problem’ is still worrying them to death. And it should worry us to dea… Well not to death. Don’t let it worry us to death.

The storage method they usually mention is Synroc developed in Canberra, and vitrification, turning it into a sort of glassy substance. Synroc, in my opinion, is a very good idea and after perhaps 50 or 100 years of research and development something might come out of it. At the present time, and this is now 22 years after they started work on Synroc, at the present time, not one bit, not an ounce, not a gram of actual plutonium has been put into any actual Synroc. They have not even got to that stage of seeing whether or not it will hold it. And yet they talk, at least the PR men talk, I wouldn’t blame the scientists, but the PR boys talk as if it is ‘a non-problem’ now, waste storage. Well this is just another lie.

Trains will be running backwards and forwards carrying tonnes of this nuclear waste. I’ll just remind you that one millilitre of plutonium is enough for 200 cancer doses. And we are talking about tonnes. It wouldn’t need much of an accident to make our present ideas of what constitutes a disaster look like a kid’s playground. Ships, specially built ships, will carry the stuff. Can you imagine what the very frequent losses of ships and of cargo would do to our oceans.

And let me just end up on this. There have been a lot of discussions in the paper about how it’s a moral question about us taking the waste. We sold the uranium, we got the money for it, therefore, you know, we have a moral obligation to take the waste back that was made from that uranium that we sold. This moral argument reminds me of the Terra Nullius idea that this continent was bare, there was nobody on it when white people came here. There are people in that area. There are people for whom that whole area had profound meaning and they are treated in this so-called ‘moral argument’ as if they don’t exist. They do exist. And let us see to it that after they have been insulted enough with the present uranium mine, after they have been threatened with Jabiluka (that we can and will stop), they are not faced with the most terrible and most blasphemy of all. The potential for a nuclear explosion in a high level waste dump. Thank you.

Linda Marks: That was Dr Alan Roberts from the Graduate School of Environmental Science at Monash University, one of the excellent speakers at last Sunday’s Palm Sunday Rally where we estimate at least 6,000 braved the unpredictable weather.

Monday was the first day of the Jabiluka Action Group’s (JAG) blockade of North Ltd with the big red and white plastic road barriers. They had also blocked off the streets behind Norths. Here is Eric’s report on the first day of the blockade. He begins by asking Fleur from JAG how many activists had stayed over night after the Palm Sunday Rally:

Fleur: There would have been 80 people at my estimation. When people started popping out from tents, and tarps and rugs and marquees we could see that we had 50 – 80 people.

Eric Miller: I see that you have a fire here. You’ve got things set up, what have you got here?

Fleur: Yes, we’ve got a couple of marquees. We’ve got a stall with information and propaganda. We got ourselves a food collective that is making some porridge, we have fresh fruit and we have a place for people to store their belongings.

Eric Miller: Did it rain on you last night? It was quite a cold night.

Fleur: It was just a shower but it didn’t dampen our spirits. We’ve got a lot of banners here as well and we had a sign up all night that said, ‘Honk your horn if you support.’ One out of every vehicles that passed down St Kilda Road would probably have beeped their horns, so we know we have a lot of support.

Voices: Hey, North, you’re running out of time, you’re never going to get your Jabiluka mine…

Speaker: …at the car park section, they are stopping people and asking for ID and proof that they don’t work for North Ltd before they are letting people into the car park. They are explaining to people, politely, that we are blockading North today and they we are attempting to shut down access to this building. We are attempting to shut down the business of North Ltd for this entire week. It is worth making the point that we don’t have to blockade this car park. We could simply be blockading the building but the police have pre-empted us on this by blocking off the back street. So we have no option for achieving our stated objective by holding the car park and checking people’s identification. Any time that the cops choose to allow people into the back streets, we can blockade Norths as is our stated intention, then we won’t have to do this any more.

Voices: Hey, North, you’re running out of time, you’re never going to get your Jabiluka mine…

Jerome Small: As you probably heard, we have a very effective blockade. We are turning away all cars on the south end of North Ltd. At the north end the street is also blockaded. As it turns out, there is a large public car park from which it is possible to get up a fire escape to right next to the North building. For that reason we want this to be an affected blockade of North and for that reason we have been stopping traffic going into that car park around the corner. At the moment it seems that both picket lines have been asking for ID from people. So if people can show that they are not associated with Norths, that they have got work in one of the office buildings around here, we don’t have an argument with them, we let them park. A number of people refused to show ID and they have just sped away which makes us a bit suspicious. But anyway, the blockade is successful, both north and south. It looks like there are enough people here to deter the police from bringing any people in around the front. It seems to me, that as of now, we’ve got an effective blockade of North. That actually there are no people getting through to North Ltd as far as I know and that is tremendous.

Voices: Hey, North, you’re running out of time, you’re never going to get your Jabiluka mine…

Speaker: If you haven’t got a copy of the yellow leaflet, ‘Police and Your Rights’ then get a hold of that. Most likely, if there’s a chance of you being arrested, you will hear about it in advance and you will be able to choose. That may not be the case. At the moment we are asking people to be part of the blockade at the moment. And don’t forget that we hear the word to run, people should, those who are prepared to run, should run round the side and defend the back.

