Antinuclear

It’s a different time and different circumstances, but there was something about this invitation — a joint missive from the Premier of South Australia and the newDemocracy Foundation — that seemed to resonate with that ominous American institution; a sense that democratic ideas such as consultation and partnership were being co-opted for nefarious ends. In the address section of the envelope, in beautiful script, the partnership was emphasised: ‘An Invitation from the Premier and the newDemocracy Foundation’.

The gold and black lettered document was an invitation ‘to take part in the Citizens’ Jury of the Nuclear Fuel Cycle Royal Commission’s report’. This Citizens’ Jury will take place now that Royal Commissioner Kevin Scarce has handed down his final report, with the primary extraordinary recommendation that South Australia invite high-level radioactive waste from overseas.

According to the invitation, there will be ‘a stratified random selection to finalise a jury of 50 citizens right across South Australia’. These 50 will be selected from those who accept the original invitation sent to the sizable number of 25,000.

Participants will be sent a reading list with ‘access to information and experts and given the time to reach an informed consensus decision’. The commission has a track record of refusing access to main environmental groups with nuclear expertise, and it seems likely that this tight control will continue.

Just how strictly controlled the process is becomes obvious when it emerges that the task of those 50, during two weekend meetings in June and July, will be to produce ‘a short independent guide to help every South Australian understand the recommendations raised’ by the report. How such a stringently controlled process can be named ‘independent’ is anyone’s guess. At a later date, once the ‘guide’ has been set by the first jury, the second, of another 350 people, will be asked to provide feedback.

ABC news dubbed this whole process the Premier’s ‘public relations exercise’, and surely they’re not wrong. Scarce has said many times that international evidence has shown that such a project will be able to go ahead only with community support. Yet what we are witnessing has the hallmarks of little more than the pretence of consultation.

The Premier is urging all South Australians to remain ‘open’ about the proposal. But are they, including the Citizens’ Jury, allowed to be open to refusal?

The royal commission report is fraught with omissions and lack of knowledge. I wonder is it Providence or serendipity that South Australia is the one state where ‘everyday citizens’ have direct experience and knowledge of the disastrous effects of high-level radiation, and continue to proclaim these effects?

This month Yalata Community artists launched their Maralinga Painting showing the former beautiful country, wildlife and rockholes in the shadow of the gigantic nuclear explosion — the result of nuclear tests conducted by the British government in the 1950s and 1960s — which has changed it forever.

It seems likely that no such contemporary evidence will be heard — or seen — by the Citizens’ Jury; although, rather ominously, there is to be a ‘program to engage with Aboriginal voices’. During the royal commission itself, the community consultations I witnessed turned out to be simply reports of process with no formal room made for any discussion or contributions. Interruption was the only possibility — with absolutely no guarantee of being recorded.

In announcing the process on 10 May the Premier used the words ‘mature’ or ‘maturity’ three times. One of these references was in regard to his hopes for Federal Labor, whose policy is holding ‘to the prohibition of … the importation of foreign nuclear waste’. On 18 May the Shadow Environmental Minister Mark Butler, Member for Port Adelaide and National President of the ALP, reiterated, ‘Our position … is that no case has been made to change our longstanding platform about this issue.’

Lately I saw a documentary on Nelson Mandela’s life in which a jovial looking Prime Minister Verwoerd explained that ‘apartheid can be better described as good neighbourliness’. How, I wonder, will our softly spoken Premier describe the risks of high-level waste so obvious to the people of Yalata/Maralinga and elsewhere when he meets with the ‘everyday’ South Australian Citizens’ Jury? Will notice be taken of the growing alliance against the dump of everyday and not-so-everyday citizens?

Or is that not how things are to work in the newDemocracy times?

Michele Madigan is a Sister of St Joseph who has spent the past 38 years working with Aboriginal people in remote areas of South Australia and in Adelaide. Her work has included advocacy and support for senior Aboriginal women of Coober Pedy in their campaign against the proposed national radioactive dump.