Senior government source: "The Government decided to starve the opponents of oxygen, so that they could dictate the manner of the debate that would follow the announcement. Because they couldn't win it on rational grounds, though they would happily engage anybody on that basis, but seeing as they couldn't they decided, 'Right, we'll play the game and in the lead-up to the announcement, get them totally unawares, catch them completely off guard and starve them of oxygen until then. No leaks, don't write letters arguing the point, just keep them in the dark completely."

Bronwyn Adcock (journalist): The benefits of the new reactor's role in nuclear medicine were "deliberately overstated".

Senior government source: "The government decided to push the whole health line, and that included appealing to the emotion of people - the loss of life, the loss of children's lives, and all that data was available to the government from the nuclear medical profession. So it was reduced to one point, and an emotional one at that. They never tried to argue the science of it, the rationality of it."

Adcock: The announcement on a new reactor was delayed for a month to minimise the political fallout. Senior government source: "When Cabinet finally made the official decision in August, it was decided that tactically, it would be a good idea to wait for the Minister for Transport, John Sharp's, announcement on Holsworthy, so that on the one day the people of Hughes would see a good and a bad decision. The strategy was to appeal to the people of Hughes on the day of the announcement especially, so you have the relief of their fears about Holsworthy, and supposedly confirmation of their fears about a reactor."

Senior government source: "I understand that Cabinet considered reprocessing, but decided it was an issue for another generation. They knew that they could dispose of the current spent fuel rods in the US and the UK and then not have a storage problem until the year 2015. You see the new reactor comes on stream 2005, the spent fuel rods have to cool down for seven years and then be stored for another five, so 2015 they've got to worry about their spent fuel rods. Someone else can worry about it. And reprocessing is a possibility then. The technology might be better, the costs lower, but that's 20 years away. So the government thought, we're not going to make decisions about reprocessing 20 years before we have to. But there was a strong lobby within the science community and even industry that said 'Its a legitimate technology. Its safe and relatively inexpensive. Do it.' In fact the reprocessing option was roughly the same cost as the repatriation of the spent fuel rods."

Senior government source: "The big ticket item was the new reactor and it was felt that politically you just couldn't win the reprocessing argument and the new reactor."

Jean McSorley: if Australia builds a new reactor, that encourages other countries to build reactors; reactors are part of the proliferation problem.

Prof. Ken McKinnon (Chair of the 1993 Research Reactor Review): "There is no way that a research reactor, a new one, built in Australia, would ever make a return on the investment for scientific, commercial and medical uses, which would even get towards a fraction of what it would cost for a cost-benefit analysis on the normal industry basis."

Prof. Barry Allen (former Chief Research Scientist at ANSTO): "We've now moved on and its a question of whether we move into the 21st century or whether we're committing ourselves to 20th century science and the reactor and all the things we can do on the reactor are quite clearly 20th century science."

Prof. Barry Allen: "One couldn't escape the conclusion that because you can't generate alpha-emitting radioisotopes on a reactor, then it wasn't core .... business of ANSTO. The question is really what the tax-payer of Australia' wants. Do they want new therapies or do they want the reactor to be the centre of all research."

Prof. Barry Allen: "Its reported that if we don't have the reactor people will die because they won't be getting their nuclear medicine radioisotopes. I think that's rather unlikely. Most of the isotopes can be imported into Australia. Some are being generated on the cyclotron. But on the other hand alot of people are dying of cancer and we're trying to develop new cancer therapies which use radioisotopes which emit alpha particles which you cannot get from reactors. And if it comes down to cost-benefit, I think alot more people will be saved if we can proceed with targeted alpha cancer therapy than being stuck with the reactor when we could in fact have imported those isotopes."

Prof. Barry Allen: "What worries me is that it might have an impact on the scientific development of new directions for the 21st century because at ANSTO for instance it will certainly require a lot of focussing of research to utilise the new reactor. That's absolutely inevitable. Nobody builds a $300 million new reactor and then lets people do non-reactor-based research. So there's really two aspects of it. There's the dollar cost and then there's the redirection of research interests into areas where the potential is already known I would say. There's no blue sky there on that reactor whereas with other approaches, they may or may not fail, but the other approaches have some blue sky and if you can't see blue sky, then you're not going to get alot out of it. The blue sky is the future. And I think the reactor is, you're just looking at a rain-cloud from the past, you can't see too far."

