Amid South Australia’s dramatic Flinders Ranges, more than 60 members and supporters of the Australian Nuclear Free Alliance (ANFA) gathered for the 2026 national gathering over August 14-16.
Formed in 1997 as the Alliance Against Uranium, First Nations environmental activists have always made up a strong component.
At this year’s ANFA gathering, people from Aboriginal communities in multiple states and the Northern Territory (NT) explained how mining companies have pressed ahead with minerals extraction and processing, over protests from native title holders.
A particular target of the activists’ wrath has been BHP’s Olympic Dam copper, gold and uranium operation in far northern South Australia.
We heard heard how BHP draws large quantities of water from the Great Artesian Basin, causing the flow from iconic mound springs to diminish — or cease. The springs are of vital cultural significance to the local Arabana people.
The AUKUS pact was a further topic of discussion, particularly its nuclearisation of Australia’s submarine fleet.
Yankunyjatjara woman Karina Lester, a commissioner of the current AUKUS Public Inquiry, reported on the inquiry’s progress and the dangers posed by the AUKUS agreement.
Closely associated with AUKUS is the unresolved question of how to dispose of the nuclear waste. Speakers explained how remote indigenous lands in South Australia, Western Australia and the NT are being eyed by AUKUS supporters as storage sites for the highly radioactive waste from the submarine reactors.
Nuclear explosions and the resultant radioactive fallout were painful historical memories for more than a few attendees at the ANFA gathering.
Two representatives from Japanese anti-nuclear organisations spoke about the continuing impacts of the nuclear bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, as well as of the 2011 Fukushima disaster.
Other speakers included Indigenous people from far western South Australia, who recounted family memories of the British nuclear bomb blasts detonated in the region in the early 1950s.
Anti-nuclear activists Sue Haseltine, from Ceduna, and Roslyn Peters from the Yalata Indigenous community spoke with passion of how family members were rounded up and forcibly trucked from their homelands. In some cases, people living near the test sites were not contacted, and they suffered lingering damage from radiation poisoning.
On August 16, attendees elected a committee to lead ANFA’s activities through the coming year. The gathering ended with a collective statement which included support for “any communities being pressured to take nuclear waste and to call out any secretive proposals such as those disguised as salt mining”.