I think that, in my own personal opinion, the British should pay up, that it is quite clear that the cleanup that was done, Operation Brumby in 1967 and the report that was done into it by Pearce in 1968, it wasn’t correct. For various reasons the cleanup was not done properly. Now we have the technology to do it properly, and Australia I don’t think has been unreasonable – it was presented with a range of options from about $13 million to about $600 million to clean the place up and it has chosen, if you look at the document, bits and pieces of this and that and come up with $101 million. And that to me seems a reasonable amount and really by today’s international standards it is not a huge amount.
Royal was also interested in the role the article might play in the ministerial discussions about to get underway in London, asking if the article added more fuel to the fire. Anderson replied:
I should think so, yes. New Scientist is quite widely read in the UK – it goes to Whitehall in other words. The point is, why we concluded that it was going to be a heated meeting is that in all the public statements that have come out recently, especially in the parliament over there, it’s quite clear that unless there’s something going on behind the scenes, but at least publicly they do not intend to pay up.
The British Government faced other forms of pressure too. A documentary prepared by the BBC, with Australian Government assistance, entitled Secrets in the Sands, was broadcast in Britain on 28 October 1991. It revealed the human and environmental toll of the British tests and was screened just before Crean met Lord Arran, then undersecretary of state for Defence and the Armed Forces, to present a case based on the TAG report and early interpretations of the Roller Coaster data. The material in the New Scientist story had been in official British hands since 1991, having been presented by a senior Australian Nuclear Science and Technology Organisation scientist, Des Davy (then general manager scientific for the organisation, and also convenor of TAG), during an official meeting in December 1991. But the information was not made public. The public and private pressure on the British Government was mounting at this time, far more than it had done during the Royal Commission some years earlier. Anderson’s story seemed to cap off the moral case that Australia had been making for compensation. Less than a week after the New Scientist story appeared, compensation was finally promised.
‘Britain’s dirty deeds at Maralinga’ was an important piece of scientific investigative journalism. It contributed (either directly or indirectly) to a political solution to a longstanding national problem. The story resonated beyond the New Scientist readership, becoming a high-profile mainstream media story in Australia and adding to the body of investigative journalism that finally illuminated Maralinga. The story also provided conclusive proof that the old way of reporting on the British nuclear tests in Australia was gone. Accepting official information, explanations and undertakings was no longer sufficient. The journalists covering the tests and their aftermath now were watchdogs and, true to the metaphor, were dogged in seeking the truth. Anderson’s story was a pivotal moment in the uncovering of Maralinga, marking at last the full transition from opacity to transparency. In this sense it was the culmination of a process that had begun 15 years earlier. Although the Maralinga lands may not have been completely remediated by the compensation deal that was finally struck a few days after the story was published, more was done than if the issue had languished without such intense public scrutiny. The outrage of a wronged servant of the British nuclear tests, John Moroney, found the right outlet. Much to his frustration, terminal illness prevented Moroney from playing the central role he believed his involvement warranted. He did not live to see the outcome of his painstaking Roller Coaster analysis, either, but one must imagine he would have been well pleased.
12
The remains of Maralinga
The little bridge they crossed on the oleander-lined path leading from the airfield to the terminal was called the Bridge of Sighs. Last rites – a sigh of trepidation by those arriving; a sigh of relief by those departing – were often performed on that spot.
The whole story, when one looks at it in detail, is rather sordid and the major villain in that sordid story is without doubt the then Prime Minister in the early 1950s, the lickspittle Empire loyalist who regarded Australia as a colonial vassal of the British crown. I refer of course to Sir Robert Menzies, the twentieth century satrap who invited the British to pollute Australia with nuclear fallout: the pseudo patriot who cravenly surrendered Australian sovereignty to a declining imperial power.
Thomas Tooke has been with the RAAF since 1943 and has seen service in Korea and Japan. Now he is sent to Maralinga as a despatch corporal, having been kitted out at the Edinburgh RAAF base north of Adelaide with an extra pair of drab pants, a shirt and a pair of boots. He is bemused that when he arrives at Maralinga in 1956 he is issued with an army uniform as well, without explanation. He has a bigger shock when he arrives at Camp 43, not far from the forward area. The bulldust is like nothing he has ever seen. It’s as fine as talcum powder and gets into everything. He and his comrades find that the bulldust conceals a layer of hard limestone when they try to drive tent pegs into the ground. They have to get jackhammers to make holes in the limestone to raise their two-man tents. They get some gravel from the Watson railway siding to try to damp down the swirling, annoying dust.
The men eat in the marquee and the food’s okay. The blowflies, though, are terrible. Unfortunately, they ‘blow’ the food by laying maggots in it, and bad things happen as a result. He and everyone else he knows have bouts of terrible diarrhoea. He drops from 86 kilograms to 70. That is not the only discomfort. Any metal at the camp is so hot that you can’t touch it, as temperatures soar above 38 degrees Celsius. The open showers have a drum holding several gallons of muddy, salty water held aloft by a hook on the side of a tent. If it’s windy when you take a shower, you have to follow the droplets of water around before they are carried away. There is a coconut oil soap called Seagull Soap, which can lather even in the hard water. Every fortnight on pay day the men get one cake of soap and two razor blades. Tooke hears a rumour about an attempted lynching of a civilian, one of the construction crew, caught cheating at cards. A South Australian policeman apparently stepped in and stopped it. The desert conditions make everyone a bit crazy. Lennie Beadell swings by every so often, with his Land Rover packed to the gunwales, on his way to an even more remote location.
After a while, Tooke moves from the tented camp to Maralinga village. It is a bit more luxurious, but the aluminium sheeting on the roof constantly lifts up and flaps around, requiring endless running repairs. Still, most of the cooks in the village are navy men, and the food is excellent. There are movies six times a week, although sometimes the same film is shown two nights in a row. As the day approaches for the first Maralinga atomic test, the village fills up. Boffins from Britain start to arrive, and observers from New Zealand, America, Canada and other places. Even the observers are pressed into service. No man is left idle; they all get to work on myriad construction tasks. Tooke drives his 10-tonne crane to the forward area. He sees a working group and asks if they know where a colleague is. A cultured voice replies, ‘What regiment is he with?’ Tooke drives off laughing.