Prof. Barry Allen: "I don't see why these things have to be closed door. I mean this is science and technology. If there are better facilities which would demonstrably serve us better in the 21st century we should be looking at them and comparing them to a new reactor. And if it turns out the new reactor stands head and shoulders above everything else, OK ..... But I really don't think that would be the case so that's the real problem. There's nothing intrinsically wrong with the new reactor; its just that its too late and its not taking us in the new directions we should be going."

Chief Scientist John Stocker didn't want to comment. He learnt about the plan to build a new reactor in the press and wasn't asked to advise the government before the decision to build a new nuclear reactor.

The government did not consult with the current head of the CSIRO about the plan to build a new reactor.

Bronwyn Adcock: Last September the Federal Government announced their decision to spend nearly $300-million on a new nuclear reactor for Australia.

It's the biggest science and technology project in this country's history, a 40-year commitment that's scientifically controversial and has important implications for foreign policy.

Don't be surprised, though, if you missed all of this. Behind the scenes Government strategists were working hard to stage-manage the announcement.

Hello, welcome to Background Briefing, I'm Bronwyn Adcock.

In today's program you'll hear a senior government source describe the strategy used: Starve the opponent of oxygen; catch them unawares; and most importantly, play on people's emotions as much as you can.

This is how a new nuclear reactor was pushed through the barrier of public dissent.

HIFAR DOORS

This is HIFAR, Australia's only nuclear research reactor. It's been here at Lucas Heights, in southern Sydney, for the past 40 years.

The Nuclear Safety Bureau that regulates HIFAR has said it can only operate for another five to seven years. What's contentious is that the Government has now decided to build a new reactor on the same site.

DOORS CLOSING

Now to Canberra, and behind the scenes in the corridors of power: What you'll hear is an actor's voice, recreating the words of a senior Government source.

Source: The Government decided to starve the opponents of oxygen, so that they could dictate the manner of the debate that would follow the announcement. Because they couldn't win it on rational grounds, though they would happily engage anybody on that basis, but seeing as they couldn't they decided, 'Right, we'll play the game and in the lead-up to the announcement, get them totally unawares, catch them completely off guard and starve them of oxygen until then. No leaks, don't write letters arguing the point, just keep them in the dark completely.'

It was a race as to who got to the emotional argument first, the Government or the Greens.

Bronwyn Adcock: Our senior Government source doesn't want his identity revealed, so we've used an actor to re-create an interview that was held in Canberra a few weeks ago. The source reveals the Government's strategy in the six months leading up to the public announcement of the new reactor. He tells how the benefits of a reactor's role in nuclear medicine were deliberately overstated.

Source: The Government decided to push the whole health line, and that included appealing to the emotion of people: the loss of life, the loss of children's lives. And all that data was available to the Government from the nuclear medicine profession. So, it was reduced to one point, and an emotional one at that.

They never tried to argue the science of it, the rationality of it.

So, the replacement reactor, or the new reactor (by the way, that was another one of their strategies: always call it a 'replacement reactor', never ever say 'new reactor' but it's a new reactor. Don't talk about a new reactor, just talk about a replacement reactor).

Bronwyn Adcock: The strategy was more than just semantics though. Last year the electorate of Hughes was not only facing the prospect of a new reactor, but also an international airport at nearby Holsworthy. The announcement on a new reactor was delayed for a month, to minimise the political fall-out.

Source: When Cabinet finally made the official decision in August, it was decided that tactically it would be a good idea to wait for the Minister for Transport, John Sharp's, announcement on Holsworthy, so that on the one day the people of the electorate of Hughes would see a good, and bad decision.
The strategy was to appeal to the people of Hughes on the day of the announcement especially, so you have the relief of their fears about Holsworthy, and supposedly confirmation of their fears about the reactor.

ABC-TV NEWS STING

Angela Pearman: Good evening, Angela Pearman with ABC News. Jubilation and consternation for environmentalists in south-west Sydney tonight. Holsworthy has been ruled out as a site for Sydney's second airport; but nearby, at Lucas Heights, there's to be a new nuclear reactor. The Federal Government will --

Bronwyn Adcock: And in The Sydney Morning Herald, this headline:

Reader: Phew! Only a nuclear reactor.

