BY JIM GREEN
The federal government's plan to build a national nuclear dump in South Australia has hit another hurdle with the leaking of a document outlining plans for a $300,000 propaganda campaign in the coming months.
The Department of Education, Science and Training (DEST) document, made public on October 22, outlines the government's plans to "strategically manage" its announcement of approval to build the dump near Woomera. The announcement is to be made in the first quarter of 2003.
The issue is "highly sensitive and emotive in many circles", the document notes, and, "careful management of a broad range of sensitive issues will be required". It points to a July 2002 federal cabinet decision to implement a strategy including a media campaign.
The DEST document indicates that the government was in the process of securing the services of a public relations agency to assist with the campaign. The government and the successful PR agency will: monitor the media and respond to selected media; use reports, media releases, media conferences and other tactics to assist in effectively managing issues around the site selection process; monitor and respond to emerging "hot issues" (e.g. the leaking of sensitive government documents) around the site decision; and continue producing a newsletter called The Monitor.
The DEST document identifies "a small but highly vocal group of opponents" to the dump as one of the key issues requiring management. (But it fails to mention the opposition of 76-95% of South Australians that has been recorded in numerous polls since the Woomera region was short-listed for the dump in 1998.) The document notes the opposition of environment groups, "most notably the Australian Conservation Foundation"; the SA state government; some Indigenous groups, "most notably a group of senior Indigenous women from Coober Pedy Kupa Piti Kungka Tjuta"; opponents of the planned new nuclear research reactor in Sydney; and the Andamooka Opal Miners and Progress Association, along with some other Andamooka residents.
A 'sense of control'
The DEST document mentions market research which found that "SA people want a sense of control over what is happening in regards to the repository... It found a strong cynicism by people towards government information."
Then environment minister Robert Hill said in April 2001 that the environmental impact assessment for the dump would be "a thorough process that involves significant public participation" and that the government "is committed to a transparent and rigorous assessment process with full public involvement". However, the EIA, now underway, is a farcical process in which the federal government both writes and rubber-stamps the impact statement.
Aboriginal groups gave heritage clearance for test-drilling at short-listed dump sites in the late 1990s. But they did so over the barrel of a gun: they could either have some input into the process (hopefully protecting significant sites) or else the federal government would use its land acquisition powers (as it openly threatened to do) and go ahead anyway. Aboriginal groups were between "a rock and a hard place", according to Stewart Motha from the Aboriginal Legal Rights Movement.
The federal government has threatened to override South Australian legislation banning "co-location" of a national store for long-lived intermediate-level waste adjacent to the planned dump. A bill is currently being debated in the SA parliament that would ban the proposed national low-level waste dump. The federal government has already threatened to override this legislation as well.
The task for the federal government and its PR agency is to provide South Australians with a "sense of control". But if South Australians were genuinely empowered they would reject the dump. Instead, DEST proposes a snow-job: "To increase awareness with the target audience about the extensive consultation process which has taken place leading up to the decision about the national repository site."
Despite the government's best efforts, the South Australian public has asserted some control. Opposition to the government's furtive plan to "co-locate" an intermediate-level waste store with the dump was so fierce that the federal government backed down and now insists to a sceptical public that co-location will not occur.
Why South Australia?
The DEST document says that market research has demonstrated considerable concern about the lack of prior consultation over the establishment of the dump "with a strong demand for an explanation of why it was being located there". It further states that: "The central-north region of SA is the best and safest region in Australia for the facility. It was selected to site the national repository after a nationwide search and following expert advice."
However, it's simply not true that SA is the "best and safest region" for the dump (and it's also debatable whether a centralised dump is required anywhere in Australia). Sites in several states met the government's geological, environmental and social criteria. SA was ostensibly chosen because it has the largest area of suitable land, but that is a furphy there is sufficient land in other regions and other states, meeting all the government's criteria, to accommodate many 100x100 metre dump sites.
A site in western NSW, called Olary, was excluded because it "overlaps" the Great Artesian and Murray-Darling water basins. However, the northern SA region selected for the dump also overlaps the Great Artesian Basin, so why was it not excluded? The government has ignored repeated requests for an answer to that question.
The leaked DEST document notes that plans for a national dump could be complicated by the recent restatement by Swiss-based company ARIUS of a proposal previously promoted by Pangea Resources for disposing of international high-level waste in Australia. Federal science minister Peter McGauran rejected the ARIUS proposal while in Argentina in early September. He was trying to convince Argentinians to accept Australia's high-level waste from the Lucas Heights reactor!
Maralinga
The leaked DEST document says: "In letters to the media and in media commentary there have been assertions that the alleged 'failure' of the clean up of the Maralinga atomic bomb test site does not engender confidence that there will be sufficient safeguards around the disposal of radioactive waste at the SA site."
The latest clean-up at Maralinga was done on the cheap, Australian standards for the management of long-lived radioactive waste were breached, public "consultation" was a farce and there were many other problems besides. In short, the government grossly mismanaged the project.
From Green Left Weekly, November 13, 2002.
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