3CR
 Community Radio 855am

THE RADIO-ACTIVE SHOW

With Eric Miller, Ila Marks and Cherrie

Saturday at 10.00 am

20th November 1999

ConRadSat 18.04 - 18.32 (Thursday 25th November)

Cherrie Eaton: Hello and Welcome to the Radioactive Show brought to you by the Sustainable Energy and Anti-Uranium Service. My name is Cherrie Eaton and with me in the studio is Eric Miller. The Radioactive Show is a weekly program bringing you news and information on nuclear, peace and energy issues.

On today's show we go the South Australia where, in the last few weeks, there has been an enormous amount of anti-nuclear activity. Ntennis Davies from Access News has been at the Beverley Uranium Mine Pilot Plant, and he is going to tell us about some pretty amazing protests against the mine up there recently.

We also speak to David Noonan from the Australian Conservation Foundation in Adelaide about the National Nuclear Waste Dump planned for the Woomera - Roxby Downs area in South Australia.

To our first story - the Beverley Uranium Pilot Plant - This plant has been operating for nearly two years. The Environmental Impact Statement was approved in April this year. Now the company Heathgate Resources, a subsidiary of the US nuclear and military giant General Atomics, is starting to build a mine that will produce 1000 tonnes of uranium a year. They hope to have the mine operating by July or August next year.

The mine will use the controversial acid-leach technique. This involves pumping acid underground to dissolve the uranium and drawing the leached uranium to the surface. The uranium is extracted from the solution and the waste is pumped back underground.

The eight women cameleers, from Humps Not Dumps finished their 1,000 kilometre trek at Beverley at the end of October and 80 people joined them at the mine to celebrate their fantastic achievement. Eric Miller spoke to Ntennis Davies from Channel 31 Community Television, SKR TV, Access News. Ntennis was there to film the end of the trek.

Eric Miller: You were up at the demonstration at Beverley, how did it evolve?

Ntennis Davies: I guess there was a couple of things leading up to the direct action protest. One of them was the Humps Not Dumps Camel Crusade which was planning its final destination party at the Beverley mine site. And the other was a growing discontentment amongst the Adnyamathanha Community about agreement that had been breached by the mining company. So those two parties and their building frustration had come together and met for a party. But I guess that it pretty soon became clear that people were more interested in doing something about the mine and had a big meeting and decided to demand that the mine manager, Chuck Vandernol come and meet with them.

Eric Miller: So how did they do that demand, did they start blockading?

Ntenis Davies: Well they arrived at the mine gate and there was several security, … private security cars and police cars there … the gates were locked. Which is also a breach of agreement. The Adynamathanha people should be allowed access to their land. So some of the Native Title Claimants who were negotiating with the mine got on a satellite phone and spoke to the mine manager in Adelaide. They said we want to see to you immediately to talk about these issues so he got on to a plane an eventually arrived there.

Eric Miller: And then the meeting with Chuck the mine manager started, and that went on for quite a while?

Ntenis Davies: While, not really I don't think he was that keen an actually listening to people, like he came along way, he sat there for may be 10 - 20 minutes listening to some of the peoples concerns and he turned around and walked off. He said people are too emotional and I'm not interested in listening to this and got into his car and tried to drive off. People basically jumped over the fence and surrounded the car. They didn't want to let him go because they had an eviction notice to serve to him that had been signed by a lot of member of the local Aboriginal Community that Heathgate was in fact trespassing on their land, and they should get out

Chanting from protesters: "Chuck Chuck out, lock him up …"

Ntenis Davies: So that eviction notice was served and then the people there protesting there demanded that the police arrest him for these crimes that were listed on the eviction notice. So eventually the police pulled him out of the car and loaded him into the back of a police car and shunted him off to … safety I guess.

Eric Miller: People thought that he was being arrested but really he was just getting out of the situation.

Ntenis Davies: The legal implications are a bit unclear I mean it is quite legitimate that any citizen can arrest another citizen and I guess that it is up to the Courts to decide, but the police weren't very interested in processing those charges.

