Thirty Years of Creative Resistance - Friends of the Earth Australia

Ila Marks
Dave Sweeney talking at the FoE International
meeting, Melbourne, November 1998
the situation until the mid 1990s, when
plans to release contaminated water
from tailings dams into the wetlands
of the World Heritage listed Kakadu
National Park sparked broader community
awareness. The Federal Government
had denied a previous request in 1987
by Energy Resources of Australia to
release contaminated excess water
held on the mine site. This decision was
widely regarded as an attempt to maintain
the green vote in an election year. But,
with the environment disappearing as a
significant issue in federal politics, and
many in the ALP believing that the green
movement would have to remain closely
aligned with the ALP because they had ‘no
where else to go’, it was getting harder to
achieve environmental outcomes.
This new announcement about the release
of waste water helped refocus Indigenous
opposition to the existing Ranger mine
and raised concerns about future mining
operations planned for the region. A new
generation of Indigenous people were
coming forward to campaign for their
country, including John Christopherson
and Christine Christopherson who spoke
on behalf of their uncle Big Bill Neidjie.
hbDave Sweeney, an anti-nuclear
campaigner with FoE Melbourne began
to visit the region, laying much of the
basis for the relationship that eventually
manifested as the alliance between the
Mirrar people and environmentalists that
culminated in the famous blockade at
Jabiluka in 1998. Dave, who had come
The first Nuclear Expose Tour was
organised in 1990, six years after the
Roxby Blockades of 1983 and 1984 where
hundreds of people blockaded and hindered
the establishment of Olympic Dam
Operations, the copper/uranium mine at
Roxby Downs in northern South Australia.
During these blockades people had the
powerful experience of seeing a uranium
mine and listening to Aboriginal people
who were opposed to the mine. Blockaders
also had the opportunity of showing their
opposition to uranium mining in creative,
colourful and sometimes dramatic ways.
It was in this tradition that the idea of
Nuclear Exposure Tours evolved. The
Anti-Uranium Collective at Friends of the
Earth organised the tours with the aim of
letting people witness and experience the
nuclear industry at first hand, to see and
walk on the country affected, hear what
Aboriginal people had to say, learn about
the anti-nuclear movement and strengthen
opposition to the nuclear industry. We
wanted to give people the opportunity
to support traditional owners in their
opposition to the nuclear industry, for tour
participants to return to their colleges,
work places and communities with the
story of their experience and to encourage
them to play a role in the anti-nuclear
movement.
The first tour was carefully planned and
with members of the Friends of the Earth
anti-uranium collective doing a “dry-run”.
Such a trip was not new; members of the
collective had been visiting the Mound
Springs area in northern South Australia
and working with the Marree/Arabunna
community since 1987. The Mounds
Springs are 120 Kilometres north of
the Olympic Dam copper/uranium mine
at Roxby Downs. Water for the mine,
metallurgy plant and town was, and still is,
being taken from the Great Artesian Basin
and unique springs have dried completely
and others have had a drastic reduction of
flow. A trip to the Springs area naturally
led to a round trip to the Roxby Downs
town, mine and tailings dam. Members of
FoE 30 Years 41