A new federal government came to office on 5 March 1983 under the leadership of Labor’s Bob Hawke. For its first 18 months, Senator Peter Walsh as minister for Mines and Energy was responsible for dealing with the Maralinga aftermath. Walsh was widely disliked, a dour, ‘dry’ economic rationalist, with little of the urbane charm of Beale or Killen. He soon understood the issue of British nuclear tests could become a major political problem for the new government if it was not dealt with expeditiously. During 1984, he issued prolific media releases on the tests, until a reshuffle late in the year saw him head off to a legendary stint as Finance minister. After Walsh’s departure, Gareth Evans took on the portfolio.
Walsh commissioned the Kerr Report into the risks to the Australian population from atmospheric fallout during the tests. He announced the report, under Charles Kerr, professor of preventive and social medicine at the University of Sydney, on 15 May 1984, and it reported 16 days later. It was not a public inquiry, but Kerr did have powers to call expert witnesses and to examine all published scientific literature and other data relevant to the tests. Kerr’s report forcefully criticised the most comprehensive account of the British nuclear tests to that point, the 1983 AIRAC 9 report, commissioned in 1980 by the minister for Science and the Environment David Thomson. The McClelland Royal Commission subsequently endorsed the demolition job carried out by Kerr.
AIRAC fought back. Emeritus Professor AM Clark, its chair in 1984, wrote to Barry Cohen, minister for Home Affairs and Environment, saying the Kerr Report was not objective and contained numerous ‘internal contradictions and apparent misunderstandings’. Clark’s objections came to nothing – AIRAC, with its roots in the AWTSC, was discredited. Kerr called for a public inquiry to further probe the serious issues that his team had turned up. Walsh, although apparently opposed to setting up an expensive inquiry (according to radiation scientist Peter Burns, Walsh ‘said the Royal Commission was just a lawyer’s picnic, a waste of time and money’), was forced into it as the weight of evidence became too heavy and the political risk too great. The ARL scientific team in 1984 came back with evidence of loose plutonium in large quantities on the site, prompting Walsh to make statements about the need to fully understand exactly what was there. The fundamental disagreement between AIRAC and the Kerr Report was the final straw.
Walsh announced the establishment of the Royal Commission on 5 July 1984. In his media release, he indicated that the inquiry had been charged in particular with examining ‘measures that were taken for protection of persons against the harmful effects of ionising radiation and the dispersal of radioactive substances and toxic materials as judged against standards applicable at the time and with reference to standards of today’. The Royal Commission was headed by Jim McClelland, a colourful former Whitlam government minister known to many as Diamond Jim. At that time, McClelland was chief judge of the Land and Environment Court of New South Wales. The two other commissioners were Jill Fitch, senior health physicist for the South Australian Health Commission, and William Jonas, lecturer in geography at the University of Newcastle.
By the time he wrote his autobiography, Walsh had major regrets about the McClelland Royal Commission, labelling it as ‘the most unambiguous mistake I made in Government. As is usual with Royal Commissions, the terms of reference were stretched, the budget blew out and the reporting date extended… Lots of us approved when Jim McClelland tipped buckets on Menzies, but this did not justify the $3.5 million it cost the taxpayers’. However, at the time, he showed public support. He had little choice, particularly given the plutonium uncovered at the site in May 1984.
The McClelland Royal Commission was officially opened in Sydney on 22 August 1984, with a second formal opening in Adelaide on 11 September. Oral evidence was taken in Sydney, Brisbane, Melbourne, Adelaide, London and Perth, as well as in remote locations at Marla Bore, Wallatinna and Maralinga in South Australia, and Karratha in Western Australia. After 116 sitting days, all in open session, the final sitting was supposed to be on 26 July 1985, although another sitting was needed in September to hear final submissions. The Royal Commission took oral evidence from 311 witnesses, including 48 Aboriginal people, 18 Australian scientists or technicians and 241 Australian service personnel. It travelled to London to interview a full roster of British witnesses, 40 in all. William Penney, the star witness, was subjected to questioning that was much more probing than any he had been exposed to in the 1950s; enduring it must have been difficult for someone more accustomed to keeping his own counsel. McClelland actually liked Penney, describing him in a later interview as ‘a nice old man. I got the impression that he wasn’t terribly proud of having used his immense scientific skills on an exercise that was really an exercise in futility’. McClelland thanked Penney warmly for his evidence, given while the old nuclear scientist was ailing, and singled him out in the official Royal Commission acknowledgments, saying, ‘In particular, Lord Penney, who interrupted his retirement to give the Royal Commission the benefit of his unique experience and vast knowledge’.
The epic transcript contains the historical and technical story of the test series, but also the human story. In many ways it is a remarkable document, with moments of tears, sadness, humour, frustration and fury. The final report strongly condemned just about every aspect of the British nuclear tests. It was long-delayed national revenge, needed to lance a boil. Australia has held scores of Royal commissions over more than a century. Few have been as thorough, angry or applauded as this one. Not all of its recommendations were achieved, however. First, the recommendation that a Maralinga commission be established to oversee a clean-up and manage the range, with representation from the traditional owners as well as the UK, Australian and South Australian governments, did not come to pass in the form envisaged by Jim McClelland. However, the Maralinga Tjarutja people were represented on the Maralinga Consultative Group with representatives from the South Australian and UK governments. Also, the Australian Government paid for independent scientific advice for the Maralinga Tjarutja people beyond the recommendations of the Royal Commission report. Second, no national register of Indigenous people and veterans harmed by the tests was ever established. Third, despite the report’s recommendation that the UK Government pick up the tab for the clean-up, after years of wrangling, Britain paid less than half. The real power of the Royal Commission was in the fact that it took the side of Australia against its nuclear coloniser.
During the months that the Royal Commission was taking evidence, the nuclear tests maintained a high profile throughout the mainstream media, and many publications assigned reporters to attend the hearings. Journalists Paul Malone and Howard Conkey in a feature for the Canberra Times asked Ernest Titterton what was known about the plutonium contamination risks at the time of the experiments. In his typically cantankerous manner, referring to the 12 Vixen B tests, he asked them, ‘Wouldn’t you expect plutonium around the place? Of course there is plutonium around the place, it is always there, it was always expected’. He said that it had not been possible to go around and pick up every fragment of plutonium, some of which was not sufficiently radioactive to be reported. He maintained his nuclear warrior persona until the end, even as the truth about Maralinga was uncovered at last for the Australian public to judge.