Protestor: OK we have made citizens' arrest and now it's… (The polices') responsibility to take him into to Leigh Creek to process him, that's his responsibility. We don't want to hurt Chuck…. You will put Chuck into one of your police vehicles and you will enclose him in that vehicle and you will drive him, hereto to Leigh Creek station, for processing at Leigh Creek station, where you will put him into custody, as part of an international citizens arrest.

Police Officer: We will take him into custody and I will seek advice from my hierarchy.

Protestor: In custody?

Police Officer: While he is in the van he is in custody.

Protestor: He needs to go to Leigh Creek like any other person who is arrested.

Police Officer: We will take him towards Leigh Creek.

Eric Miller: So what carried on from there?

Ntenis Davies: Well after that I guess people felt pretty empowered, I mean that was a pretty symbolic action, nobody protesting got arrested. It was just the mine manager. So after that they [the protesters] established a camp there at the gate, at the boundary of the mine and started turning trucks around that were bringing in construction equipment for building the mine and doing a lot of talking to miners with information about uranium. It turned out that some of the truck drivers didn't even know that it was a uranium mine that they were driving to. They felt pretty ripped off and a couple of them handed in their resignations.

Eric Miller: That sounds pretty good. How long did the protest stay there then?

Ntenis Davies: It would have been about 9 days in total - nine or ten days. And no one got arrested during that time. There was growing tension and some of the Adnyamathanha Elders came out to inspect the site because they were starting to learn that a lot of work had done in areas were they had no idea. And they had not been informed at all. They wanted to have a look at what was going on. And then both police and employees of the mine were turning them away. The police were even threatening them with arrest if they went in and stuff like that so it was all escalating the police sent in special operation known as Star Force

Cherrie Eaton: The Star Force is the special operations unit of the South Australian Police Force, they are a bit like the T. R. G., the Tactical Response Force, in the Northern Territory.

We are listening to Ntennis who went to video the end of the Humps Not Dumps camel trek at the Beverley Uranium pilot Plant and Northern South Australia.

Eric Miller: Now the Adnyamathanha are meant to have access to that site with the agreement they did with Heathgate.

Ntenis Davies: That's right, in fact there are a whole heap of agreements that have apparently been breached. One of them is that they should be able to access the site at any time and obviously that hasn't been going on. They are also supposed to be informed about spillages or accidents. There was in fact a spill of radioactive material and sulphuric acid which they weren't informed of. It ended up coming out in the EIS. There was a few other agreements Heathgate, which is the company, are supposed to employ 20% of their workforce as Adnyamathanha people and in fact there is only 4 Adnyamathanha employed. And the contracts as well…. And there are people in that area … like build fences, now for the fences they have out sourced to people far away who are not Adnyamathanha. The agreement on a range of issues have not met.

Eric Miller: So you can realise how the Adnyamathanha and the protestors thought that the police weren't getting hold of their grievances so tensions were really rising there?

Ntenis Davies: Yeah, for sure, police claim to be impartial but they were defecting cars left right and centre for things a petty as a frayed seat belt. And they were keeping a pretty close scrutiny on the camp and they were completely unprepared to process any complaints about things like assaults and dangerous driving. There was a time when a lot of the truck were just charging through the camp like a couple of feet away from sleeping people in tents and going a pretty dangerous speeds. There was a concern that police should be trying to ... They were there allegedly there to try and keep the peace, but they were turning a blind eye to that kind of stuff and then arresting people for driving cars with frayed seat belts.

Eric Miller: So this is Adnyamathanha and the protestors they were charging?

Ntenis Davies: Yes, that's right, in fact the oldest living Adnyamathanha man, he's in his 90's was turned away by the police on two separate occasions. And another Adnyamathanha elder had his car defected and was told that if he was driving the car six hours on he would be arrested.

Eric Miller: so what happened from there then when the tension did rise?

