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The Fox Inquiry: Public Policy Making in Open Forum
Les Dalton*
The Ranger Uranium Environmental Inquiry was commissioned under the Environment Protection (Impact of Proposals) Act, 1974. The Act, designed by Moss Cass, Minister for Environment in the Whitlam Labor Government, was intended to promote public participation in environment policy making especially on new high-impact technologies. The Presiding Commissioner, Justice Russell Fox, interpreted his terms of reference very broadly and invited the public in to take part along with the experts in his wide-ranging inquiry. Activists from the environment and labour movements took up the challenge.
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| With little media attention the Ranger Uranium Environmental Inquiry opened, 9 September 1976, in a room off a gloomy hall of an old Sydney office building. Justice Fox and his two fellow commissioners filed into the room to take their place at a table in front of a disparate gathering where mining engineers, nuclear scientists and government administrators rubbed shoulders with environmental campaigners opposed to uranium mining. |
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Fox proceeded to introduce fellow commissioners Mr Graeme Kelleher and Professor Charles Kerr and then those assisting the Inquiry. To the right was Mr Cummins, counsel assisting the Commission. His quiet, conversational manner conveyed a note of civility to his polarised audience and intruded a feeling of informality into proceedings. To the left were the specialist advisers (eight in all over time). 'Mr Gray, an expert in nuclear technology, and Dr Rosen, an expert in Health Physics, are sitting with us, both on my left, Mr Rosen being the closer.'1 Staff, who were working in various capacities at, and behind, the scene, had gone to a lot of trouble to prepare for the Inquiry in the makeshift situation they faced. Fox noticed a couple of 'craned necks' and wanted to know if people could hear. The Commission would hold hearings in most capital cities and before an Aboriginal audience at the Ranger lease itself. |
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Fox went on to declare the Commission to be 'a body which is independent of governments and of all interested parties',2 a remark presumably intended to set the Inquiry beyond political manoeuvring around uranium. However, at public hearings over the next 12 months, Fox found it necessary to restate the independence of the Inquiry in the face of persistent media presumption that mines would soon be operating. |
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Commissioned under the Environment Protection (Impact of Proposals) Act, 1974, the Inquiry was, and remains, unique in the openness allowed for public participation. Section 14 of the Act left the procedure to be followed at an inquiry 'within the direction of the Commission'. Fox said the Commission would hear from any person able to assist the Inquiry. Except in special circumstances, submissions would be read into the evidence by their authors. Since the Act defined 'environment' as 'all aspects of the surroundings of man affecting him as an individual or in his social groupings', the potential for the community to contribute was indeed far reaching. A witness, with the permission of the Commission, could cross-examine another witness. Mining engineers from Ranger and scientists from the Australian Atomic Energy Commission (AAEC) appearing as witnesses could be questioned by witnesses without the relevant experience. Hugh Saddler, research officer for the Inquiry, observed how 'Witnesses were able to participate in the give and take of cross examination on fully equal terms with the formally qualified experts'.3 |
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The only other substantial inquiry held under the Act was into the mining of mineral sands on Fraser Island, although it did not provide the same capacity for cross examinations between witnesses which Fox allowed. Whitlam favoured going ahead with mining but agreed to a public inquiry when advised that the electorate was mostly in favour of protecting the sand dune environment. Two other inquiries were held on minor issues.4 |
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The Commission issued to witnesses an advice sheet on procedure. They were informed that the Commission did not need:
assistance on general questions of political, social and moral philosophy. A witness could briefly state his views on these matters, if relevant ... the Commission must work within the bounds of practicality.
These wider concerns were 'ideological abstractions: it is nothing we can bring about'.5 Where the line should be drawn on social and moral questions was at times a matter of contention between Fox and a witness. But, as Fox said, if he did not set a limit 'we'd go on from now to doomsday'.6 |
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On the advice of his departmental officers Moss Cass had appointed Graeme Kelleher and Charles Kerr. Kelleher was a civil engineer and a Standing Commissioner from the Department of the Environment. He would have been familiar with the policy making process inside government administration and aware of the limitations on public inquiries to influence government policy. The realpolitik of the uranium issue was that, while the Commission might propose, the government would dispose. Kerr was Professor of Preventive and Social Medicine at Sydney University. He was later to serve on an independent inquiry into nuclear industry, commissioned by the Total Environment Centre. This Inquiry recommended against expansion of uranium mining.7 |
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It was Prime Minister Whitlam, while he was Acting Minister for the Environment, who appointed Justice Russell Fox. Kelleher told him the mining company had engaged Queen's Counsel to represent them at the Inquiry and he suggested a judge be appointed as presiding commissioner. Whitlam's choice of Fox ran counter to his intention that the Inquiry be limited to the environmental impacts of mining. However, the Act allowed the Commission to decide the direction of the Inquiry, and Fox chose to allow wide-ranging advocacy of public concerns.8
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| Ever since the atomic obliteration of Japanese cities, Hiroshima and Nagasaki, the Labor Party has contended with political and moral issues posed by nuclear weapons and nuclear power. For a time it was supposed that the 'warlike' and 'peaceful' atoms could be kept in separate political baskets. That illusion was dispelled when, in 1974, India exploded a bomb with plutonium from a 'peaceful' nuclear reactor. Reliance had now to be placed on international treaties and bi-lateral agreements to ensure that uranium, exported for peaceful purposes, would not be diverted into weapons. What trust could be put in such institutional barriers became a hotly debated issue within the labour movement and more widely. |
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The Curtin Labor government took the first steps into the unknown territory of uranium policy. Late 1941, Professor Mark Oliphant, involved with research on atomic fission in England, alerted Prime Minister Curtin to uranium being an energy source and suggested work be done 'on the energy machine'.9 With no more information forthcoming the Production Executive Committee put uranium under government control and encouraged uranium prospecting. When, in 1944, Prime Minister Curtin offered Britain uranium for its atomic bombs, Cabinet limited this option to the end of the war. The country's uranium would be devoted to 'the development of this country and its industries in the post-war period'.10 |
