Thirty Years of Creative Resistance - Friends of the Earth Australia

Roman Orzanski
Possibly the first FoE group in Australia was
that at Adelaide University. The early seventies
were times of social upheaval, and many
ideas were imported from overseas. In 1971, a
University group called Social Action produced
a number of major articles which appeared in
the campus newspaper, On Dit, about waste,
pollution, and the environment.
Social Action had subgroups and was active
in a number of areas, yet there was enough
interest to also form a Friends of the Earth
Group. Information from overseas about
happenings on the environmental front was
circulated and soon there was a core of
students concerned about the environment.
From the first, FoE called itself a radical
ecology group.
By March 1972 regular meetings of FoE were
held under the auspices of Social Action/
Abschol. A seminar was held entitled “Is
technology a blueprint for destruction” This
concern with the effects of technology was
an important part of questioning the purpose
of universities. The proceedings were later
published for distribution.
The First Campaign
Appropriately enough, the first target for
FoE was waste from packaging and the litter
created by disposable containers. The concern
with packaging quickly lead to the first King
of Krap award, to Coca Cola. The award was
announced in On Dit on April 11, and students
were invited to collect empty coke cans and
join in a march to the Coke factory on the
Friday.
About 300 people took part. The offending
items were returned, and the award presented
to Coke. The threat to target polluters and
undo their careful public relations work had
an amazing effect upon the large packaging
companies:
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I found it very heartening to realise that
within hours of somebody wandering around
Adelaide University and seeing a notice
stuck up saying FoE were going to organise a
demonstration against Coca Cola in 10 days
time and someone (either an employee, or a
child of an employee of Coca Cola) rang Coke
and within hours 20 top executives of six of
Australiaʼs largest companies all round the
country were panicking. Thatʼs an indication of
what it was like. People were flying to and fro.
They didnʼt know what to do. They flew me
over to Adelaide to see if I could head off the
demonstration.
There were seven options open to them -
ranging from one extreme from doing nothing
at all, to at the other extreme preventing the
march from ever leaving the University - and
that was an option which they obviously
regarded as just being perfectly normal within
their capacity. They eventually decided to
allow the march to occur and not to call
the cops, but just make sure the cops were
hovering in the background on the grounds that
theyʼve got a brand new plant on a major road
out of town with acreage of glass on the front,
which is operating eight hours a day, so three
quarters of the entire week its unmanned.
(Gabriel Lafitte, a former employee of Image
Australia, which handled the steel can account,
Interview in On Dit 1973)
A few weeks later after the visit to Coke, a
similar march visited Parliament House, where
cans were left on the steps and deputation went
to chat to Glen Broomhill, then Minister for the
Environment.
Steel Can Blues: FoE vs. BHP
After the assault on Coke, the Steel Can
People, who were trying to promote a
community conscious, responsible image for
BHP (as a producer of steel cans), decided to
try to tame FoE. They invited them to observe
recycling operations and gave them $3,900 to
make a film about recycling. Ultimately, the
film was a damning indictment of the whole
steel can scam.
FoE 30 Years 99