Ntenis Davies: Well, I think that Heathgate decided to have people arrested, its hard to say who's decision it was its hard to say who's decision it was, but for what ever reason people got arrested on very thin charges out of the blue. Like some of them were for loitering and there was eight people in all arrested a week after that initial …. protest party and those charges are still being processed by the Court.

Eric Miller: You were there filming for access news in Melbourne. What happened with you then?

Ntenis Davies: It was amazing environment to be with a camera. I think we were pretty lucky to have a camera there in terms of stopping potential violence there from escalating or what ever. Some of the workers were pretty agro and it also enabled us to get the images off to TV news programs and start the media discussion of the issue…

Eric Miller: You were lucky to get your footage out?

Ntenis Davies: Actually just after I left the camp with the footage of the arrests the police descended on the camp with warrants to search the cars. Apparently for the camera and the video tape and with all of the intensive surveillance they had the wrong guy pegged as the camera man so I was lucky enough to get out of there with the footage.

Eric Miller: They took away film that they thought was the footage did they?

Ntenis Davies: Yes apparently they found some tapes that were the same kind, I hate to think what was on those other tapes. But it wasn't the tapes in question.

Eric Miller: That gave you enough time to get the tapes out, because it is a long way to any size town, a four or five hour drive to get to a big city?

Ntenis Davies: Yes Port Augusta was the place we had to get the footage to and that would be at least five hour - six hour drive from the mine site its self. It is one of the reasons why TV news has been reluctant to cover it. It is a long way for them to go with all of their equipment and so on.

Eric Miller: So the Adnyamathanha are pursuing these complaints they have against … the breaking of agreements by Heathgate.

Ntenis Davies: Yes there are Court proceeding under way at the moment to get an injunction to stop work until those concerns are addressed. There was an emergency Adnyamathanha meeting on the weekend with over 100 people there. They re-accessed their Native Title Committee which was the body responsible for negotiating with the mining company. They decided that that committee wasn't properly representing them and so they are now looking at installing different people into that committee to negotiate with the mine. So there is a bit of a shift of power that has gone on out there. I think that Heathgate are quite unprepared for the level of resistance that they are now facing.

Eric Miller: So the indigenous people that are most against the mine are now chairing the Native Title Committee.

Ntenis Davies: Yes they are going to be pretty tough negotiators…

Eric Miller: So what was happening when to arrests occurred?

Ntenis Davies: A group of eight people that included Adnyamathanha elders had gone to inspect a gravel quarry that Heathgate were using to construct an airstrip at the mine. They discovered when they were there that the Quarry was in fact situated on traditional camping ground site and dangerously close to a traditional burial ground. Now they asked the workers to stop work until they could ascertain wether they were in fact they were digging up bodies and the workers weren't really keen on stopping. The police arrived soon after; the Adnyamathanha people tried to get the police to help stop the work until they could get a proper site inspection and so on… And that was when the police said that they were in fact trespassing and that if they did not leave they would be arrested. During the ensuring argument about that they started arresting people.

Eric Miller: So they arrested them all for trespass did they?

Ntenis Davies: No there was a range … in fact they did not arrest any Adnyamathanha people, although they threatened them with arrest. The white environmental protestors... a couple of them went for trespass, one was failing to cease to loiter, another one was obstructing a road, although strangely enough he was sitting down 150 metres away from the road waiting for a lift when he got arrested.

Eric Miller: Now the Star Force, they came with all of their recording equipment and video equipment.

Ntenis Davies: Yes they were fully decked out. They had infra red night visions, video camera with wiz bang microphones and they were sprung a few times doing surveillance … they were quite open sometime and then they were caught in the bushes secretly taping peoples conversations and stuff like that. You can only guess what they want to do with that kind of information. But it seems they went away consolidated their information and came back and pointed to the people who they thought were the instigators and had them arrested.

Eric Miller: And these arrests were minor charges to get them out of the camp?

