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Howard’s nuclear dump backdown

On July 14, 2004, the federal government announced that it had abandoned plans to build a national radioactive waste dump in South Australia. The backdown was a major victory for the environmental and Aboriginal organisations which fought the dump plan for over six years.

The government announced its intention to build the dump near Woomera, 500 kms north of Adelaide, in February 1998 – just a few months after it announced its intention to build a new nuclear reactor at Lucas Heights in southern Sydney. The two plans were closely linked. Up to 90% of the waste to be dumped in SA is stored at Lucas Heights. And the political agenda was simply to get radioactive waste out of Lucas Heights in order to reduce public opposition to the new reactor.

A campaign to oppose the dump took shape. The Kupa Piti Kungka Tjuta – a senior Aboriginal women’s council from northern SA – took up the fight, as did the Kokatha traditional owners. The Kungkas – victims of the British nuclear testing program at Maralinga and Emu Field in the 1950s – have been supported by the GANG (Girls Against Nuclear Genocide) who have moved to Coober Pedy to help fight the proposed nuclear dump.

The Kungka Tjuta recounted time and again their experiences of the Maralinga nuclear test program in South Australia in the 1950s. They knew first hand about the problems of the nuclear industry and pleaded with the politicians to ‘get their ears out of their pockets’.

The Maralinga experience also influenced the dump campaign in another way. The federal government completed a ‘clean-up’ of Maralinga in the late 1990s, but it was grossly inadequate. Even after the ‘clean-up’, kilograms of plutonium remain buried in shallow, unlined trenches in totally unsuitable geology. The botched ‘clean-up’ was hardly reassuring.

The federal government planned to build two facilities at Woomera – an underground dump for lower-level waste, and an above-ground store for ‘interim’ storage of higher-level wastes including those arising from the reprocessing of spent nuclear fuel rods from the Lucas Heights reactor. As public and media opposition to the dump plans grew, the Olsen Liberal government in SA sniffed the political wind and announced in 1999 that it would accept the underground dump but would legislate in an attempt to ban the higher-level waste store. The Labor Party – state and federal – trumped them by announcing opposition to both the dump and the store.

Several environment groups have fought the dump plan since it was first announced, including Friends of the Earth and the Australian Conservation Foundation. Opposition to the dump grew along the transport corridor linking Lucas Heights to Woomera, in no small part because of Friends of the Earth’s Nuclear Freeways project. On numerous occasions FoE activists took a mock nuclear waste castor along the transport corridor, building relations with communities all the time. This project was highly successful. Of the 18 councils along the transport corridor, 16 took a position of opposing the dump and the trucking of radioactive waste through their communities. FoE also organised numerous ‘radioactive exposure’ tours, taking hundreds of students to nuclear sites in SA – the proposed dump site and the uranium mines at Honeymoon, Beverley and Roxby Downs.

The Nuclear Freeways project was also significant in linking the dump proposal to the root of the problem – the planned new reactor at Lucas Heights. While the federal government mounted scare campaigns about waste stored in urban areas, it became increasingly well known that the dump plan had nothing to do with the small volumes of waste stored around the country and the everything to do with Lucas Heights. The NSW government was persuaded to hold a parliamentary inquiry into radioactive waste management in 2003-04, and that inquiry concluded that the dump proposal could not be justified and should be abandoned.

The Labor Party won the 2002 election in SA, and in the following year it legislated in an attempt to ban any form of national radioactive waste facility being built in SA.

The SA Labor government also tried a legal manoeuvre to stop the dump in 2003 – announcing its intention to declare the dump site a public park, which would make it immune from compulsory acquisition by the federal government. That led the federal government to use an urgency provision in the land acquisition act to seize control of the dump site with the stroke of a pen in mid-2003. The SA Labor government challenged the land seizure in the federal court, but lost. The SA government appealed the judgement to the full bench of the Federal Court, and that appeal was upheld in June 2004 – reversing the land seizure.

By July 2004, the Howard government was in trouble. It had the option of appealing the Federal Court decision to the High Court, but that appeal would have been deeply unpopular and it probably would not have succeeded in any case. And already, the dump was shaping up as a key issue in marginal seats in SA. For example, in the marginal seat of Adelaide, polling showed that the dump was second only to Medicare as a vote-swinging issue.

The Howard government decided to cut its losses and abandon the dump plan. The government said it would instead attempt to find a site to co-locate both lower and higher level wastes.