Bronwyn Adcock: The all-too-perfect coincidence obviously wasn't missed by some in the media. Though the strategy on the whole worked, and public reaction was minimised.

Source: Yes, I believe the Government was very happy with that.

Bronwyn Adcock: Australia is a key player on the international nuclear scene. We have a strong history of involvement in international non-proliferation efforts. We're also part of a major regional program co-ordinated by the International Atomic Energy Agency, the IAEA. This involves us with the nuclear programs of nearly every country in Asia.
Jean McSorley has been involved in nuclear issues internationally for more than two decades.

Jean McSorley: The irony of course is that if we build a new reactor it encourages other people to build a new reactor, and nuclear reactors are part of the proliferation problem, even small research reactors; and it's worth reminding people that Iraq started its nuclear program with a medical research reactor supplied by the western world. So we're caught in this vicious circle where we say 'You need a research reactor', but the research reactor itself is part of the problem.

Bronwyn Adcock: Jean McSorley is a nuclear activist and consultant, and worked for many years with Greenpeace.
The new reactor will cost nearly $300-million, plus another $88-million for sending the waste currently stored at Lucas Heights, overseas. On top of all this are the reactor's running costs.

The most extensive review ever on the proposal for a new reactor was in 1993. It found that a new research reactor can't be financially self-supporting.

The Chairman of the Review was Professor Ken McKinnon.

Ken McKinnon: There is no way that a research reactor, a new one, built in Australia, would ever make a return on the investment for scientific, commercial, and medical uses, which would even get towards a fraction of what it would cost for a cost benefit analysis on the normal industry basis.

Bronwyn Adcock: With the axe taken to almost every area of spending, why then did the Government choose to make such an uneconomic decision?

The Science and Technology Minister at the time was Peter McGauran. He says the benefits for nuclear medicine justify the reactor.

Peter McGauran: There's no doubt that the health issues concluded the matter beyond any doubt whatsoever, that we simply could not import medical radioisotopes with the same surety and certainty of supply and effectiveness that we could producing our own.

Bronwyn Adcock: Was that the main benefit from a research reactor?

Peter McGauran: Yes it was. But of course there's a number of associated benefits in relation to industry, environmental research and consultancies, science research, and of course, education.

Bronwyn Adcock: The Research Reactor Review of 1993 found that on a cost benefit analysis there is no way a research reactor will ever be cost-effective in terms of scientific, medical or industrial uses. How do you justify a new reactor?

Peter McGauran: Simply that Australian lives are at risk.

Bronwyn Adcock: Peter McGauran was the Science and Technology Minister last year at the time the decision was made.

LUCAS HEIGHTS

Man: You've got to sign in here again, Bronwyn.

Bronwyn Adcock: OK.

The reactor is here at Lucas Heights, a suburb south of Sydney. The site itself is surrounded by native bushland, though just a few kilometres away are highly populated suburbs.

GATE SWINGS OPEN

Man: After you.

Bronwyn Adcock: The reactor is operated by ANSTO, the Australian Nuclear Science and Technology Organisation. The Executive Director is Professor Helen Garnett.

Helen Garnett: A multi-purpose replacement reactor will serve Australia in a very wide range of areas. Firstly, you've got the industrial area where currently we do quite a lot of work in neutron activation, analysis is done for industry. But there's also serving industry, the minerals resource industry, the energy industry, not nuclear energy, clearly, but various range of industries in Australia.

The medical side is a side that a lot of people are aware about, but of course it's only one aspect of it and that is the provision of important short-lived radioisotopes for use in medicine, as well as the wide range of diagnostic isotopes that are used regularly and routinely, and for which you need a reliable supply.

Bronwyn Adcock: Another benefit outlined by Professor Garnett is scientific research.

Helen Garnett: I think you're probably aware that neutrons are one of the fundamental ways of studying the structure of matter, and as we move into the 21st century, where we're interested in nano-molecules and smart molecules etc., structure and function is very important, and neutrons are acknowledged internationally as one of the tools to give you structure.

And last, but by no means least, is the whole area of our position in the world from the national interest area, and what we might call the national strategic issues.

MUSIC

Bronwyn Adcock: While science and medicine are given front running in public statements, national security is a vital part of the decision.

According to the senior Government source, Cabinet made an in-principle decision to build a new reactor during a Cabinet meeting in May last year.