Ntenis Davies: Yes it seems that way.

Eric Miller: OK thank you very much.

Cherrie Eaton: That was Ntenis Davies from Channel 31, Community Television, SkR TV, Access News. The Adnyamathanha are seeking a court injunction to stop the work at the Beverley site.

Now to the latest news of the proposed National Nuclear Waste Dump - The federal government had reduced the number of sites it was looking at for the dump from 18 to 6. All of them were in the Woomera/Roxby Downs area in the mid-north of South Australia. As more people are finding out about the dump it is coming under greater opposition. Senator Nick Minchin, Minister for Industry and Resources, has had to alter the sites being looked at for the dump as he is being put under pressure from outback communities.

Eric Miller spoke to Dave Noonan from the Australian Conservation Foundation in South Australia.

Eric Miller: David There has been some opposition to the waste dump in northern South Australia. The local people in Andamooka and Woomera don't feel kindly to radioactive waste coming their way?

David Noonan: No, and the government are now being forced to change their position in acknowledgment of these legitimate community concerns about the socio-economic impacts on the region of the proposal for a long lived radioactive waste dump. And now the community are also aware now that this is to do with the serious issue of the reactor legacy.

Nuclear waste toxic for thousands of years … the proposal by Senator Minchin effected a decision without consultation to dump nuclear waste on South Australia. Decisions by the community such as Andamooka at a recent meeting, to unanimously oppose by those attending, the radioactive waste dump proposal…. The level of concerns in Coober Pedy becoming a nuclear free zone. …. Senator Minchin in response has shifted two of the sites from his six nominated proposals for a radioactive waste dump.

In effect that is only taking the site a few sand dunes away, it won't detract from the legitimate concerns both raised by the Defence Department that their operations and their credibility as a satellite launching facility there could be adversely effected. These are major level concerns. Aspirations for the future of that region could be put at risk by Senator Minchin's proposal to site the radioactive dump there.

Eric Miller: So the Defence Department has complained about two of the waste dump proposed sites as well.

David Noonan: There are on record now that they would prefer that the waste dump not be in the Woomera Prohibited Area. In response to that Senator Minchin has delisted one site in the Woomera Prohibited Area, he says he may include others, more to an easterly area. …. The site immediately south of Andamooka has been delisted. In effect they are trying to take marginal responses to what is a national issue. This is about preventing a nuclear future for Australia. It is about preventing a new reactor being built in Sydney, because it is fundamentally the reactors waste dump. And the requirement of that to Senator Minchin is that he needs a radioactive waste dump in

South Australia to host the waste legacy that would come for decades from the operational life of a new Sydney reactor.

Eric Miller: So it seems like he is taking the line of least resistance and the actual properties of the sites?

David Noonan: Well, he is having to deal with the community concerns. But he is still putting up this premise of consultation, in that he is only willing to publicly address the proposal for the burial of low level waste. When increasingly community are well aware that this is to do with long-lived waste that has to be confined for tens or thousands of years.

Eric Miller: And when it comes to high level radioactive waste even uranium mining towns like Roxby and Andamooka don't like the feel of these things too close to them?

David Noonan: Well certainly the Andamooka population are fundamentally opposing it now. I believe the population of Roxby will see that they don't want any further expansion of the nuclear industry in their region. The traditional owners are opposed, the Kungka Tjuta women of Coober Pedy, the wine growers association of South Australia, have opposed the idea. The reputation of South Australia and the region should become known as the nuclear dumping ground, then that can effect broader proposals. Broader proposals … which have the option for expansion of employment. Where the nuclear industry is a backward move to a discredited old technology, inherently dangerous, as we have seen recently with the Japanese accident.

Australia's complicity in that was that we export them uranium, Australia's complicity in the broader nuclear fuel cycle will now be through the proposed export of nuclear fuel rods from Lucus Heights reactor to France for reprocessing. With the contractual required agreement agreed to by Senator Minchin, that Australia would receive in return, swap in effect, reprocessed nuclear waste from France.