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A new, abundant source of energy would mean a boost for Labor's ambitious plans for post-war reconstruction. However, uranium could be the fuel for nuclear holocaust as well as for electricity. Seemingly the government did not, or perhaps did not want to, make the connection. In the end, national security, not energy, dominated government thinking. Only once did the Curtin government seek to build a nuclear reactor. For this, the help of Britain was needed, but not forthcoming. Britain had only a small facility dedicated to produce plutonium, not supply electricity. The project tells something about contemporary disregard for the environment. According to cabinet records, 'it was not 100% certain [a reactor] would not explode' and so better it be built in Australia where 'open spaces are plentiful'.11 |
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Nuclear policies were conceived behind closed doors. Prime Minister Chifley and Foreign Minister Evatt secretly invited Britain to test its rockets in Australia's open spaces. At the United Nations, Evatt sided with the United States of America not to dismantle its nuclear weapons. They must be kept ready, he told Oliphant, in case they were needed to use against the Soviet Union. Evatt was manoeuvring for national security under a US nuclear umbrella, even though this meant denial of the principle of peaceful resolution of conflict that Evatt so passionately espoused at the UN.12 |
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The Menzies Coalition government continued the policies of its predecessor though with more attention to security. In 1954, the AAEC was established and shielded from public scrutiny by draconian security laws. Without consulting his cabinet colleagues, the Prime Minister, Robert Menzies, assented to Britain testing atomic bombs in 'remote' places. His colleagues were told briefly the day the decision was announced publicly.13 A women's peace group appealed to Labor leader, Doc Evatt, to take up the task 'with which history is challenging him' and oppose the tests. He dodged his 'historic' challenge, saying :'Whether it be an atom bomb, an incendiary bomb, a blockbuster or a bullet fired from a rifle the principle is just the same'.14 |
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In 1969, the Labor Party pledged that, in government, it would ratify the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty. The Gorton Coalition government signed but baulked on ratifying, the treaty. The urge lingered in sections of the Liberal Party for Australia to have its own bomb. Cabinet went so far as consider cost estimates 'to produce annually sufficient plutonium for 30 nominal 20 kiloton weapons'.15 The plutonium would be produced in a reactor planned for Jervis Bay. The Prime Minister, John Gorton, had told parliament 'the time for this nation to enter the atomic age had come'. It was not to be. His successor, William McMahon, cancelled the project as uneconomic.16 |
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The 1960s were a time of social turbulence, the 'radical 60s', when social movements began to take up such causes as nuclear disarmament, environment protection and Aboriginal Land Rights. 'A powerful debate over the hazards of nuclear power' said Jim Falk, 'has rippled through Australia affecting the time and extent of the mining of uranium'.17 There was now a greater appreciation of the health consequences for Australians of radioactive fallout than in the 1950s, when the British exploded their nuclear bombs on Monte Bello Island and at Maralinga. People better understood how the radioactive fallout, recorded over Australia from French nuclear testing at Moruroa Atoll in the South Pacific, could have had its origins in Australian uranium sold to France. In 1973, Labor Attorney-General, Lionel Murphy, took successful action in the World Court to stop French atmospheric nuclear tests in the South Pacific. |
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Trade unionists had long been involved in the 'ban-the-bomb' movement going back to the 1950s. They were aware of radioactive hazards. The proposed Jervis Bay reactor aroused concerns about safety in the local communities and among power industry workers. Workers in the power industry were tuning into overseas debate on the working hazards associated with nuclear reactors. The Australian Council of Trade Unions (ACTU) and affiliated unions made submissions to the Fox Inquiry. Individuals active in both the environment and Labor movements forged links between the two. Jack Mundy, NSW Secretary, Building Workers Union, led the Green Bans actions to preserve the urban environment. He was a councillor of the Australian Conservation Foundation. John Gregory, Secretary of the United Trades and Labor Council, and a member of the National Parks and Wildlife Advisory Committee, in South Australia, told the Inquiry that trade union concern 'has been increased because of the public debate which has created grave doubts in the minds of delegates as to the safety of nuclear power plants [and] the safe disposal of nuclear waste products'.18
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| When the Labor Party took office in 1972, after having occupied the opposition benches for 24 years, it began implementing its promised reforms. Among the reforms bearing on mining uranium deposits in the Northern Territory were stricter environmental controls, land rights for Aborigines and greater public involvement in the development of the nation's natural resources. Previous governments had made little to no effort to control the adverse impacts of human activity on the environment. For three decades, uranium mines had polluted landscapes and rivers with radioactive wastes. Lacking legislation, Moss Cass had to resort to administrative steps such as refusing an export licence failing acceptable environmental practice. A Caucus Environment Committee was keen to see a bill drafted. However, cabinet, with a heavy legislative program, relegated the submission to the bottom of the document pile until Rex Connor, Minister for Minerals and Energy, intervened. Mining companies, he argued, walk away with enormous profits and leave behind 'a ruddy big hole; I think they should be made to fill it in'.19 |
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The Environment Protection (Impact of Proposals) Act came into force in the last sitting of parliament in 1974. Moss Cass, Minister for the Environment, in collaboration with the Attorney-General, Lionel Murphy, designed the Act with a clear intention of enabling a greater public input into environmental policy making. Murphy conceived the broad definition of the environment of which Fox took full advantage. Under statute, major projects undertaken in territories under federal jurisdiction would require an Environmental Impact Statement (EIS) open to public scrutiny, but public hearings would be held only if the minister so decided. The Ranger mine came under the Act because the federal government administered the Northern Territory. |
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Connor was a crusader for ordinary Australians benefiting from the nation's great natural resources and not just for enriching mining companies, certainly not foreign ones. He foresaw the day when Australia would no longer 'ride on the sheep's back'; future uranium exports would be 'worth very close to thirty billion dollars ... the biggest deal in Australia's history'.20 Moss Cass was forthright in his opposition to nuclear industry, saying it had created 'the most dangerous, insidious and persistent waste products ever experienced on this planet'.21 Other ministers, such as Tom Uren, were inclined to wait on the outcome of an inquiry into the proposed Ranger uranium mine.22 Uren had witnessed the atomic bombing of Nagasaki from a prisoner of war camp 90 kilometres away. He became a fervent advocate for stopping uranium mining after the Inquiry found nuclear power was contributing to the spread of nuclear weapons. Though Connor was committed to exporting uranium, he was a staunch ally of Cass in his advocacy of the rehabilitation of mine sites. Keen as he was to export uranium, he personally considered nuclear power to be dangerous. He told Cass that: 'If other people are stupid enough to use it that's their business'.23 The differing approach of the two ministers, the pragmatism of one, and concern for the environment of the other, was at the heart of the public debate whether to mine or not to mine.
