Thirty Years of Creative Resistance - Friends of the Earth Australia

Dave Sweeney
From its earliest days FoE has
been a tenacious and effective
critic of the nuclear industry in
Australia and actively supported
communities opposing or impacted
by nuclear developments.
In the 1970’s FoEA was born out
of concern over the human and
environmental impacts of French
nuclear testing in the Pacific.
Thirty years down the track and
the concern, commitment and
creativity that motivated this
original activity can be seen in
FoEs current work against uranium
mining, radioactive waste dumping,
a planned new nuclear reactor in
Sydney and the often forgotten
but ever present threat of nuclear
weapons.
The past three decades have seen
FoEA activists involved in many of
Australia’s anti-nuclear processes
and protests. In the 1970’s FoE
played a key role in the vibrant
anti-nuclear movement and helped
ensure that uranium mining became
widely seen as a controversial
and contaminating industry. FoE
activists travelled the country
to appear at every session of the
Ranger Uranium Environment Inquiry
– the Fox Commission.
When environmental and Aboriginal
concerns were overridden and
the Ranger mine was approved
for development in the Northern
Territory, FoE regrouped and
took direct action to disrupt the
mine and the subsequent export
of uranium from ports around the
country. FoE supporters jumped on
their bikes and pedalled off to
end the nuclear cycle, converging
in a mass Ride Against Uranium
in Canberra and helped to shape
the nuclear debate through the
production of such influential
publications as Red Light for
Yellowcake and Ground for Concern.
FoE’s detailed and scathing
critiques of uranium projects
proposed for other places in the
NT, Queensland and West Australia
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served to let the industry know it
was in for a serious fight and the
community know the reality of the
secret silent poison of uranium
mining.
In the 1980’s FoE remained at
the forefront of anti-nuclear
politics and was an active part
of significant community blockades
at the South Australian uranium
sites of Honeymoon and Roxby Downs
(Olympic Dam).
As the actions of the Reagan
Administration in the USA saw the
Cold War get distinctly chillier,
FoE mobilised around the massive
Palm Sunday demonstrations and
worked to highlight that the
peaceful atom was a violent myth.
If any further proof of this
position was ever needed the
Chernobyl nuclear disaster of 1986
provided it and lead to renewed
calls for an end to Australia’s
involvement in this toxic trade.
FoE worked to expose the often
hidden reality of Australia’s
military alliance with the US with
regular protests and publications
targeting the issues raised by US
bases in Australia and the risks
posed by visits of nuclear powered
and armed warships.
FoE’s commitment to education,
information and community
continued with the production
of The Nuclear Environment, an
important secondary school book
and input to the national public
radio networks greatly respected
RadioActive show.
This decade also saw the
uranium issue dominate many
federal ALP policy forums and
national conferences as antinuclear
activists pushed for a
strengthened position and resisted
concerted industry pressure to
remove restrictions on uranium
mining.
The early 1990’s followed the
pattern of the preceding years
with a strong focus on federal
political policy positions and
successful opposition to attempts
to expand the nuclear industry
through plans for a new nuclear
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