The victory of the dump campaign is something to savour – a fantastic result reflecting an enormous amount of hard work by a broad, effective alliance.

The Kupa Piti Kungka Tjuta’s ‘Irati Wanti’ website is archived at

http://web.archive.org/web/20080718193150/www.iratiwanti.org/home.php3

and the Kungka’s victory message is posted below and at

http://web.archive.org/web/20050614071014/http://www.iratiwanti.org/iratiwanti.php3?page=news&id=244

================================================

‘We are winners because of what’s in our hearts, not what’s on paper.’

Open Letter from the Kupa Piti Kungka Tjuta – senior Aboriginal women’s council from northern SA – after the Federal Government abandoned its plan to build a national radioactive waste dump in South Australia.

http://web.archive.org/web/20050614071014/http://www.iratiwanti.org/iratiwanti.php3?page=news&id=244

August 2004

People said that you can’t win against the Government. Just a few women. We just kept talking and telling them to get their ears out of their pockets and listen. We never said we were going to give up. Government has big money to buy their way out but we never gave up. We told Howard you should look after us, not try and kill us. Straight out. We always talk straight out. In the end he didn’t have the power, we did. He only had money, but money doesn’t win.

Happy now – Kungka winners. We are winners because of what’s in our hearts, not what’s on paper. About the country, bush tucker, bush medicine and Inma (traditional songs and dances). Big happiness that we won against the Government. Victorious. And the family and all the grandchildren are so happy because we fought the whole way. And we were going away all the time. Kids growing up, babies have been born since we started. And still we have family coming. All learning about our fight.

We started talking strong against the dump a long time ago, in 1998 with Sister Michelle. We thought we would get the Greenies to help us. Greenies care for the same thing. Fight for the same thing. Against the poison.

Since then we been everywhere talking about the poison. Canberra, Sydney, Lucas Heights, Melbourne, Adelaide, Silverton, Port Augusta, Roxby Downs, Lake Eyre. We did it the hard way. Always camping out in the cold. Travelling all over with no money. Just enough for cool drink along the way. We went through it. Survivors. Even had an accident where we hit a bullock one night on the way to Roxby Downs. We even went to Lucas Heights Reactor. It’s a dangerous place, but we went in boldly to see where they were making the poison – the radiation. Seven women, seven sisters, we went in.

We lost our friends. Never mind we lost our loved ones. We never give up. Been through too much. Too much hard business and still keep going. Sorry business all the time. Fought through every hard thing along the way. People trying to scare us from fighting, it was hard work, but we never stopped. When we were going to Sydney people say “You Kungkas cranky they might bomb you”, but we kept going. People were telling us that the Whitefellas were pushing us, but no everything was coming from the heart, from us.

We showed that Greenies and Anangu can work together. Greenies could come and live here in Coober Pedy and work together to stop the dump. Kungkas showed the Greenies about the country and the culture. Our Greenie girls are the best in Australia. We give them all the love from our hearts. Family you know. Working together – that’s family. Big thank you to them especially. We can’t write. They help us with the letters, the writing, the computers, helped tell the world.

Thank you very much for helping us over the years, for everything. Thank you to the Lord, all our family and friends, the Coober Pedy community, Umoona Aged Care, the South Australian Government and all our friends around Australia and overseas. You helped us and you helped the kids. We are happy. We can have a break now. We want to have a rest and go on with other things now. Sit around the campfire and have a yarn. We don’t have to talk about the dump anymore, and get up and go all the time. Now we can go out together and camp out and pick bush medicine and bush tucker. And take the grandchildren out.

We were crying for the little ones and the ones still coming. With all the help – we won. Thank you all very much.

No Radioactive Waste Dump in our Ngura – In our Country!

Kupa Piti Kungka Tjuta

Ivy Makinti Stewart

Eileen Kampakuta Brown

Eileen Unkari Crombie

Emily Munyungka Austin

Angelina Wonga

Tjunmutja Myra Watson

Coober Pedy, South Australia

MEDIA RELEASE – 15 DECEMBER 2009
FRIENDS OF THE EARTH, AUSTRALIA

NUCLEAR DISARMAMENT REPORT MASKS A HIDDEN AGENDA

Friends of the Earth today questioned the credibility of the Australian-led International Commission on Nuclear Non-proliferation and Disarmament (ICNND), which has today released its first report, ‘Eliminating Nuclear Threats’.

