"People said that you can’t win against the Government. Just a few women. We just kept talking and telling them to get their ears out of their pockets and listen. We never said we were going to give up. Government has big money to buy their way out but we never gave up. We told Howard you should look after us, not try and kill us. Straight out. We always talk straight out. In the end he didn’t have the power, we did. He only had money, but money doesn’t win."

Open letter from Irati Wanti on the announcement that the Federal Government had backed down on plans to dump radioactive waste in South Australia.

A remarkable campaign
In July 2004, the Federal Government announced it would no longer seek to dump the nation's radioactive waste on Kokatha land in South Australia. The announcement was the culmination of 24 years of campaigning by Aboriginal elders in central South Australia and their allies in the local and national anti-nuclear movement.

• ABC Online story
• Sydney Morning Herald story
• Irati Wanti media release

The campaign against the Federal government proposal to dump the nation's radioactive waste in South Australia eventually became truly mainstream, with everyone from the State government to the commercial media, anti-nuclear and indigenous groups united in opposition.

The national nuclear waste dump was a critical component of the Federal government's plan for a more heavily nuclearised Australia. Waste management is the achilles heel of the nuclear industry worldwide. The government saw the need to get rid of the waste from existing nuclear operations before the rebuild of the Lucas Heights reactor could occur; and chose indigenous land as a convenient place to dump the waste. Except that, locally and globally, the community stood together to demand a saner course of action.

The site options for a low-level dump have been in the public domain for some time, with a handful of sites across South Australia and one at Jackson in WA on the shortlist. The frontrunner for the last few years has been Billa Kalina, an area the size of Tasmania in central South Australia. This is Anti-Kirinya/Umoona Aboriginal country, and the local people led a fierce resistance to plans for the dump.

The plan was to centralise the low-level waste presently stored at 50 or so sites around Australia, and dump it in unlined trenches. Much of the bulk of this waste was to come from ANSTO operations at Lucas Heights, with the remainder being hospital and engineering wastes.

All along however, this low and intermediate level waste had been a side issue. The real question being, what happens to the high-level reprocessing wastes from the Lucas Heights spent fuel? On this matter the government has always been much less forthcoming. Most people believed that as soon as the low-level dump was established, it would become the de-facto dump for spent fuel as well, and the government would have removed one of the major obstacles to construction of the new reactor at Lucas Heights.

Launch of anti-nuclear pilgrimage, 2003. Image courtesy Irati Wanti

"We are winners because of what’s in our hearts, not what’s on paper."
Irati Wanti Campaigners

"We Arabunna People are outraged, fuming, that the government wants to dump its radioactive waste on this area it calls the Billa Kalina Region. We oppose this project outright. We are putting you on notice , directing you, telling you, "Do not dump that radioactive waste on any of our land. Do not turn Lake Eyre into a sacrificial area for the nuclear industry's poisonous waste. Do not keep exposing our people to the harmful radiation. Do not destroy another sacred site."
Kevin Buzzacott and the Arabunna People

"If the nuclear waste dump is without risk you would build several of them in your cities and save the cost of transport to a remote area."
Kevin Buzzacott and the Arabunna People

IRATI WANTI
[the Poison-Leave it!]
Website of the Kupa Piti Kungka Tjuta - Senior Aboriginal Women of Kupa Piti