Antinuclear

The unyielding spirit of Uncle Kevin Buzzacott

Eureka Street, Michele Madigan, 18 April 2024

Late last month, after the November 2023 passing of a great Australian environmental warrior, commemorative gatherings celebrated his memory at both at Lake Eyre South and in Naarm/Melbourne. Neither will be the last dedicated to the memory of Uncle Kevin Buzzacott, one of our nation’s great men. He was indeed a warrior – a man of enormous courage, extraordinary imagination and strategic thinking. He was a person totally committed in love to the well-being of country and waters, for the present and especially for the future generations.

An Arabunna man, Uncle Kevin devoted himself to the protection of Lake Eyre and Wibma Mulka, the Mound Springs, and the whole of that delicate, glorious country of north eastern South Australia with its Great Artesian Basin’s ancient waters threatened by the succession of powerful mining companies.

operating Roxby’s Olympic Dam. The original ‘joint venturers’ were Western Mining Co (WMC) and British Petroleum (BP); then WMC; then in 2005, BHP/Billiton. From 2018, the largely foreign-owned company, BHP, is the operator.

Born on Finniss Springs Station on October 9, 1946, Uncle Kevin was always proud to declare that he ‘was born with the Old People, the old way. I was not born in a hospital. We lived in humpies then.’ After schooling years in Maree, he worked on the railways, and then did droving and station work until 1982 when, as he declared, ‘I took up the Aboriginal fight for freedom and peace.’  He worked in various drug and alcohol rehabilitation facilities and in Aboriginal education at Alice Springs’ Aboriginal run Yipirinya School. He then moved on to full time volunteer environmental protection and care for country including calling his own people back ‘home.’  

In the 1990s, I lived in Coober Pedy where the senior Aboriginal Women – Kungkas – intent on preserving and reviving the traditional women’s culture, formed themselves into Kupa Piti Kungka Tjuta. From 1998 on, when the grave threat of the federal government’s low level and intermediate level national nuclear waste dump emerged, they became intent on the task of preserving the country of their beloved Seven Sisters’ creation, from the threat. At their first public meeting – in Melbourne at the ‘Global Survival and Indigenous Rights conference’, as their honorary ‘paper worker’, I was instructed to film Kevin Buzzacott’s address. They assured me it would be worth it.

During that spellbinding session, I became convinced I was listening to one of the nation’s great orators. And with that perfect timing of one, he broke off at one point to call up those desert women, the Kungkas, to share the outdoor stage with him, all uniting in protection of country.  Uncle Kevin’s own authority was evident as an Arabunna man intimate with knowledge of, and the passion for, his country, in stark contrast to the interlopers. The need ‘to approach the country the right way’ was his constant life-long theme:……………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………….

It was a physical suffering to him to witness the profligate exploitation of the extraordinary ancient waters of the Great Artesian Basin, including its damaging effect on the Springs. With the blessing from successive SA governments, the Roxby mine at Olympic Dam continues to extract up to 35 million litres of water a day, and at no charge.

……………………………………………………… another Uncle Kevin invitation to the Kungkas: ‘Come to Sydney yourselves to benefit from the international media.’ Despite the many laws having been swiftly passed about what seemed to be almost infinite ways one could be arrested if protesting, this is what we did. As Emily Munyungka Austin later proudly declared, ‘We were brave women!’ We arrived in Sydney, of course by train, to find an enormous tent already set up and waiting at the Botany Bay site Uncle Kevin had named ‘Captain Cook’s Foot.’ Some international media were interested, travelling out to the site. They, especially the UK media, were astounded to learn they were in the company of nuclear survivors (as many of the Kungkas were), of the 1950s-60s British nuclear tests on their country in South Australia. Uncle Kevin’s own efforts, ignored by Australian media, featured on the front page of the Chicago Tribune.

In surely one of the most creative in all Kevin Buzzacott’s life time of creative protests, at 5am one morning, the Kungkas and I were collected from Camp to participate in the ‘Cleansing of the Harbour’ expedition……………………………………………………………

In December 2004, his campaign became more visible internationally with the Peace Walk from Roxby Downs to Hiroshima. The eventual Indigenous International Gathering in Japan, Uncle Kev reported, ‘was a great help‘ to his own spirit. In later years believing it was Australia’s uranium that fuelled the Fukushima reactor, Uncle Kevin formally apologised to the Japanese for his country’s role in the Fukushima catastrophe.

Kevin Buzzacott’s work was first officially recognised, overseas, with the Nuclear-Free Futures award in Ireland in 2001.  Five years later, he was recognised in his own country receiving the 2006 Conservation Council of SA award and in 2007, the Australian Conservation Foundation’s Peter Rawlinson award.

Kevin Buzzacott’s brave efforts over the years included actions to effect long term change for his country, peoples, culture and cultural symbols in court against government and/or mining company actions, past, present or proposed. 

 Appearing variously in the Magistrates court, the Federal Court, right up to the High Court of Australia, in this difficult dimension of his work he found support within the legal profession and in the Environmental Defenders Office.

Worth noting is a reference submitted at one time in his support, commending his expansive influence on young people: ‘They have learned about country, about the sacredness of the land; about Aboriginal protocol and respect including respecting the Elders; about living skills; about communication; about bush skills. Most of all they have learned about integrity, commitment and self-control. It’s been a marvellous thing for so many young people – both Aboriginal and non-Aboriginal to have a personal mentor in Kevin Buzzacott.’

………………………. Integral to his commitment, Uncle Kevin was a founding member and long-term President of ANFA, Australian Nuclear-Free Alliance. Begun in 1997, ANFA is a network of Traditional Owners and other environmentalists who share a common concern about the impacts of nuclear projects, supporting each other’s work to end nuclear threats. For decades, Uncle Kevin would make the effort whenever possible, to address so many different groups of any size, including on country during the regular Friends of the Earth ‘Radioactive Tours’. In his later years, his appearance at an ANFA gathering, a rally or any type of gathering was always a bonus. Active right up to his passing, never giving up, Uncle Kevin was on country at Alberrie Creek and Maree for many weeks in late 2023.

As Irene Watson said, ‘Kevin Buzzacott will always be known as one of Australia’s greatest leaders who led from the margins a cause he brought into centre stage of the Australian community.’

Michele Madigan is a Sister of St Joseph who has spent over 40 years working with Aboriginal people in remote areas of SA, in Adelaide and in country SA. Her work has included advocacy and support for senior Aboriginal women of Coober Pedy in their successful 1998-2004 campaign against the proposed national radioactive dump.

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April 20, 2024 Posted by Christina Macpherson | personal stories | Leave a comment