Friends of the Earth’s national nuclear campaigner Dr Jim Green said: “The report makes repeated reference to the three S’s – safeguards, security and safety. It makes no reference to the dollar signs that constitute a hidden agenda to the Commission’s work including avoiding making any recommendations which would in any way jeopardise the Australian uranium export industry – an industry which accounts for a paltry one-third of one percent of Australia’s export revenue. The report trivialises the proliferation risks associated with nuclear power programs even though daily news coverage of the programs in Iran and North Korea provide a constant reminder of the risks.

“Co-chaired by Australian Gareth Evans and Yoriko Kawaguchi from Japan, the Commission is silent about Japan’s grossly irresponsible stockpiling of plutonium, the regional tensions arising from Japan’s plutonium program, and Australia’s complicity in Japan’s plutonium stockpiling.

“The report advocates new technologies ‘to avoid current forms of reprocessing altogether’ – so why not take immediate steps to reduce the risks of reprocessing and plutonium stockpiling rather than awaiting the development of new technologies? Kevin Rudd could announce tomorrow that he will no longer allow reprocessing of spent nuclear fuel produced from Australian uranium. Instead he waffles on about the fracturing of the global nuclear non-proliferation regime while doing nothing to address the problems.

“The ICNND got off to a bad start by giving the Australian Safeguards and Non-proliferation Office (ASNO) an advisory role. ASNO has a long track record of dishonest and unprofessional behaviour. Last year, ASNO misled the Joint Standing Committee on Treaties with false claims that safeguards would ensure peaceful use of Australian uranium in Russia – even though there hasn’t been a single IAEA inspection in Russia since 2001. Other ASNO lies include its claims that nuclear power does not present a weapons proliferation risk, that Australia sells uranium only to countries with ‘impeccable’ non-proliferation credentials, and that all Australian uranium is ‘fully accounted for’.

“If the Commission was serious about non-proliferation and disarmament, it would have recommended that:

* Australia and Japan both immediately renounce their reliance on the ‘extended deterrence’ of the US nuclear weapons ‘umbrella’ and take practical steps commensurate with that policy shift, e.g. prohibiting visits of US nuclear warships.

* Uranium exports should be prohibited to: countries in breach of their NPT disarmament obligations, including the five ‘declared’ weapons states; non-NPT countries including India; countries blocking progress on the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty and the proposed Fissile Material Cut-off Treaty; and countries stockpiling plutonium, including Japan.

Dr Green concluded: “The Commission should have taken heed of the statements of physicist Victor Gilinsky, a former member of the US Nuclear Regulatory Commission, in the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists earlier this year. Gilinsky said: ‘We should support as much nuclear power as is consistent with international security; not as much security as the spread of nuclear power will allow.'”

Contact: Jim Green 0417 318368

World Water Day on March 22 encouraged widespread reflection on worsening water depletion and pollution problems around the world. As the driest state in the driest
continent, South Australia is the canary in the coal mine. But while many South
Australians are pulling their weight by reducing water consumption and
installing rainwater tanks, some industries are pulling in the opposite
direction.

The
uranium mining industry is perhaps the most egregious example. The daily
extraction of about 35 million litres of Great Artesian Basin water for the
Olympic Dam uranium/copper mine has adversely affected a number of precious
Mound Springs – unique habitats which support rare and delicate micro flora and
fauna, some species of which are unique to a particular Mound Spring.

BHP
Billiton pays nothing for its massive water take for the Olympic Dam mine
despite recording a $17.7 billion profit in 2007-08. That arrangement is
enshrined in the Roxby Downs Indenture Act 1982 – as anachronistic a piece of
legislation as you’re ever likely to see.

In
February 2007, then Prime Minister John Howard wrote to state Premiers seeking
their agreement "to establish proper entitlements, metering, pricing and
reporting arrangements for water extracted from the Great Artesian Basin."
Asked whether his proposed new arrangements would apply to Olympic Dam, Mr
Howard said: "Everybody’s got to make a contribution to solving this
problem." But within days, he voiced support for BHP Billiton’s
"right" to free water from the Artesian Basin. In other words,
everyone except BHP Billiton has to make a contribution to solving this problem.