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| Mining proponents had tried to confine public debate to the world's hunger for energy and the wealth lost to the nation if uranium stayed in the ground. AAEC scientists told of the great stores of energy locked up in the atom, which could be safely harnessed for the good of all mankind. But all these efforts to educate the public appeared to be faring none too well. To journalist Paul Kelly, uranium miners had earned 'a lousy image'.24 It seemed that they were scoring poorly against the opposition whose disciples went voluntarily among the people. Company officials felt more comfortable in ministerial offices than out in the public arena. They felt pretty confident they would be convincing in places where it really counted when the real decisions to shape the nation's uranium policy came to be made. That would be after the Inquiry. Environmentalists, however qualified to speak on the issues, were never all that welcome in ministerial offices. They would have to rely mainly on the pressure of public opinion to influence the policy-making process once the Commission had reported. |
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The EIS, submitted to the Inquiry by Ranger Mines (now Energy Resources of Australia — ERA), was confined largely to its lease area, just a small fraction of the proposed Kakadu National Park. The grandeur of Mount Brockman looking down, cathedral-like, over the Ranger site seemed to evoke few thoughts of reverence. The company read the EIS requirements narrowly and felt it need only take account of the immediate physical impacts of the mining operation and certainly not how its uranium, once exported, was used, or misused. But public interest in the wider issues of nuclear weapons proliferation and radioactive wastes had been sparked. |
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People's concerns about the dangers of nuclear power could no longer be ignored. The Uranium Producers Forum engaged a nuclear expert from the United States, Ralph Lapp, to appear at the Inquiry and to explain to Australians generally the great benefits to be had from developing nuclear power. In 1957, Lapp had co-authored a book, Radiation: What it is and how it affects you, which warned that: 'The long-term, safe disposal problem of such fantastic amounts of radioactivity is a national and international problem of staggering proportions'.25 Later, Lapp underwent conversion to become one of nuclear industry's most fervent advocates. Scientists, he told Australians, had now perfected the technique of storing the wastes safely in a geologically sound area. During a television interview he commended Ayers Rock (Uluru) as an ideal place to store radioactive wastes! Australia could even run a very profitable business operating a repository at "The Rock", storing waste from other countries. Public offence at the suggestion of making a natural heritage a dumping place for other countries' radioactive rubbish quickly convinced his sponsors to fly him out of the country.26 |
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Tony Grey, Chairperson of Pancontinental, was more respectful of sacred sites and national icons. He was one of a small number among the mining fraternity to proselytise on the merits of nuclear power and not just lament the wealth being lost from leaving uranium in the ground. He joined the debate inside and outside the Inquiry. This he did enthusiastically all the way from Wollongong Workers Club, where he debated with an anti-nuclear campaigner, to the family home of Bob Hawke, President, Australian Council of Trade Unions. Here he debated with Steve Hawke, the union leader's anti-nuclear son. Grey was fearful of the growth of anti-nuclear sentiment and what it meant for the prospects of his Jabiluka mine. There could still be political obstacles to opening his mine, even if Ranger should get the go-ahead. His foreboding was justified.27
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| Once before, Fox had encountered an insurgent environment movement. In 1973, he sat in judgement on building a communications tower on Black Mountain, overlooking Canberra. To nature lovers the tower would mar an unbroken mountain skyline. The tower would be a 'public nuisance', environmentalists told Fox. These were the days before legislation requiring an environment impact statement and legal grounds for the complaint had to be found within existing laws in order to take court action. Fox dismissed the case. However, he did acknowledge the inadequacy of existing law to deal fairly with environmental issues. He expressed the hope that the law would develop to meet the need to protect the environment saying: 'The courts must be, in practice and not simply in theory, available to all'.28 |
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The passing of Cass's Environment Act nudged the law on environment in the direction Fox seemed to hope for. Now he was given wide scope to recommend, though not decide, upon measures to protect a threatened environment. The legislators had brought the law more into line with ecological thinking but just how much had public thinking changed? 'We should not', Fox told one witness, 'just act on our own personal views and prejudices but should try to act on what we understand to be the view of the ordinary right-minded person in the community what you describe as the value positions generally held throughout the community'.29 |
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Environment bodies and the Northern Lands Council were granted parity with Ranger and AAEC as parties to the Inquiry. All parties were invited to make final submissions and to respond to queries put by the Commission at final hearings. Mining opponents submitted to the commissioners that the scope of the Inquiry should embrace not only the local impacts of mining at Ranger but also the global impacts of the whole nuclear fuel cycle. Australians should feel responsible for the dangers and problems arising from the use of its uranium outside Australia. They pointed to the legislation, under which the Inquiry was appointed, and its all-embracing definition of 'environment'. At the outset of the Inquiry, Fox informed the proponents of the Ranger mine that the Commission 'held the tentative view that it could and should inquire into the matters mentioned but it invited submissions as to the correctness of that course'.30 |
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Mining proponents had come to the Inquiry expecting it to be quickly over and done with. Only recently the Whitlam government had signalled its intention to allow new uranium mines to open. Now here was Fox opening up the prospect of an inquiry ranging over nuclear industry worldwide. Surprisingly, neither the miners nor the AAEC raised objection, each in their own way being unprepared. The miners had not thought much about nuclear technology beyond the market it provided for their uranium. AAEC scientists had the expertise, but with their missionary zeal for promoting the technology, they had developed no credible perspective reflecting the wider environmental and social questions. In any case, by then it was pretty clear to witnesses that Fox himself savoured the idea of moving centre stage in the international nuclear debate. |