Now given that Senator Minchin, from the start of last year had decided that South Australia would be the dump location. In effect he made a decision that a South Australian port, as yet un-named, will have to receive this reprocessed nuclear waste from France. Technically that can only be one of three communities that he is targeting, it is either Port Adelaide, Port Pirie or Whyalla. Now Senator Minchin has not even had the consideration to, let alone notify or consult, and certainly not to involve in any legitimate way the public in a decision-making role. …. The communities along the transport corridors through Central South Australia to take waste direct from Sydney to the South Australian dump. Weather that's through Broken Hill, who have also reaffirmed their position as a Nuclear Free Zone. They are faced with the road or rail transport of nuclear waste. South Australian port communities haven't been acknowledged by Senator Minchin with the facts of the proposal he is putting in place.

We have the regional communities coming out against it now: Andamooka, Coober Pedy, Broken Hill, the traditional owners are opposed. Politically this is going to get…. Become a liability for both the state government and the federal government. And we believe that in an informed democracy the Australian community will reject this expansion of the nuclear industry in Australia.

Eric Miller: So as the people become informed of what is actually going to happen then they are coming out against this proposed waste dump.

David Noonan: Minchin's proposal in effect is that we will institutionalise radioactive waste production in Australia through a new reactor in Sydney, we will continue this practice for decades to come. His only answer to that is to divest themselves of the responsibility for managing that waste by shifting it to central South Australia. To dump nuclear waste on S A without consultation. We believe the Australian community will choose their own direction to a nuclear free future. Where that opportunity … cost 300 plus million dollars for the new Sydney reactor is instead put into legitimate and growth creating, job creating, … for our young people, sustainable energy, rather than entrenching the nuclear technology.

Eric Miller: So what should people be doing about this waste dump?

David Noonan: Well South Australia people certainly have the opportunity to involve their politicians and inform their politicians. And these people will have to respond because the level of concerns and the legitimacy of concerns will rise to the point where inclined or not they will have to take political action on behalf of their reputation and the S A government against Senator Minchin's proposal. In the broader sense, from the local council level up the nuclear free zones proposal is very strong. It's expanding across Australia, from local government to state government and through to the commonwealth who will have to except in the longer term the broad opposition of the Australian community which has been fundamentally established in all the polls against the expansion of the nuclear industry.

Eric Miller: Thank you David for that.

Cherrie Eaton: That was Dave Noonan from the Australian Conservation Foundation in South Australia telling us about the proposed National Nuclear Waste Dump. Opposition against the National Nuclear Waste Dump is growing. A meeting in Adelaide on the 18th of November, on the National Nuclear Waste Dump, was attended by 900 people who heard from Peter Garratt, President for the Australian Conservation Foundation. Also the Kupa Piti Kungka Tjuta, the senior women from the area of the dump, performed a moving ceremony depicting opposition to the dump.

Eric, some news…

Eric Miller: Yes the 19th of November the people who blockaded Heathgate Resources Beverley Uranium Mine, the blockaded and occupied the Heathgate office in Adelaide and there were a number of arrests. The court case to get the injunction to stop the mine, that's still going ahead. The indigenous people have to sort out who are the actual leaders of the Native Title Committee, who is on that committee and they have to sort that out before they can actually get the injunction up to stop the mine. And that's the news Cherrie.

Cherrie Eaton: Thanks very much Eric. That’s all from the Radioactive Show now being heard on the Community Radio Satellite Network. The Radioactive Show is produced in studios of 3CR. You are able to e-mail us if you have an issue you want raised or any comments about the programs, you will find us at ra3cr@hotmail.com And of course our web address www.sea-us.org.au

Eric Miller: The Radioactive Show is brought to you by the Community Broadcast Association of Australia and ComRadSat, the Community Radio Satellite Radio Network.

Transcript produced by Ila Marks - with much thanks!!!
Page last updated December 26, 1999.
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