As
The Advertiser noted in a November
2005 Editorial, it is “essential … to safeguard the artesian basin water
supplies”. To that end, most users are subject to the Great Artesian Basin
Management Plan. But BHP Billiton is a law unto itself – its Olympic Dam mine is
not subject to the Management Plan and also enjoys exemptions from the SA Natural
Resources Act 2004 and the Environment Protection Act 1993.

Another
problem at Olympic Dam concerns the liquid tailings dams which are constantly
expanding as water is turned into liquid waste. In 2005 it was revealed that over
100 bird deaths were recorded in a four-day period – the birds had drunk liquid
tailings waste from the mine. Ongoing seepage from tailings dams are a further
concern. Last Monday (March 23), photos taken by an Olympic Dam mine worker
were released clearly showing radioactive
tailings liquid leaking  from the
so-called rock ‘armoury’ of a tailings dam. The leaks were ongoing for at least
eight months and probably amounted to several million litres, but were not
publicly reported at all. Serious questions must be raised as to BHP Billiton’s
capacity to safely manage radioactive tailings if, as planned, tailings
production increases seven-fold to 70 million tonnes annually and water
consumption increases to over 150 million litres daily (over 100,000 litres
every minute).
BHP
Billiton proposes continuing with its water take from the Artesian Basin and
also building a desalination plant in the Upper Spencer Gulf to provide an
additional 120 million litres daily. The proposed desalination plant has raised
concerns over its impacts on marine species and fishing industries – in
particular from the discharge of brine. The Upper Spencer Gulf is a low
flushing fragile marine environment unsuited to siting a desalination plant and
BHP Billiton’s preferred site at Port Bonython is the breeding ground of the Charismatic
Giant Australian Cuttle Fish.

In-situ
leach (ISL) uranium mining is used at the Beverley uranium mine and is the
mining method proposed for use at other SA mines including Oban, Beverley Four
Mile and Honeymoon. ISL involves pumping acid into an aquifer, dissolving the
uranium ore and other heavy metals and pumping the solution back to the
surface. After separating the uranium, liquid radioactive waste – containing
radioactive particles, heavy metals and acid – is simply dumped in groundwater.
From being inert and immobile in the ore body, the radionuclides and heavy
metals are now bioavailable and mobile in the aquifer.

Proponents
of ISL mining claim that ‘attenuation’ will occur over time – that the groundwater
will return to its pre-mining state. However there is considerable scientific
uncertainty about the future of ISL-polluted groundwater and uncertainty about
the timeframe for attenuation if it does occur. A 2003 Senate References and
Legislation Committee report recommended banning the discharge of radioactive
liquid mine waste to groundwater. The Rann Government responded by
commissioning a study which had all the hallmarks of a whitewash yet still
acknowledged that attenuation is "not proven" and could only cite a
period of "several years to decades" for it to occur. Yet the
companies proposing to use ISL mining at Beverley Four Mile want to absolve
themselves of any future responsibility for the site just seven years after
they have finished mining. The future of ISL mining is plain to see –
short-lived mines leaving South Australians with a lasting legacy of polluted
aquifers.

The
Australian Nuclear Free Alliance – which brings together Aboriginal custodians
with representatives from environmental, medical and public health groups – is
calling on the Rann Government to initiate an independent public inquiry into
the impacts of uranium mining on SA’s water resources. This inquiry ought to
take place in the 12 months leading up to next year’s state election. It would
provide political parties with an opportunity to demonstrate their resolve to
properly regulate the state’s dwindling water resources and to address the
contradiction between corporate water profligacy and the responsible attitude
and actions of ordinary South Australians.

Dr Jim Green is Friends of
the Earth’s national nuclear campaigner and a member of the Australian Nuclear
Free Alliance’s national committee.

Michels
Warren PRopaganda

Introduction

June
2004 marks the fifth anniversary of PR company Michel Warren’s involvement in
the federal government’s plan to establish a national nuclear waste dump in
South Australia. A great deal of information is now available about the role of
Michels Warren in this controversy thanks to documents released under Freedom
of Information (FoI) legislation.

Parts
of the FoI material were discussed in a media release from the SA environment
minister John Hill on May 5, 2004 (included below), but a closer reading of the
FoI documents reveals much else of interest – including proof that federal
science minister Peter McGauran has misled the Parliament.

Misleading
statements by the federal government

While
this paper focusses on the role of Michels Warren, it should be noted that the
FoI material reveals evidence of the federal government misleading the Parliament
and the public.

