by Brian Toohey
After explaining that Maralinga means ‘thunder’ in an Indigenous language, Tynan gave the word a broader contemporary meaning in her book’s final paragraph: ‘If there is a word that speaks not only of thunder but also government secrecy, nuclear colonialism, reckless national pride, bigotry towards indigenous peoples, nuclear-era scientific arrogance, human folly and the resilience of victims, surely that word is Maralinga.’
13
THE STRUGGLE TO REVEAL MARALINGA’S MALIGN SECRETS
‘A small determined band of men could mount an operation … to quickly remove this plutonium and use it for terrorist purposes.’
Jim Killen, Defence Minister 1975–821
The secrecy and ignorance surrounding Britain’s nuclear tests in Australia and their malign legacy remained largely intact until the mid-1970s, when nuclear veterans, politicians and journalists started to highlight the issue. Avon Hudson risked breaking the Official Secrets Act by going on ABC television in Adelaide on 2 December 1976 to explain that dangerous waste remained at Maralinga.2 Hudson, who worked at Maralinga while in the RAAF, also spoke to an Adelaide newspaper, which reported that he had helped bury twenty-six boxes of waste, including plutonium.3 On 4 December, Hudson took a Channel 10 crew to Maralinga, where he uncovered part of the waste-disposal site for the camera.4
Labor frontbencher Tom Uren asked Defence Minister Jim Killen in parliament on 9 December 1976: ‘Is it true that, during the moratorium on nuclear weapons testing between 1958 and 1961, Australia cooperated with the British on conducting secret atomic “trigger” tests at Maralinga and that waste and debris were buried at Maralinga?’ After Killen replied, ‘Urgent inquiries have been set in train to establish precisely what has been buried at Maralinga’, Robert Milliken suggested the issue deserved more media attention than it got.5 The obvious follow-up question was why Defence didn’t already know the answer to Uren’s question. Killen certainly didn’t, but ministerial ignorance was not confined to him: the Coalition’s supply minister, Vic Garland, had falsely told parliament on 14 September 1972 that the radioactive waste at Maralinga had only a half-life of fifteen to twenty years, when Maralinga’s plutonium-239 actually had a half-life of 24,000 years.
Many journalists admired Killen as a wit and bon vivant, but as well as being pompous, he was an anti-fluoridation crank who passionately supported white rule in Rhodesia and South Africa while his prime minister, Malcolm Fraser, actively opposed it. He also had a habit of launching intemperate and error-riddled attacks on anyone who criticised him. Milliken quotes a letter Killen wrote to Uren in February 1977 in which he said the matter he raised had been ‘confused and distorted by several unfounded allegations’ and bluntly rejected Uren’s claim that ‘800 tons of nuclear waste material, including plutonium, is buried at Maralinga’.6 Killen was forced to retract his inaccurate denial after his department told him that Uren was correct.
It didn’t help Killen’s mood when I revealed on 16 December 1976 that the Fraser Government was going to ask the British government to upgrade the security of the plutonium and other nuclear waste material at Maralinga.7 My article said no armed guards patrolled the area and a fence around the waste site had been removed. The government was eager to go ahead with large-scale exports of uranium under what it called ‘the strictest safeguards’ following a recommendation from Justice Russell Fox’s inquiry into uranium mining. However, I explained that Fox had not been told about the plutonium at Maralinga despite his clear need to know. I also said government advisers recognised that waste disposal techniques at Maralinga would need to be of the highest standard to meet Fox’s conditions on uranium exports.
When my article appeared, the chief Defence scientist, John Farrands, sent a minute to Defence head Arthur Tange dismissing as ‘speculation’ its reference to the trials having involved ‘small nuclear explosions’.8 It wasn’t speculation. My source correctly said this was how some British nuclear weapon scientists had described the trials—a description later repeated to the McClelland Royal Commission.9 Farrands’ minute demonstrated how the public service’s failure to challenge British secrecy undermined its ability to advise governments about what had happened during the most important and dangerous military tests ever conducted in Australia. Farrands admitted, ‘Very few, and only one in Defence, [have] any particular insight into the trials which would help in answering Mr Uren’s question.’10 To his credit, Farrands subsequently pressured the British for more information.
The issue returned to the public spotlight after I revealed in October 1978 that a Cabinet submission from Killen warned that ‘extremely toxic’ plutonium at Maralinga included a ‘discrete mass’ of half a kilogram of plutonium buried near the airport, which created a terrorist problem.11 Killen’s submission said a ‘small determined band of men’ could quickly remove this plutonium and use it for terrorist purposes.12 Although the amount was not enough to make a standard nuclear bomb, the submission warned that plutonium’s extremely toxic properties meant terrorists could threaten to disperse it in a city.
My article reported that Killen also said that the plutonium, whose existence he had previously denied, ‘probably represented a breach of Australia’s obligations’ under the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) requirement for Australia to properly safeguard and account for the material. Another disturbing aspect of the Cabinet document was its admission that Australia would have trouble meeting a key IAEA requirement to ‘characterise’ the plutonium’s exact weight and chemical composition—a task it described as being on the ‘borderline of Australia’s technological ability’. The submission did not explain why the well-funded Australian Atomic Energy Commission couldn’t do this job.