Voices: Hey, North, you’re running out of time, you’re never going to get your Jabiluka mine…

Speaker: … asking for ID … we have actually discussed this with the police and they have allowed us to do this. The precedent was set over the other side of the building where we are trying to establish whether people work for North. Although it may seem to people a severe action to be taking, people need to prove that they are residents to come through and that’s the condition we are letting people through. People who are working in other buildings here, they can have access around the other side if they can show us some ID. Most of them have car parking cards or badges or stickers on their cars, so that’s the verification we need. Just to reinforce while you are doing this, this is an official picket line. We are shutting down North Ltd for today and possibly the whole week. We need to continue this kind of protest in order to stop their business. Now, what sort of picket line would it be if people just said that they don’t work for North and we let them through? That’s ludicrous! So, please stand strong on this one, it’s an important issue and we need to maintain the integrity of our picket line that we have worked so hard to maintain so far this morning. Also everyone, you are doing a fantastic job. Keep up the energy. Stand together! Stand strong in solidarity!

Voices: Hey, North, you’re running out of time, you’re never going to get your Jabiluka mine…

Speaker: … they have had their land stolen from them and an illegal uranium mine put on that land, so therefore we have brought this disruption to the City of Melbourne today. We are just hoping that people will appreciate the small amount of inconvenience for you to walk around to find another way to go to work, it is nothing compared to the inconvenience that these people are suffering every day.

Voices: They are all coming through down there, the workers are going through down there. Hey, North, you’re running out of time, you’re never going to get your Jabiluka mine…

Eric Miller: Can you tell me what happened here?

Protester: Yes, as we spotted a bus coming around the corner, the bus stopped in front of the flats here. As me and another guy ran up, we were the first people, this line of police moved to the side of the bus. So as they walked through the gates here, the street on the side that we are blockading stops anyone from getting through. Maybe there’s another bus because there is only about 15 people getting off.

Eric Miller: So they had to sneak through a number of buildings to get to work?

Protester: Yes. Straight through here, straight round the back through a private residential block. Not through the main road that we had blocked off. So, yes, they got through, but only about 15 people. So maybe another bus load will come.

Eric Miller: Thank you.

Voices: Hey, North, you’re running out of time, you’re never going to get your Jabiluka mine…

Jerome Small: I want to talk about what happened today. Obviously a bunch of North employees did manage to get in under heavy police guard. But the main point of today is that has been no business-as-usual at North Ltd. That has to count as a feather in the cap of the people who, non-violently linked arms and stayed strong and kept that blockade affective. For this machine, Norths, to work, they had to get I don’t know how many coppers, I don’t know how many thousands of dollars of PR. They had to get their employees to get out of a bus, jump over a garden fence, run across a lawn, run down a laneway under heavy police protection, (not that we were actually aggro towards the employees, it’s the directors that we have a contention with), and into the North building. So it looks like we’ve learnt a lot from today, I think it’s been a tremendous success here that we’ve shut North’s business-as-usual down for the day.

The other thing that I reckon has to be said before we finish up is about the media. Our good friends here. These hard workers for channel 10, 9, 7. The people who work for the media are often very good people. The people who own the media sit in buildings like this and make decisions like the people who run this building. They operate on the basis of profit, they are a big business and they favour big business. Anyone who has read the Herald/Sun over the last week will have read that there is a campaign going on in this town by Rupert Murdoch’s tabloid paper to push the Victorian Police into a confrontation with people prepared to link arms and shut a building down. The media spin on today is going to talk about traffic chaos, it’s going to talk about angry people, it’s going to talk about all sorts of things. When we are back home being asked by uncles or aunts or sisters or brothers about, ‘How dare you piss that person off?’ We’ve got to remember, what we set out to do today was to shut Norths down. The police escalated the blockade by blocking off the entire back street behind North. That meant we had to extend our blockade in order to keep up with the police blockade. It was the police who escalated it and it is a tribute to us that we managed to stop North’s business-as-usual simply by linking arms and chanting in a non-violent co-operative manner. I think it is a real credit to the whole campaign. (Cheers)

When you are in that situation of linking arms and standing strong with people, with building workers, with students, with all types, you feel strong. And that is why the people who run the media, who run companies like this hate it. That’s why they are going to can it. So remember, 9/10s of what you read in the media… Remember that feeling of strength, remember what we are doing is right and remember that we will back here tomorrow morning, hopefully in greater numbers to shut North down. (Cheers)

Linda Marks: That final voice was JAG spokesperson Jerome Small and during that report you heard the voices of other JAG activists at the very successful and peaceful blockade of North Ltd on Monday, the first day of the 4 day peace presence.

Eric Miller: And that’s all we have time for in the Radioactive Show today, so it’s goodbye from Eric.

Linda Marks: And it’s goodbye from Linda. Listen in again next week.

Transcript produced by Linda Marks - with much thanks!!!
Page last updated April 28, 1999.
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