The
FoI material reveals that the dump could be 25 times larger than the government
has ever publicly acknowledged. A February 10, 2000 email from a senior
government official, Rosemary Marcon, says that the “actual disposal area is a
500mx500m” (250,000 square metres) and she repeats that statement in a March
22, 2000 email. Yet public statements from the government refer to a 100mx100m
disposal area – 10,000 square metres (e.g. Environmental Impact Statement,
p.11.) Had the reference to a much larger dump been made once, and/or had it
been made by a junior official, it might be passed over as an error. But the
statement is made twice, and it is made by a senior government official.

In
response to a Question on Notice, federal science minister Peter McGauran
asserted unequivocally that departmental officers had not developed a list of
‘experts’ to make public comments in support of the proposed nuclear waste
dump. (Senate Hansard, October 27, 2003, p.16471, Question No. 2134, full text
copied below.) However, the FoI material makes it clear that such a list was
indeed developed. A July 6, 2000 email from Caroline Perkins, a senior
government official, lists four “technical experts … who have agreed to
assisting us in general”, though their names are blanked out. McGauran’s
unequivocal assertion that departmental officers had not developed a list of
‘experts’ to comment on the dump was clearly false – and he was clearly
misleading the Parliament and the public.

A
2002 government document released under FoI legislation (and previously
leaked), titled “Communication Strategy for the National Radioactive Waste
Repository Project”, states that: “An Adelaide based communications consultant,
Michels Warren, has been subcontracted … to assist with the development,
implementation and refinement of this strategy which has entailed the
following: … enlistment of a scientific liaison officer and other willing
experts”.

A
2003 document written by Michels Warren discusses plans to organise eminent
Australians and members of South Australian medical and science community to
participate in the ‘communications’ program. Michels Warren states: “This would
involve a concerted program of letters to the editor of The Advertiser and
responding and participating on talk radio programs.”

The
government and Michels Warren seem to have struggled to find “willing experts”.
For example, Mike Duggan from Michels Warren said in a July 6, 2000 email that
it would be a “great idea” to gather experts for a media conference, “if
possible at one of the universities or hospitals where waste is held”, in
support of the dump – but no such media conference eventuated.

Those
‘experts’ that have been enlisted have been error-prone. For example, the FoI
material contains a summary of a May 2000 radio interview with Dr Leon Mitchell
of Flinders University, who falsely claimed the dump would be lined with an
impermeable layer to isolate it from the underlying earth (the dump trenches
will be unlined). Mitchells also said the dump was for things such as watch
dials not nuclear power plants and reactors. In fact, dismantled nuclear
reactor components will be sent to the dump (if it proceeds), and that reactor
waste will amount to up to 5,000 cubic metres, which is greater than the entire
existing stockpile of 3,700 cubic metres of waste destined for the dump.
Michels Warren was involved in organising radio interviews with Mitchell, the
FoI material reveals. Other enlisted ‘experts’ have falsely claimed that the
dump is only for low-level waste, and one ‘expert’ even claimed that the waste
would not be buried!

McGauran
misled Parliament on another point. He asserted unequivocally in a response to
a Question on Notice that no ‘experts’ were provided with media training by
consultants to the department. The FoI material reveals that McGauran’s claim
was false. On July 12, 2000, Michels Warren charged the government $240 to
provide a written briefing to one of the enlisted ‘experts’, Dr. Gerald
Laurence, in preparation for media interviews. On July 7, 2000, Michels Warren
briefed another enlisted ‘expert’, Dr. John Patterson, for a radio interview.
Then on July 12-13, 2000, Michels Warren billed the federal government $800 for
media training with the government’s scientific liaison officer on the dump
project, Dr. Keith Lokan.

Why
Michels Warren would be conducting briefings about the dump is anyone’s guess.
The FoI material is replete with factual errors. For example, a draft letter to
a newspaper, states: “Unequivocally, it [the dump] will only ever contain
low-level waste.” Yet the dump will take both low- and intermediate-level
waste, including (according to the EIS, pp.45-46) long-lived intermediate-level
waste. The draft letter also states that “Australia produces no high-level waste
…” Yet the Australian Nuclear Science and Technology Organisation, operator
of the reactor at Lucas Heights in Sydney, acknowledges that its spent nuclear
fuel meets the heat and radiological criteria for classification as high-level
waste, and the New South Wales Environment Protection Agency has also
acknowledged that the Lucas Heights reactor generates high-level waste.