Cabinet preferred the option of repatriation of the plutonium to Britain, but admitted this was likely to be rejected by the British. My article said this was because the then government had signed a memorandum in 1968 releasing the British from all obligations in regard to Maralinga. Given that Australian officials had almost no knowledge of what had been left at Maralinga, it was a reckless decision that greatly complicated the task of future governments.
Prime Minister Fraser told parliament on 10 October 1978 that he hadn’t known about the presence of the plutonium until earlier that year. He should have been told while he was defence minister in 1970, when Australia signed the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty requiring it to declare and safeguard any fissionable material, especially plutonium. Killen was soon back-pedalling. The Cabinet submission created extensive media and public interest. He suggested in parliament on 10 October 1978 that there might be no need to do more than repeat his earlier announcement about upgrading the police guard.13 This was an abject repudiation of the clear statement in his own Cabinet submission that the plutonium needed to be removed for safety reasons and to meet our international obligations.
Killen then took the strange step in parliament of appearing to deny my report about what was in his Cabinet submission, even though his Cabinet colleagues knew my report was accurate. This did not stop him launching a florid parliamentary attack on me the following day, enlivened by the line that I wouldn’t be capable of ‘accurately reporting a minute’s silence’.14
Fraser insisted the British must remove the half-kilo of plutonium buried near Maralinga Airport and they eventually agreed, provided Australia paid. Fraser agreed in January 1979 to absolve Britain from any further responsibility to repatriate waste once it had removed the half-kilo of plutonium. The operation took place in dusty conditions in February 1979, with temperatures of over 40°C and winds up to 130 kilometres an hour—hardly conducive to containing any loose plutonium at the site.15
Fraser replaced Killen as the minister responsible for Maralinga, but no one in the government seemed to understand that other highly dangerous plutonium remained on the ground to be blown around in the winds.
14
A WISE MANDARIN IGNORES LEAKS
‘That is not a role that would fit well with this d
epartment.’
Mike Codd1
It is almost unthinkable today that any public servant wanting to hold onto their job would follow Mike Codd’s approach to leaks while he was deputy head of the Prime Minister’s Department in 1978.2 Codd was unfazed by the leaking of Jim Killen’s Cabinet submission on the terrorist and other dangers posed by plutonium at Maralinga. I published the details of the submission in the Australian Financial Review two days after it was circulated to a small number of ministers and officials on 5 October 1978. On the same day, the Cabinet Office told Codd that the submission had been circulated to ‘a wider range of ministers than departments’.
On 9 October, Codd wrote a note to Prime Minister Malcolm Fraser that began by stating: ‘Mr Toohey clearly had knowledge of the Cabinet submission (of which he may have had a copy) and in broad terms of Cabinet’s decision.’ Codd said he was satisfied the leak had not come from the department’s officers, and seemed happy to leave it at that. He said statements had not been sought from the heads of other departments, and added pointedly, ‘Nor have we made any check on handling in ministers’ offices.’ He ended by asking Fraser, ‘Do you want to proceed with such an exercise?’ and adding: ‘The chances of it leading to the identification of source of the leak are not high.’
The Maralinga leak to the AFR was followed in quick succession by reports of the content of three Cabinet submissions on economic issues. The full Cabinet then requested that the PM’s Department devise measures to prevent a repeat of these leaks and the Maralinga one. Codd could not muster enthusiasm for doing anything much beyond discussing four possible measures.
He objected to Option 1—to discourage photocopying—saying there was ‘already a widely held belief that we can trace Cabinet documents so any public announcement could be counter-productive’. He conceded that the department could enlist the assistance of the security agencies in ‘quietly exploring the possibilities’. Left unspoken was the prospect of ASIO interrogating ministers.
Codd agreed to Option 2’s mundane proposal that department heads maintain a record of who saw submissions, but said Option 3’s proposed introduction of regular checks on the handling of Cabinet papers raised two difficulties. First, unless the checks included ministers’ offices, he said they would be perceived as selective. Codd spelled out another difficulty: ‘Regular checking of ministers’ offices could be taken to imply … that unauthorised disclosures could originate from your ministers.’ He saw a further problem in regular questioning of public servants: ‘That is not a role that would fit well with this department.’ He said, ‘An alternative would be the appointment of a special security auditor, but this may be seen as heavy-handed. Altogether, we would not favour this option.’
Option 4—to call in the police—presented further difficulties. Codd said, ‘Again the checks would need to be comprehensive, including departments and ministers’ offices as well as relevant media sources. Such action has not been taken for many years—our recollection suggests not since the Maxwell Newton case—and may be seen publicly to be an overreaction by the government.’ (In 1969, Cabinet asked police to investigate a leak to journalist Newton that was widely suspected to come from future prime minister Billy McMahon.) Codd had a further objection: ‘It would, in any event, perhaps have only a short-term disincentive effect and lead sources to adapt their mode of operation rather than cease.’ He strongly rejected this option ‘other than in the most exceptional circumstances’.