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A total of 303 witnesses gave evidence at hearings spread over more than a year, which produced 13,525 pages of transcript and 354 documentary exhibits. Questioning the morality of exporting uranium was a theme running through much of the evidence. A large majority of the submissions opposed mining and a great many dwelt on the global issues. Hugh Saddler, research officer for the Inquiry, observed that the ground of the debate, 'was largely determined by the opponents of uranium mining. This tendency has persisted since the Inquiry ended'.31 |
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Curiously, it was these concerns about the dangers of nuclear weapons proliferation, waste disposal and reactor safety that had become the focal point for public campaigning against uranium mining. The damaging impacts of mining on the wilderness of the Alligator Rivers Region, that had sparked the debate in the first place, did, for a time, take second place. This, as Saddler observed, had an influence on the direction of the Inquiry itself. Unfortunately, the specific social damage to the people living in the region tended to be overshadowed in the public debate by these wider concerns. The environment movement as a whole had yet to fully appreciate Aborigines' abiding relationship to their lands and their suffering from dispossession. |
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The effort of preparing submissions meant that to develop factual arguments, lay witnesses went more deeply into the problems of nuclear technology than they otherwise would and relied less on conjecture. It was a confirming experience for many a budding anti-nuclear activist. Kindred movements overseas with first-hand experience of nuclear industry assisted them to gather evidence. Of course, educated communities have considerable resources of intellect and knowledge that mining opponents were able to draw upon to research technical publications on nuclear technology. Most community witnesses had qualifications in the social or physical sciences, though rarely nuclear expertise. This lack of expertise was seized upon by the proponent's legal counsel to try and discredit the evidence of the opposition. However, the Commission found their motives and methods no less 'worthy or proper, or intelligently conceived, than in general are those of the supporters of nuclear development'.32 In fact, the proponents 'at times painted excessively optimistic pictures' of the industry.33 |
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The entire evidence, except for intelligence information on terrorism, was given at open public hearings. On a suggestion for closed proceedings, Fox commented on one occasion:
My own personal approach to that is to avoid that at all costs. I think our traditions are too strong in favour of public hearings and obviously the Act is designed to allow the public be present and hear what is said.34
The Commission seemed to be at pains to provide an even playing field for all comers, lay as well as professional witnesses. However, for all the openness, there remained:
on the one hand a David-like coalition of conservationists, concerned scientists, church and community workers on a shoe-string budget and on the Goliath side big-spending mining companies and government representatives identifying with corporate interests.35
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Corporations could afford to engage specialists to back them up on technical matters relating to the environmental impacts of mining while their opponents had to beg specialists to volunteer to give evidence. Giving evidence could become very trying for lay witnesses, especially when legal counsel and the Commission's advisers tended to be dismissive of them. 'Leaving it to the experts' was ingrained in thinking within the professions. Professional observers on generous expense accounts could attend the Inquiry as it moved from city to city. In contrast, community activists lacked the means to stay the full course. One Friends of the Earth (FoE) stalwart, Wieslaw Lichacz, stayed the distance by hitchhiking from venue to venue around Australia. He became an honorary counsel for the public interest. Fox, always insistent on the public nature of his Inquiry, seemed appreciative of the presence of this unassuming but persistent individual. At one time, when the public had become 'a little less numerous', Fox wished to take a document into the transcript 'as read' but to be seen to do it publicly: 'I don't know whether we have a member of the public. How about you Mr Lichacz ... Are you happy with us taking it into the transcript rather than reading it'.36 Mr Lichacz was happy to agree. There were times when Fox would remind him that the Inquiry was not some general inquiry into sociology and political philosophy. |
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Despite the Commission's acknowledgments of the quality of the public input, AAEC scientists, mining engineers and economists spoke from personal experience, confidently expressing informed views on the technology and its economic benefits. Opponents were outsiders offering criticisms of orthodox science, sketching vague outlines of the alternative living with less energy. They were frequently questioned as to whether their evidence was personal opinion or based on authoritative sources. Most had to earn their daily bread. For the proponents, attending the hearings was part of their job. One witness, John Coulter, a scientist, when pressed for authentication reminded Fox he was 'at a disadvantage ... being in full time employment'.37 |
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A national meeting of environmentalists was held as the Inquiry proceeded. FoE delegates questioned whether they should 'totally dissociate themselves from the Inquiry since they have been refused legal aid ... Naturally all mining companies have QC's'. Some delegates felt they should 'not play the government's ball game'.38 But the meeting generally feared that if FoE withdrew, other groups would feel let down. The Commission was reluctant to recommend financial aid for community witnesses. FoE did eventually receive $A10,000, a meagre sum compared with its mammoth contribution mustering witnesses to prepare submissions, and the $A830,000 cost of the Inquiry itself.39 |
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Opponents were fearful that the Inquiry might pre-empt the wider debate. They were anxious to see that people were not beguiled into 'accepting the Ranger Inquiry as a substitute for a sustained nation-wide discussion of the issues'. What better way was there to suppress the fears and doubts about nuclear industry 'than by claiming that the matter has been definitely resolved by the judgement of three "impartial experts"'. The Inquiry could prove useful, said mining opponents, 'only insofar as its report gives rise to an extensive educational programme'.40 |
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There were doubts about how much the wider concerns would actually count in the Commission's final deliberations. They must, said Fox, work within the bounds of practicality. Perhaps this was Fox thinking aloud on how he might pick his way between the environmental ideal and the reality of the powerful influences exerted by mining corporations in Australian politics.