The
context for the “willing experts” strategy is made clear in the FoI documents.
Market research by the McGregor Tan company revealed: “A knee-jerk negative
reaction to sighting the Commonwealth crest – it is interpreted as the symbol
accompanying government propaganda.” The market research also revealed:
“Cynical responses to government promises and attempts at reassurance.” And McGregor
Tan found that: “Ministers’ statements are rarely believed, regardless of the
individual Minister’s honourable intentions.”

Michels
Warren’s nuclear dump PRopaganda

Michels
Warren has been involved in the following campaigns (among others): a controversy
over cadmium at West Lakes, Bridgestone tyres, bacteria in fast food, SA Water
contamination, ETSA Utilities, the SA Freemasons, Telstra, WMC Ltd., and
campaigns on behalf of the corporate owners of the Beverley and Honeymoon
uranium mines in South Australia.

Michels
Warren has been involved in the nuclear dump campaign since June 1999. Its
involvement has consisted of several discrete contracts rather than an ongoing
involvement. A July 8, 1999 letter from Stephen Middleton from Michels Warren
states that the company is “delighted to be part of the project” and has “hit
the ground running” since it started on the project in the previous month.
Michels Warren has maintained its enthusiasm. A 2003 document – a tender
seeking involvement in the federal government’s covert plan to seize control of
land for the dump site – states that: “We are available 24-hours-a-day,
seven-days-a-week to provide our support to the Minister and this project.”

A
September 27, 2000 email written by Stephen Middleton from Michels Warren talks
about the need to “soften up the community” and “sell” the repository: “We will
lose ground once again unless we can soften up the community on the need for
the repository and the reasons why SA has been identified as the best location.
The prospect of the Minister announcing the preferred site before we can get to
the community with something that explains what it all means makes my head
spin. The wider research into issues such as Lucas Heights, uranium mining, the
nuclear fuel cycle etc etc can be tackled as a separate issue. It should not
hold up anything we are doing in terms of selling the repository to South
Australians. The rest of the country probably doesn’t care less about the
repository, but it is a big issue in SA. Further delays could be potentially
disastrous.”

Why
on earth is a South Australian company willingly involving itself in the
federal government’s nuclear dump plans? After all, Michels Warren itself
acknowledges that the dump is an unwanted imposition on SA. A 2003 Michels
Warren document released under FoI legislation states:

“The
National Repository could never be sold as “good news” to South Australians.
There are few, if any, tangible benefits such as jobs, investment or improved
infrastructure. Its merits to South Australians, at the most, are intangible
and the range and complexity of issues make them difficult to communicate.”

So
why is Michels Warren dumping on its home state? Money, of course. The federal
government has acknowledged making the following payments to Michels Warren (in
response to a Question on Notice from Senator Bob Brown – copied in full
below):

*
$359,000 in financial years 2000-01, 2001-02, 2002-03 (Senate Hansard, October
27, 2003, p.16471 – copied in full below).

*
in 2003, Michels Warren and the federal government signed a $107,000 contract
for work connected to the government’s compulsory seizure of land for the dump.
At least $26,000 of that amount was paid (and quite possibly the entire
$107,000).

*
undisclosed payments to Michels Warren in 1999-2000.

The
1999-2000 payments amount to at least $102,000 up to May 31, 2000, according to
a document included in the FoI material (Progress Payment Certificate, Number
12, August 24, 2000).

So
in total, Michels Warren has been paid at least $487,000 to dump on SA … and
possibly much more.

Michels
Warren staff have been paid at rates up to $192.50 per hour (GST inclusive) for
their work on the nuclear dump campaign.

The
detailed breakdowns of payments to Michels Warren raise further concerns about
whether tax-payers are getting value for money. For example:

*
$160 to draft a letter to editor of Mt Barker Times

*
$894 for Michels Warren employees to attend a public meeting organised by the
Australian Conservation Foundation and for preparatory and debriefing work
surrounding the meeting (a full house at the Adelaide Town Hall, with
approximately 1000 people attending).

*
$225 to draft a letter to a constituent.

*
$240 to schedule talk-back radio interviews.

Michels
Warren is not the only company in receipt of government funding for PR and
research in relation to the nuclear waste dump, e.g.