Codd’s candour did not stop him later becoming the department’s head. Today, departments and ministers routinely call in the federal police to try to nail sources, and legislation in 2018 made it a serious criminal offence to either leak or receive a wide range of often innocuous information that ultimately belongs to the public.
15
HOW AUSTRALIA JOINED THE NUCLEAR WAR CLUB
‘Mr Prime Minister, I want to present you with one peppercorn payment in full for the first year’s rent.’
US ambassador Ed Clark1
The Coalition prime minister, Bob Menzies, had one overriding objective in letting the US Navy build a communications base in Western Australia for sending underwater signals to its nuclear-armed submarines: he wanted to use the base to gain an electoral advantage over his Labor Party opponents—as archives unearthed by the National Times in the Kennedy Presidential Library in Boston make plain.2 In announcing his decision in parliament on 17 May 1962 to approve the base, Menzies didn’t even mention submarines, although they were by far the most important reason the US wanted to build the base at North West Cape (NWC) near Geraldton. He merely said that the purpose of the base was to provide radio communications for the US and allied ships. The archives show that the US ambassador at the time, William Battle, pushed Menzies’ partisan political interests behind the scenes.
Labor was concerned that the base could involve Australia in a nuclear war without its consent and make it a nuclear target. Neither concern bothered Menzies, who preferred to stress how Labor leader Arthur Calwell and his deputy, Gough Whitlam, were harming the American alliance by allegedly taking their orders from ‘faceless men’ at a special conference of the party. Calwell and Whitlam had adopted the policy that a future Labor government would renegotiate the NWC agreement regardless of outside pressure.
Although Ambassador Battle was a personal friend of John F. Kennedy’s from World War II, the archives also show that the White House was not so biased against Labor, much to Menzies’ annoyance. Battle was an example of an ambassador who is ‘captured’ by a host government. The White House wanted the NWC base to go ahead, but didn’t want to upset Labor unnecessarily in case it won the next election. Battle sent a secret cable to Washington on 25 March 1963 welcoming Labor’s problems: ‘The recent difficulties in the Labor Party over our Very Low Frequency [VLF] radio installation [at NWC] have placed the Menzies government in an excellent position to make much needed political ground … The government is anxious to overcome the Labor charge, to which it is somewhat vulnerable, that it has not kept the country adequately informed of its intentions and of its negotiations with the US. In order to take advantage of the atmosphere of the moment, the government is now extremely anxious to move ahead full tilt with the VLF and status of forces agreement negotiations.’
Battle said Menzies told him that he wanted to table both these agreements in parliament before the end of the current session. He said in the same cable, ‘This is very much to the advantage of the US. With the present precarious balance in the Parliament the government could be replaced by Labor at any time.’ (The 1961 election had left Menzies with a one-seat parliamentary majority.) The briefing papers for Kennedy’s scheduled White House meeting with Calwell on 23 July 1963 summarised Menzies’ tactics more astutely than Battle had. The papers said that ‘in trying to exploit’ the establishment of the VLF station, Menzies introduced a bill for ratifying the agreement ‘even though there was no obligation to obtain parliamentary approval … Apparently, the government hoped the ALP would introduce an amendment to make the bill conform to ALP policy, with the thought that left-wing members might split the party.’3
Battle ended his 25 March cable with a plea that the State Department stop issuing statements that annoyed Menzies. The cable said Menzies had been upset by a report in the Sydney Sun on 25 March 1963 in which a State Department spokesman made the diplomatically impeccable statement, ‘As for which party should be in power, it’s none of our business.’
Battle followed up with another secret cable, on 17 April 1963, giving tactical advice about the ‘privileged status’ being sought for the NWC facility. He said the Australian public favoured defence cooperation with America, but cautioned, ‘Public attitudes to detailed arrangements on US government and US forces privileges in Australia are likely to be entirely different … Many things to which the Australian government has already agreed will inevitably give rise to extensive press and public comment, much of it probably unfavourable.’ Battle explained th
at the Menzies Government ‘had already conceded points which he had expected they would be totally unwilling to grant’. The ambassador also said Menzies had offered to remove any further sticking points that the government had only put there to increase public acceptance. But Battle counselled Washington to accept the window-dressing, saying, ‘If the Australian people are unwilling to accept its terms, the agreement would result in defeat for the present government at the polls. This would be too high a price for us to pay.’
The negotiations were a doddle for the US. The original text of the agreement that the external affairs minister, Garfield Barwick, presented to the embassy on 26 March 1963 said almost nothing about Australian control—merely that the two governments would consult from time to time. But the text continued: ‘The station will be open for inspection at all times by the Australian government and, except with the express permission of the Australian government, will not be used for purposes other than naval communication.’ The owner’s right to inspect proved too much for the US, and Barwick promptly changed it to say merely that the government ‘will at all times have access to the station’. The stipulation confining it to naval communications was changed to ‘defence communications’.
To reassure the Americans that Australia was not really asking for anything of substance, Barwick presented a clarifying letter to the embassy on 7 May 1963 saying that the word ‘consultation’ was ‘not intended to establish Australian control over the use of the station’, nor to prevent the US communicating with Polaris nuclear submarines, nor give Australia ‘control over, or access to, the contents of messages transmitted’.