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| Governments generally are inclined to confine policy making as much as possible within the bureaucracy. Only when public controversy can no longer be contained do they set up a public inquiry, and then with terms of reference which point in the direction of their own policies. Cass designed his Act to counter this ploy. The Labor cabinet had set up a parliamentary inquiry chaired by John Kerin, who favoured mining. When that failed to satisfy disquiet over the Party's uranium policy cabinet decided on a public inquiry. |
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The Fox Inquiry had opened only months before the Whitlam government was dismissed by the Governor-General. When Fraser became Prime Minister, he found the Inquiry a political hindrance to the immediate implementation of Coalition policy of opening mines. He asked Fox to bring the Inquiry to a speedy end but had to resign himself to a long wait, once reminded by Fox of the independence of the Commission under the Act. From the beginning Fox had emphasised the independence of the Inquiry. The other inquiry into the mining of mineral sands on Fraser Island was proceeding without government intervention or undue media attention. Uranium touches the political quick like no other element. |
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Soon after the Commission began its public hearings, the Whitlam government announced a 'Memorandum of Understanding' with the mining company that: 'The development of the Ranger Uranium project on a 50/50 government-company basis can now proceed pending an environmental assessment'.41 The AAEC was to take on a new role as a uranium miner. For Connor, it was a start in the implementation of Labor policy of public involvement in the exploitation of the nation's natural resources. |
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But, with the government virtually approving the Ranger mine, then why hold an inquiry? At a subsequent hearing, a witness, Margaret Holmes, asked Fox 'what is the point of holding inquiries at all and are we just wasting a tremendous amount of time, money and nervous energy, in a completely futile exercise, in eyewash?' Fox defended the Inquiry by saying that the government, the AAEC and miners 'all want to go ahead with it [mining] ... In their view there may be a high probability that it will'. Nonetheless the Commission has 'not given any intimation of our own conclusions; indeed we have not reached them because we haven't heard [all of] the evidence'.42 |
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The Inquiry proceeded at two levels. Except for the issue of the proliferation of nuclear weapons, public submissions were treated respectfully but as of general interest. Evidence on the mining operation and its environmental impacts was dealt with more searchingly. No matter how Fox refuted media insinuation of a mining fait accompli, many opponents like Margaret Holmes remained doubtful about putting so much time and effort into the Inquiry. However, the high profile given public inquiries makes participation almost irresistible to grass-roots movements. They offer a public platform rarely available to ordinary people. |
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A Coalition member of parliament, W.C. Wentworth, suggested to Justice Fox the Inquiry should be scrapped and the government left to make up its own mind on uranium policy. With deep feeling Fox told Wentworth: '[A] very responsible section sees such dangers in connection with the mining of uranium, that we should not mine it at all'. It would be wrong:
not to let responsible sections of the community, and it may be a majority for all you or I know, have a voice in a question of such dramatic, awesome depth as the question as to whether uranium is such a dangerous substance — proliferation has such dangers.43
Pointing to the political obstacles faced by mining opponents he reminded Wentworth that 'Both parliamentary parties have expressed views favourable to mining'.44 Fox seemed intent upon presiding over a forum where people genuinely concerned about uranium could have their say. He was also aware of the political reality within which the Inquiry operated. The Commission would be reporting to a minister with his mind set on mining and his opposite number in the House, Paul Keating, unlikely to do more than seek to score political points.
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| Sir Philip Baxter, former head of the AAEC, and Sir Ernest Titterton, Professor of Nuclear Physics, Australian National University, dubbed the Nuclear Knights, found themselves challenged by anti-nuclear plebeians. Margaret Holmes, homemaker, asked Sir Philip whether his talk of the dangers of not developing atomic energy in terms of 'world-wide famine and threatened nuclear war' was 'an appeal to emotion'.45 This was a turning back on those nuclear scientists who accused opponents that their opposition was 'emotive', not based on fact. In one sense, his playing up of Third World poverty, Baxter admitted, was emotive. But not 'in the sense I applied it to the environmentalists', referring to an earlier criticism of the FoE publication, Slow Burn, 'that only a highly emotional person could write ... and then have the nerve to circulate it'.46 |
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Pro-mining expert Ralph Lapp questioned Amory Lovins after he had given evidence. Lovins, also from the United States, was expert on energy strategies and author of Soft Energy Paths: Towards a Durable Peace.47 The cross-examination of Lapp by the Commission's nuclear adviser, Hester Gray, sounded respectful: 'I'd like to talk about ... breeder reactor systems, which are of course so important'.48 But when he questioned Lovins he implied he was a Luddite: '[H]ow did you come to Australia this time'. 'By air,' responded Lovins. 'You flew, you didn't row a boat'. 'Not this time — it would make a nice trip,' came the wry answer.49 |
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Fox asked Lovins to come back next day to hear Lapp give evidence and then to question him. Perhaps Fox found he was learning more about the true nature of the international nuclear debate and the source of the differences between scientists by listening to an all-in exchange between these two leading and outspoken antagonists than from the tendentious questioning by the Commission's nuclear adviser. Fox allowed the exchanges between the two to roam far from substantial nuclear fact into the realms of philosophy of science. Seemingly, they agreed on an earlier thought, dug up by Lovins from a publication by Lapp before his nuclear conversion, that 'The danger is that a new priesthood of scientists may usurp the traditional roles of democratic decision-making'.50 They seemed to agree that 'because too often the specialists seem to shut themselves off from the rest of society there is maybe a too-parochial set of values'.51 Both agreed that plans relating to nuclear development must be open fully to public scrutiny and not left to the expert. |
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Lapp cast doubt on the integrity of scientists speaking out against nuclear power. Many papers published by nuclear critics, said Lapp, promote extreme arguments and their papers would not survive the review process of mainstream scientific journals. It touched on the question of what was fact and what was opinion, a question that the Commission frequently put to lay witnesses. Lovins cast doubt on the reporting of nuclear scientists. He had heard, said Lovins, of scientists whose private statements are at variance with their public statements, '[which] are, shall we say, unduly influenced by peer pressure and by the prospect of becoming unemployable when they have a family, mortgage, other commitments ... a compromise of individual professional ethics'.52 |
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When the experts see the industry, and those responsible for its operation, so very differently, how then would the conflict over nuclear power be resolved? Who is qualified to make decisions on the future of nuclear power? Is it a scientific 'in-group' who should have the final say? Or is it a democratic right of the ordinary citizen to decide? The wide-ranging argument ground to a halt in total disagreement over some narrow technical data where common ground might have been expected. 'I think,' said Lovins, 'that the data are wrong'. 'I think,' said Lapp, 'the interpretation was wrong'. The differences, philosophical and technical, were irreconcilable. 'Alright I'd like to ask a question and preface it with the observation it's a quarter past four', interjected Fox, in homely fashion: 'The question is what do you think we should do about it'? The Commission', said Lovins, 'will just have to try to sort out our technical differences as best it can'.53 Fox said:
It has been very useful to have this confrontation ... I think we understand well enough ... the fundamental nature of the disagreement between you two and much of the detail of it.54
Lapp and Lovins were to debate the issue on television that night. The Commissioners might well have watched the replay.55 |
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Fox, writing the introduction to the First Report, observed how 'the subject is one very apt to arouse strong emotions both in opponents and proponents'.56 He also concluded in the same vein that 'when matters of fact are resolved, many of the questions which arise are social and ethical ones' and for that reason 'the final decision should rest with the ordinary man and not be regarded as the preserve of any group of scientists or experts, however distinguished'.57
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| On 28 October 1976, 13 months after the first hearing, proponents and opponents gathered together once again, this time packed uncomfortably close in a room of a modern Sydney office block. They had come to hear the Commission's long-awaited findings. The time, 4.45pm, was after the closing of the stock exchange, a reminder of the commercial sensitivity of the finding two days before, when the inquiry into mining beach sands on Fraser Island had recommended that the mining operations on the island cease. Rumour had it that the Ranger Commission likewise might recommend against mining uranium.58 Pancontinental's shares took a heavy plunge. But, on either side of the debate, among those who had tested the political wind, the hunch was that Ranger would get the nod. The mineral sands market was glutted. Uranium had the lure of the modern Midas mineral that would not be denied. |
50
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As the now familiar figures of Justice Fox and fellow commissioners filed into the room there was a hushed silence. Mining proponents awaited judgement on their cherished ventures, and their opponents were alert for indications of future directions of their anti-uranium campaign. The Commission, Fox intoned, had decided to deal with the objection to mining and selling uranium in a first and separate report. A second report, now in preparation, would deal specifically with Ranger's mining proposal and its social and environmental impacts on the region. No decision on mining in the Northern Territory should be made until after the release of a second report. |
51
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Fox announced 16 'principal findings and recommendations'. They had to be understood in the context of the report as a whole. The first finding was that 'The hazards of mining and milling uranium, if these activities are properly regulated and controlled, are not such as to justify a decision not to develop Australian uranium mines'. The second was that the dangers of operating nuclear reactors 'are not such as to justify a decision not to supply and sell Australian uranium'.59 (Emphasis added.) Despite the ambivalent language, the miners heard the sweet sound of approval in Fox's words to mine their uranium. Tony Grey recalled how, 'as soon as he intoned the first one my heart leapt ... It meant the industry would survive'.60 |
52
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Then, seeming to go against the logic of what he had just said, Fox recited a litany of reservations on mining uranium that could be fairly interpreted as a warning to Australians to think better of what they were getting themselves into and to consider instead keeping uranium in the ground. Nuclear power, said Fox, was contributing to a risk of nuclear war and nuclear terrorism. Australian uranium could contribute to the proliferation of nuclear weapons and was unsuited to the energy needs of developing countries. The search for alternatives to nuclear power should be given high national priority. Importantly 'there is at present no generally accepted means by which high-level waste can be permanently isolated from the environment and remain safe for very long periods'.61 This was a rebuttal of scientists' evidence to the Commission that a solution to the radioactive waste problem had been largely solved. |
53
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Because of the hazards, dangers and problems of generating nuclear power, Australia 'should therefore seek to limit or restrict expansion of that [uranium] production'. Furthermore, it was recommended that all contracts should be negotiated only with the provision that the federal government had the power to
immediately terminate mining and selling if it became aware of grave dangers arising from the use of the uranium. That is to say, contracts would only be made with a rider that supplies could be cut off at the will of the Australian government.
Journalist Paul Kelly wrote:
If this recommendation is interpreted literally, it is difficult, almost impossible, to see Australia entering into contracts which are commercially so unacceptable to the buyer. That is the recommendation is either impractical or a veto on uranium exports.62
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54
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The following morning the media focused with evident satisfaction on the first two findings declaring in banner headlines 'a green light for uranium'.63 In the days following, the media changed its tune to present a more balanced assessment of the report. No green light had been given after all. Rather the signal was 'more amber with a shade of red'. Whatever the colour, media business pages speculated not on whether, but when, mining would commence and which mines would be first off the rank.64 |
55
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The government waited some days before announcing the honouring of existing contracts. The report, said Environment Minister, Kevin Newman, 'provides a basis for future decisions on the industry'. Ranger and Queensland Mines would meet their contracts from the AAEC's uranium stockpile at Lucas Heights. While awaiting the second report, the government would work on safeguards 'to apply to any future contracts for uranium exports'.65 Challenged on the Commission's reservations, the Minister protested that 'for every person that could pull out a quote to support his view another could find quotes for a counter view'.66 |
56
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In the privacy of his office Doug Anthony, Minister for Natural Resources, was more direct. Anthony told Tony Grey, who had come to lobby against sequential opening of mines, that 'the government could go ahead now even though it had to observe the formality of waiting for the feisty judge to produce the Second Report'.67 On the matter of sequential development, Anthony was evasive. The media image of a flood of uranium contracts was never much more than just that and Connor's 'socialist' policy of orderly marketing no longer quite the heresy it once was. |
57
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There seemed to be something in the report for almost everybody. Ranger Mines, aiming to lock up Jabiluka, backed the Commission's suggestion of sequential opening of mines. It would 'preserve the balance of supply and demand' while world demand 'is insufficient to justify simultaneous development of mines'.68 |
58
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Making the most they could of the ambivalence, environmentalists announced that: 'The Commission has been very careful to avoid making a decision on a subject they describe as "social and ethical" and not one to be made by the experts'. In view of Mr Justice Fox's disappointment at the continual misrepresentations of his carefully chosen words during the Inquiry, 'it seems he will be even more disturbed by the gross misreading of his first report'.69 Fox seemed unable to understand why his subtle play on double negatives had misfired. Criticised for 'the tortuous use of negatives,' he rejected any idea that the Commission had approved mining. 'The use of negatives was necessary', he contended, 'in order to express findings regarding the hazards of uranium mining and nuclear power reactor operation, without recommending either the export or non-export of uranium'.70
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59
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For all its weaknesses in the eyes of the opponents of mining, the Commission's report became something of a reference work in the uranium debate. Community groups distributed innumerable broadsheets, leaflets and booklets quoting and interpreting the conclusions and findings of the Inquiry.71 How Fox felt about the interpretations made of the report by the opponents of mining he never told them. The mining executives' response was only to be expected. Fox was upset by the Fraser government response and said so. He complained to the Minister about 'the interpretation, which has been placed on the first report'.72 The Minister assured parliament the matter had been discussed satisfactorily with Justice Fox. Paul Keating, the shadow Minister, responded saying:
it was to no avail for the Commission to cry over this misrepresentation of its report. It should have had enough sense to make its findings, conclusions and recommendations clear, firm and unequivocal.73
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60
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When the report came before parliament, Labor and the Coalition both deliberately curtailed the debate, preferring to work out their response in their respective party rooms. At one time Don Chipp, then on the Liberal back bench, counted no more than 11 members present in the House.74 So much for the Commission's recommendation 'for the usual democratic processes to function, including, in this respect, parliamentary debate'.75
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61
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| The Second Report was released in May 1977, almost two years after the Commission was appointed. Fox reiterated that the Commission had made no decision on mining saying: 'The second report does not lend itself to green and red light reporting any more than did the First report'.76 It was a rebuke to both proponents and opponents of mining. The Commission might also have felt a need to distance itself from the anti-nuclear movement and its publications with their prolific use of quotes from the first report. Reading these publications, it could seem at times that Fox was speaking for the movement. In fact, many of the quotes were the recycled arguments submitted to the Inquiry by mining opponents though now they were bolstered by the authority of the Commission. |
62
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Nonetheless, the Commission had legitimised uranium mining, if only by default, through its recommendations for environmental monitoring, supervision of the mine, the payment of royalties, protection of Aborigines from mining impacts, and marketing and safeguarding of uranium. It was all there for politicians to defer to in public while their administrators adapted it to fit government policy. When the Commission came to Aboriginal opposition to mining they concluded bluntly that 'their opposition should not be allowed to prevail'.77 Fox was keeping to the letter of the law and of Land Rights legislation, which decreed that Aborigines must negotiate with Ranger Mines. |
63
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The Commission greatly strengthened the measures proposed by Ranger Mines for pollution control and monitoring, and defined the institutional arrangements for the supervision of the mining operation. A Supervising Scientist was to establish a research institute to gather base-line ecological data and monitor mine contaminants. A Standards and Monitoring Co-ordinating Committee was to be set up with representatives from the mining company, the research institute and the Northern Lands Council. A Uranium Advisory Council was to advise the government on the marketing of uranium. They were bodies, which with time were either dissolved, or weakened in their function as envisaged by Fox. |
64
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The passing of legislation granting land rights was contingent on the leasing of the land to the National Parks and Wildlife Service. Aborigines would have representatives on a park committee. Housing, health and other welfare schemes were to be put in place to cushion mining impacts on Aborigines. |
65
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On 25 August 1977, Prime Minister Fraser announced that: 'The government has examined every recommendation in the Inquiry's Reports. Only in a few cases have the Government's decisions varied from the Inquiry's recommendations'.78 The government had been more circumspect when dealing with the Second Report. The Commission's recommendations had put a number of constraints on how the government went about implementing its commitment to the miners.
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66
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With his Environment Protection (Impact of Proposals) Act, Moss Cass had opened the door to public participation in the policy-making process dealing with protection of the environment. Fox entered wholeheartedly into the spirit of the Act. The Inquiry, said Fox:
[is] the first attempt that I'm really aware of in Australia at some sort of public participation in decision-making. It's what Mr Lovins referred to and he thought the process was admirable because, as he said, there's a public exposure — his words — of the proposals and a public opportunity to speak to them before an independent body and then plenty of opportunity to have a go at the whole result afterwards.79
Justice Fox in his 1973 Black Mountain judgement observed that ecological values in Australian society were shifting. But had they shifted enough for a ban on mining uranium to be politically acceptable? Probably not. The mining lobby exerts a powerful influence on the major political parties. Ingrained in the Australian ethos since gold rush days has been the impulse to turn to mining to pay our way in the world. Perhaps Fox thought the best he could do was to focus attention on the key issues thereby stimulating public debate in the most positive way. Effectively, this passed the issue back to the environment movement to raise protection of the wilderness, urban spaces and workplace in the scale of social values. |
67
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Reflecting on the significance of the Inquiry, political scientist Thomas Smith commented that:
These issues now seem to be placed on the public agenda for public consideration and debate. Whereas many times in the past they were processed within the government itself without a great deal of public knowledge or discussion and without intense open conflict.80
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68
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It has not turned out quite that way. Governments, Liberal and Labor, have since eschewed environmental inquiry which has the openness of the Fox Inquiry. Public input into any inquiry on environmental impact of a technology, no matter the potential risk, is restricted to written submissions and a published government response. If there is public consultation in open forum it is never more than token. |
69
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Writing at the time Moss Cass was designing his Act to provide for public participation in environment policy making, especially with regard to high impact technologies, Tony Benn, long-time campaigner in the British Labour movement, said: 'The control of technology is therefore now a central political question that cannot be separated from the old and continuing debate about the distribution of wealth and power in every country of the world. Technological assessments may involve complicated calculations, but the final decisions must not be handed over to a new breed of self-appointed specialists living a monastic existence in the think tanks of the world'.81 |
70
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Les Dalton, retired research scientist, has written and campaigned on nuclear weapons and nuclear power issues since the 1950s. He co-authored submissions to the Fox Inquiry into uranium mining. His special interest has been in the preparation of visual and written information for community education on nuclear and other energy issues. <lkdalton-dsl@keypoint.com.au>
Endnotes
* This paper has been peer reviewed for Labour History by two anonymous referees.
1.Ranger Uranium Environmental Inquiry, Transcript (hereafter Transcript), p. 1.
2.Ibid.
3. Hugh Saddler, 'Public Participation in Technology Assessment With Particular Reference to Public Inquiries', Centre For Resource and Environmental Studies, Australian National University, Canberra, 1978, p. 5.
4. Personal communication from Dr Moss Cass, 27 May 2005.
5. Quoted in The Uranium Debate, issued on behalf of a meeting of environment groups held in Sydney, July 1976; University of Melbourne Archives, Movement Against Uranium Mining Collection.
6.Transcript, p. 6250.
7.Australia and the Nuclear Choice: The Report of the Independent Committee of Inquiry into Nuclear Weapons and Other Consequences of Australian Uranium Mining, Total Environment Centre, Sydney, 1984.
8. Personal communication from Dr Moss Cass, 27 May 2005.
9. Stewart Cockburn and David Ellyard, Oliphant: The Life and Times of Sir Mark Oliphant, Axion Books, Adelaide, 1981, pp. 112–13.
10. Cawte, Alice, Atomic Australia, New South Wales University Press, Kensington, 1992, p. 6.
11.Ibid., pp.18–19.