The national interest was an important factor in the decision, much more important than was ever actually emphasised.
Source: So health decided the issue, and the Foreign Affairs aspects guaranteed it. I don't know, in boxing parlance, it was a left uppercut followed by a blow to the solar plexus. So it was just a double knock-out, you just couldn't bring any questions to bear on environmental, financial grounds when the health and the security of Australian people are at stake.

Bronwyn Adcock: So you think it was that clear-cut?

Source: It was clear-cut, those two things put it beyond doubt.

Bronwyn Adcock: After one Cabinet meeting, it was known that this was the way to go?

Source: Correct.

Bronwyn Adcock: National interest has been a driving force through many governments. Professor Ken McKinnon chaired the review under a Labor Government in 1993.

Ken McKinnon: I think the input we got from the Government, particularly from Foreign Affairs, was that the national interest was such that it was very important to have a modern nuclear reactor in Australia. And it wasn't possible to talk about that in detail, openly, in ways which would be convincing for the public, so it was necessary to make sure that the scientific side and the commercial, and the medical side, was given equal air time, and it was just difficult that those other three couldn't carry the case on their own.

Bronwyn Adcock: Jean McSorley thinks it's national interest that lies beneath the layers of rhetoric.

Jean McSorley: I think it's almost like the onion game here: if you start peeling away the different layers of why they claim they need a reactor like to make medical isotopes which we believe can be done by other technology, if it's for environmental science which can be equally met by other technologies that we have, if it's for science generally which again there are other technologies and other projects equally as worthy, peel away all those layers, you get down to this core issue of national interest, and it's very nebulous, it's a very difficult concept for the public to grasp. And that's not because they're ignorant per se, it's because they're kept ignorant by people who should be out there explaining it to them.

Bronwyn Adcock: National interest can be translated as ensuring a country's national security. Internationally, the threat from nuclear weapons is countered by an elaborate system of safeguards. Australia has been a main player in this international balancing act.

We have diplomatic presence, with a permanent seat on the Board of Governors of the IAEA, and we have one of the world's largest supplies of uranium.

The Director of the Australian Safeguards Office, John Carlson, advised the Foreign Minister, Alexander Downer, that a research reactor is needed for the national interest. He argues a reactor is an integral part of Australia's contribution towards safeguards.

John Carlson: A research reactor in itself doesn't have a direct connection to safeguards, but through the ability to train people and to get people used to handling nuclear materials and to understand reactor functioning, that certainly gives an important foundation to our knowledge of nuclear issues.

Bronwyn Adcock: Is having a research reactor essential if we want to remain a part of the international safeguard system?

John Carlson: I believe it is. You couldn't demonstrate an immediate cause and effect; if we ceased to have a reactor it certainly would not be the case that Australia would find itself dropping out of influence immediately. But over time, there's no question that our understanding of issues and our ability to contribute would gradually wither away through a process of attrition.

Bronwyn Adcock: The region to our north has one of the fastest-growing nuclear industries in the world, though the Asian economic crisis will dampen some of the activity. Australia has extensive links with this industry in Asia. Just last year, a treaty was signed with Indonesia, to 'facilitate greater co-operation in nuclear science and technology'.
A research reactor in Australia is seen as a gateway into Asia.

John Carlson: It gives us a very good opportunity to emphasise with our regional countries, the importance of non-proliferation commitments. It helps us to develop an understanding with regional countries of these issues and the need to support international treaties and so on. So I think there's a very strong benefit there, and of course another benefit, which is very important in non-proliferation terms, is the creation of transparency in nuclear programs. The fact that there's a two-way flow of knowledge about what each country is doing, that not only do Australians have the opportunity to visit regional countries and see their nuclear programs first-hand, but it works the other way as well. We have many people from the regions working at Lucas Heights, and they can see quite clearly that ANSTO programs are exclusively peaceful.

Bronwyn Adcock: So is there an element of keeping an eye on what our neighbours are doing there?
John Carlson: I wouldn't put it quite in those terms, but as I said, it's all part of the process of enhancing transparency and building confidence. I think that works in a very beneficial way.

Bronwyn Adcock: John Carlson.

The following is a reading from ANSTO's 1994-95 Annual Report.