*
$61,369 paid to Worthington Di Marzio in 2003 for market research. (Senate
Hansard, October 29, 2003, pp.16681-2, Question No. 2139.)

*
$72,000 paid to Hill & Knowlton in 2002-03. (Senate Hansard, October 27,
2003, p.16471, Question No. 2136.) Hill & Knowlton is well known for its
involvement in the imaginative ‘babies in the incubator’ fiasco in Iraq in
1990-91, and for its work with tobacco companies, Enron, etc.

Monitoring
protesters

An
August 16, 2000 “high priority” email reveals that Caroline Perkins, a senior
official in the Department of Industry, Science and Resources – at that time
under the direction of Senator Nick Minchin – was asked to compile information
on protesters. "[T[he minister wants a short biography of our main
opponents in the Ivy campaign by about 11am our time (pre-rally)”, the email
said. The rest of the email is blacked out under FoI provisions. The email refers
to a Michels Warren employee – no doubt Michels Warren helped compile the
biographies.

In
1999 Michels Warren was working hard “obviating the impact of campaigns by
opponents and the ‘I’m With Ivy Campaign’ run by Ch 7.”

The
Michels Warren worksheet for February 2000 includes the following: “Liaise
investigator re green planning. Liaise R Yeeles [from WMC Ltd.] re updated
intelligence.” Was Michels Warren employing a private investigator as that
comment suggests?

And
on March 28, 2000, $150 for activities concerned with a “Protest at South
Australian Parliament”, and $160 four days earlier to “Liaise WMC, Police and
media re weekend protests.”

And
in April 2000: “check re new protest activities”, “liaise SA Police re same”,
“internet search re protests”, and “update intelligence re OHMS Not Boms
protest group”.

In
March 2000, Rosemary Marcon, a government official, asked Michels Warren for
the details of  an “activist website
which we should monitor”. She was advised by Michels Warren that the site is
<www.lockon.org>. Evidently that piece of ‘intelligence’ was off-beam –
the website advertises streaming live shows from nude male dancers in Montreal!

The
FoI documentation is frequently contemptuous of opponents of the planned
nuclear waste dump (about 80% of the South Australian population). The option
of displaying the Environmental Impact Statement in the Conservation Centre of
South Australia is treated as a joke. Opponents of the dump are described as
“anti-nuclear anarchists”. Michels Warren co-founder Daryl Warren refers in a
July 14, 2003 email to protests and “demons”. On July 10, 2003, Warren stated
that: “It has become apparent during the week that people seem to have lost the
plot on the repository as it becomes embroiled in a political fight.”

In
response to an invitation to the federal science minister to attend a
conference at Adelaide University in March 2000, Michel’s Warren employee
Stephen Middleton recommends against attending the conference. Middleton wrote:
“The better option is to:

(i)
dismiss the gathering as nothing more than a stunt

(ii)
attempt to discredit it with counter media measures before, during and after.”

Doctoring
photos

The
FoI material suggests that photographs have been doctored to suit the
government’s ends. A February 14, 2000 email from a senior government official
to Michels Warren’s graphic designer refers to a photo “with the sandhills
removed.” The rationale was explained in a December 13, 1999 email by the same
government official: “Dunes are a sensitive area with respect to Aboriginal
Heritage.”

The
February, 2000 email also asked: “Can the horizon be straightened up as well.”

Scare
campaign

A
recurring theme in the exchanges between the federal government and Michels
Warren is the attempt to justify the dump by mounting a scare-campaign in
relation to existing storage facilities. Yet they get their lines muddled up.
One document released under FoI includes that statement that “none” of the
waste “is stored satisfactorily” in existing stores. That is in direct
contradiction to a June 2000 document document under Senator Nick Minchin’s
name (“Radioactive waste: the eight biggest myths”), which states: “The safety
of the storage of radioactive waste is proven by the fact that there are fifty
stores around Australia housing radioactive waste and there has never been an
accident exposing a person to unsafe levels of radiation.”

And
in a May 17, 2000 media release, Minchin said: "South Australians have
nothing to fear from radioactive waste. The fact is that waste is already
stored in downtown Adelaide in complete safety." Anyone claiming otherwise
was merely trying to "whip up anti-radioactive waste hysteria",
Minchin claimed. So by his logic, Michels Warren and the federal government
itself are guilty of trying to whip up hysteria.