12. Cockburn and Ellyard, Oliphant, p. 132.
13. Robert Milliken, No Conceivable Injury: The Story of Britain and Australia's Atomic Cover-up, Penguin, 1986, p. 56.
14.Australian Section Newsletter: Women's League for Peace and Freedom, vol. 1, no. 1, June 1952.
15.The Age, 1 January, 1990.
16. Ann Moyal, 'The Australian Atomic Energy Commission', Science, vol. 6, no. 9, September 1975, p. 376.
17. Jim Falk, Global Fission: The Battle Over Nuclear Power, Oxford University Press, 1982, p. 257.
18.Transcript, p. 6346.
19. Personal communication from Dr Moss Cass, 27 May 2005.
20. Gary Smith, 'Minerals and Energy', in Alan Patience and Brian Head (eds), From Whitlam to Fraser: Reform and Reaction in Australian Politics, Oxford University Press, 1979, p. 238.
21. Falk, Global Fission, p. 258.
22. Tom Uren, Straight Left, Random House, 1995, p. 299.
23. Personal communication from Dr Moss Cass, 27 May 2005.
24. Paul Kelly, 'The uranium men discover they have a lousy image', National Times, August 1976, pp. 16–21.
25. Jack Schubert and Ralph Lapp, Radiation: What It Is and How it Affects You, Heinemann, London, 1957, p. 57.
26. Tony Grey, Jabiluka: The Battle to Mine Australia's Uranium, The Text Publishing Company, Melbourne, 1994, p. 195.
27.Ibid. See chapters 'Memories of the Wollongong Workers Club' and 'Talking Uranium with Bob Hawke'.
28. Murray Wilcox, 'The Role of Environment Groups in Litigation'. Adelaide Law Review, vol. 10, Dec. 1985, pp. 41–8.
29.Transcript, p. 7070.
30.Ranger Uranium Environmental Inquiry; First Report (hereafter First Report), Australian Government Publishing Service, Canberra, 1976, p. 2.
31. Hugh Saddler, 'Australian Uranium: The Environmental Issues', in Stuart Harris and Keichi Oshima (eds), Australia and Japan: Nuclear Energy Issues in the Pacific, Australia-Japan Economics Relations Research Project, Canberra, 1980, p. 60.
32.First Report, p. 6.
33.Ibid.
34.Transcript, p. 2985.
35.The Uranium Debate.
36.Transcript, p. 5719.
37.Ibid., p. 6161.
38. Minutes of meeting to form national strategy and tactics for anti-nuclear groups held at NSW Environment Centre, 3–4 July 1976, University of Melbourne Archives, Movement Against Uranium Mining Collection.
39. The author was actively involved with Friends of the Earth during the Inquiry.
40.The Uranium Debate.
41. The Australian, 11 October, 1975. For the Whitlam Government uranium policy, see Smith, From Whitlam to Fraser, pp. 233–50.
42.Transcript, pp. 2224–5.
43.Ibid., pp. 7628–9
44.Ibid, p. 7629.
45.Ibid., p. 2208.
46.Ibid., p. 2208.
47. Amory Lovins, Soft Energy Paths: Towards a Durable Peace, Friends of the Earth International, San Francisco, 1977.
48.Transcript, p. 2784.
49.Ibid, p. 2557.
50.Ibid, p. 2806.
51.Ibid., p. 2808.
52.Ibid., p. 2702.
53.Ibid., pp. 2848–9.
54.Ibid.
55.Transcript, p. 2806.
56.First Report, p. 6.
57.Ibid.
58. 'Stop mining. Report on Fraser Island: environment policy acid test', Australian Financial Review, 26 October 1976.
59.First Report, p. 185.
60. Grey, Jabiluka, p. 185.
61.First Report, p. 110.
62. 'Fox Report: minefield for the Government', The National Times, 1–6 November 1976.
63. The Sydney Morning Herald, 29 October 1976, announced 'Way Open to Uranium Mining' and the Australian Financial Review, 'Fox Gives Uranium the Go-ahead'. On the same day the Australian hinted approval was conditional: 'Uranium Gets a Yes — with a But' as did the Age, 'Uranium: Cautious Yes'.
64. 'No green light on uranium: more amber with a shade of red', Sydney Morning Herald, 9 November 1976.
65. Press statement by the Minister for Environment, Kevin Newman, 11 November 1976.
66.Ibid.
67. Grey, Jabiluka, p. 190.
68. 'Ranger partner backs Fox report', Australian Financial Review, 2 November 1976. See also 'Uranium extraction gets ready to move ahead', Australian Financial Review, 6 December, 1976.
69. 'Response to the Ranger Uranium Inquiry First Report: Statement by the Australian Conservation Foundation, Movement Against Uranium Mining, Friends of the Earth and the Australian Railways Union', University of Melbourne Archives, Movement Against Uranium Mining Collection.
70. 'Comments on Criticisms by Professor Watson-Munro, referring to three general criticisms in his book Uranium on Trial, a memo circulated within the Commission. University of Melbourne Archives, C. Gray Collection.
71. For an analysis of the First Report, see Joseph Camilleri, The Uranium Debate and the First Report of the Ranger Inquiry. For this paper and other leaflets, pamphlets, broadsheets and newsletters, see Movement Against Uranium Mining Collection, University of Melbourne Archives.
72. 'Govt admits Justice Fox letter on interpretation', Australian Financial Review, 2 December 1976.
73.Ibid.
74.Hansard (House of Representatives), 30 November 1976.
75.First Report, p. 186.
76. 'Final Fox Report recommends tougher controls', Sydney Morning Herald, 26 May 1977.
77.Ranger Uranium Environmental Inquiry: Second Report (hereafter Second Report), p. 9.
78.Hansard (House of Representatives), 25 August 1977. Fraser had already announced government safeguards policy on 24 May, a few days before the Second Report was released.
79.Transcript, p. 7069.
80. Thomas Smith, 'Forming a uranium policy: why the controversy', The Australian Quarterly, December 1979, pp. 32–50.
81. Tony Benn, 'Technology Assessments and Political Power', New Scientist, vol. 56, 24 May 1973, quoted in Saddler, Public Participation in Technology, p. 487–90.
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