Reader: While Australia is not a nuclear power and does not use nuclear energy for power generation, ANSTO provides the Australian Government with the technical support required to keep it informed of developments in nuclear activities world-wide, and in particular, in the South East Asia region, where nuclear activities are growing rapidly.

Bronwyn Adcock: More sinister motives are attributed to Australian activities in Asia by Jean McSorley.

Jean McSorley: Australia is certainly part of the western nuclear world, and has been for many years. And central to our defence policy still, is the idea that if at sometime down the track we are threatened by some power, that we could call on the nuclear umbrella of the Americans to cover us.

Now there is no suggestion at the moment that we could take our own independent role in that by having a nuclear weapon, but we are certainly part of the nuclear game inasmuch as we keep an eye on nuclear issues in this region for the western nuclear club, and ANSTO, or Australia rather, has been dubbed The White Man of the Asia-Pacific Club. We are the honest broker who goes out there and keeps an eye on issues. And there's no doubt that there's a belief that by having a nuclear reactor, that we can have quid pro quo training sessions with people like the Indonesians or the Chinese, or the Japanese, but by the same token, that gives us an entree into their nuclear industry.

And there's this subliminal line that it's not just about us helping them with safety or with radioactive waste or technology, it's about keeping an eye on them. In fact it's not so subliminal, that's been said to me by senior Government advisors.

Bronwyn Adcock: Jean McSorley.

The Senior Government source in Canberra, (whose words are being recreated for Background Briefing by an actor to hide his identity), says the Department of Foreign Affairs was very keen for a new reactor.

Source: Very keen. They want to engage the region. They're not war mongers but they wanted naturally the ability to engage in a dialogue with Indonesia with regard to its nuclear program in the future. They want to know trends in Korea, China, Taiwan, and I think Thailand as well.

Bronwyn Adcock: What do you mean by trends?

Source: Do they intend to expand their reactor? Could the reactor be used for the production of weaponry? Those sorts of questions.

Bronwyn Adcock: Is there an element of 'keeping an eye on our neighbours' here?

Source: Yes. Part of the profile you build of a foreign government or country.

Bronwyn Adcock: What was DFAT'S concerns if we didn't get a new reactor?

Source: We would be deprived an insider's view of the nuclear programs of our regional neighbours.

MUSIC

Bronwyn Adcock: Forty-five years ago the United States came to the shocking realisation that America wasn't the only one in the world who possessed nuclear capability. The genie was out of the bottle.

Thus the concept of Atoms for Peace was developed, articulated for the first time by President Eisenhower in a speech to the United Nations.

Dwight Eisenhower: It is not enough to take this weapon out of the hands of the soldiers. It must be put into the hands of those who will know how to strip its military casing and adapt it to the arts of peace.

The United States knows that if the fearful trend of atomic military build-up can be reversed, this greatest of destructive forces can be developed into a great boon for the benefit of all mankind.

John Carlson: The concept of Atoms for Peace was that countries that were prepared to commit themselves to peaceful uses are entitled to maximise the benefits to them of using nuclear energy, whether it's for electricity generation, or for medical industrial uses. And quite rightly, countries would say they're entitled to that benefit, just as we have a free trade in most industrial areas in the worlds for most technology developments. There's no question that nuclear energy is extremely beneficial and countries are entitled to share the benefit.

Bronwyn Adcock: Australia actively works to promote this philosophy within our region.
John Carlson.

John Carlson: I don't think that we're actually out trying to compel anyone to buy Australian, but we certainly recognise, as do the countries in the region, that nuclear technology has a place and we're obviously very willing to assist those countries in deriving the best benefit from nuclear techniques.

Bronwyn Adcock: So perhaps, are we aiding the growth of nuclear technology in the region?

John Carlson: I think we are. We're not involved with nuclear power, Australia doesn't have nuclear power itself, so we're not promoting the use of nuclear power in the region but we certainly are assisting in the best possible use of nuclear techniques in medicine and agriculture, and in industrial applications of nuclear techniques.

Bronwyn Adcock: John Carlson.

Jean McSorley though, believes aiding the growth of any nuclear technology is a risky business for Australia. She says that whether or not a research reactor is benign depends on the political climate of the day.

Jean McSorley: Well research reactors, depending on what sorts of uses you put them to, can basically be used to produce plutonium, albeit it's a very slow way to do it, but it can be done. You can put in the fuel, and depending on the burn-up rate of the fuel that's put in, and the type of fuel you put in, you can make plutonium for a weapon. And 90% of nuclear technology, whether it's enrichment of uranium, whether it's a nuclear reactor, or whether it's chemical reprocessing, at the end of the day of the spent fuel, is dual-use nuclear technology, and that's why there's always this double-edged sword with nuclear plants. That whilst at the same time we could be handing over something that's benign, although it's always a big question on the environment side of it, we're always handing over something that has this great military potential.

We could break that vicious circle, we could offer them alternative technologies. For example, if Malaysia really needs medical isotopes, let's help them build cyclotrons. If they really need a new energy system in Indonesia, we've got the best solar technologies in the world, it's a country that 80% of its population are off the national grid, ideally suited for solar developments. So there is a way through this impasse, but unfortunately we're caught in this nuclear club that we believe membership is all important to.

Bronwyn Adcock: Others say the advantages of a research reactor for national security are simply overstated.
Andrew Mack is a professorial fellow at Auckland University, and a well-known authority on defence issues. He has reservations about the arguments that a reactor is needed for regional security.

Andrew Mack: I think the argument is still to be made. I think that you could make the argument that having a degree of technical expertise means that you get listened to. If for example the governments of the region decided they wanted to create an Asia Atom, which would be an organisation of Asian countries which had nuclear facilities, and it would be an organisation which would have a nuclear safety role, and at some stage have a nuclear proliferation role, then I think the fact that Australia did have a nuclear facility, would give it a voice in that particular organisation. There are proposals for such an organisation but they're very much proposals at the second-track level, there's no official level enthusiasm for it at the moment, and it may never come off.

If it did come off, then I think there's a marginal advantage to Australia being there, but I would stress it's a marginal advantage. And again you come back to the question, is that marginal advantage worth that very, very considerable cost?

Bronwyn Adcock: In 1993 the Research Reaction Review concluded that the final decision on a new reactor would depend substantially on national interest.

Professor Ken McKinnon.

Ken McKinnon: Well we said that. We said that if the Government makes a decision that the national interest is so important that we have to have a national capability in this area, then it would make a decision on it in the same way that it would make a decision on sending troops to Iraq or supplying assistance to Indonesia for an IMF bail-out, or any of those other things that only politicians can make judgements about, because politicians make judgements about things that can't be quantified economically. And we said if that's the way the Government looks at it, it should simply make that decision and nobody can gainsay it and nobody can prove it, either.

TRAFFIC

Bronwyn Adcock: Away from the international arena of non-proliferation treaties and nuclear safeguards now, to the Sutherland Shire, south of Sydney.

The Government was concerned that the decision to build a new reactor could have an electoral impact here. They tried to find another site for the reactor out of Sydney, but economically it was prohibitive. They decided it had to be at Lucas Heights. Fear of public backlash inspired the stage-managing of the announcement and the controlling of the debate.

Former Science and Technology Minister, Peter McGauran.

Peter McGauran: You certainly don't need to be a genius to know with or without the benefit of specific polling, that people's concerns about a nuclear reactor, whether a research one in this case or a power generating one, can cause enormous fear and concern and uncertainty and insecurity in the community. So really, if we were to have done any specific polling, then it would only confirm what we already know anecdotally ourselves from our own experiences as MPs over a long period of time.

Bronwyn Adcock: So you were working off the assumption that people were concerned about nuclear issues in the area?

Peter McGauran: Yes.

Bronwyn Adcock: And how did that affect the way you approached the decision?

Peter McGauran: It made us very careful and indeed very sensitive to local community opinion.

Bronwyn Adcock: Did the Government have a particular strategy to try and quell public debate on the new reactor?

Peter McGauran: We certainly believed that those who inquired of us for information should be given as much detail as was available to us. But you've got to remember that this question had been very thoroughly examined and canvassed exhaustively by the McKinnon Research Reactor Review of the early 1990s. So for some years now, we've known where the different views lie according to the different parties to the debate. Frankly, there was nothing new by the time we came to Government; the same views were held by the same people. So we hardly needed to undertake a massive consultation process that involved people in the decision making process, we already were the beneficiaries of their views.

Bronwyn Adcock: Do you accept that there was very little public debate, and it was all very quiet in the lead-up to the decision, or the announcement rather?

Peter McGauran: Well I saw no sense in going out there and beating the drum and stirring up emotions and inciting protests and the like. But there was nothing particularly secretive about it, was there? Because after all, everyone knew the decision was imminent, and if they wanted to write letters, or seek appointments and meetings with me, or other officials of the Government, they could do so. And in all of this, ANSTO has a very comprehensive local community consultation process: easy access to ANSTO, any information sought is supplied, any visitation to the site is facilitated. So I think the Government was very sensible about the whole thing.

Bronwyn Adcock: National interest is clearly one of the reasons, if not one of the most important reasons, for having a research reactor. Why has the Government never really discussed that openly with the public?

Peter McGauran: Because I would say it was self-evident, or at least to those who thought about the issue. After all, without a research reactor, we have no place at the table anywhere in the world at nuclear forums, and it's obviously I would say, in Australia's national interest to know what's going on in the world of nuclear power and nuclear research.

Bronwyn Adcock: But nevertheless, it was an important part of the Government's decision making?

Peter McGauran: Yes.

Bronwyn Adcock: Was this pushed very strongly by the Department of Foreign Affairs?

Peter McGauran: I won't discuss deliberations of Cabinet. But obviously, the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade are amongst guardians of the national interest.

RIOT NOISES

Bronwyn Adcock: Public reaction against nuclear issues didn't die with the Cold War. Just last week in Germany, thousands of protesters clashed with police as a train carrying nuclear waste crossed the country.

Government around the world fear the consequences of losing control of the debate. Community anger can shelve big plans. The nuclear power utility in Taiwan, for example, finds it almost impossible to find a site because of community outrage, and there are similar problems in Japan.

In 1993, the review team in Australia found there is still a strength of public feeling here, too. Professor Ken McKinnon:

Ken McKinnon: As soon as we began to initiate the first stages of the Review, it became very clear that there was a much stronger degree of feeling in the Australian community about this, and that whatever the Review did, it was going to be under fierce scrutiny and there would be very serious attempts to politicise it and perhaps to even derail the progress of the Review, so we set up in that kind of atmosphere.

Bronwyn Adcock: And do you think people did try to politicise it and derail it?

Ken McKinnon: Well we took a great deal more trouble than would normally be taken by a Review, but it was quite clear from the first announcements about the Review that anything I said would be commented upon and looked for double meanings and adverse comments and prejudgements and so on. So we immediately set the Review up with Hansard reporters and completely public in everything we did in a public atmosphere. And so tried from the beginning to dispel any sense that this was a whitewash for a reactor, or alternatively, putting up the case against it, in a way which couldn't be fought against.

Bronwyn Adcock: Why do you think the issue of do we have any research reactor or not is such a hotly debated, such a divisive issue?

Ken McKinnon: Well I think there's a substantial group of people, including very well informed scientists, who believe that anything nuclear is negative and not in the interests of humanity, and so they struggle against it. And there is another group of more general environmentalists who, without necessarily knowing a lot about things nuclear and the potential benefits of neutron science, who are just opposed to it, again on humanitarian grounds, they don't see it as useful for humanity, but are not really well enough informed to actually know.

Bronwyn Adcock: Professor Ken McKinnon.

Professor Helen Garnett from ANSTO dismisses opposition as old-fashioned prejudice.

Helen Garnett: There's always a few opponents, and we recognise that, but I think in general that's people who are philosophically anti-nuclear and associate us with mushroom clouds, rather than the benefits that we bring to industry, science, and our position as a technologically advanced country.

It's unfortunate that nuclear, in the people who are opposed, when they hear nuclear, they hear bad things, and yet I find it very interesting that when they hear sun, most people in Australia think of it as good, and yet we know that the sun is actually a nuclear fusion reaction up there in the sky for a start, and secondly too much of it can cause skin cancer. But they associate sun with good, not with bad.

Similarly chemists: the average Australian will associate the word 'chemist' with the local pharmacy shop and something good. They don't associate it with the toxic chemicals etc. that are produced as certain by-products from certain industries. The nuclear science and technology industry of which we're part of, produces an awful lot of good things just like the chemist shop does. While some people might think of our by-products as being bad, I don't deny they're radioactive, but they're managed, and the safety management of radioactive materials is far, far more stringent than it is of any other chemical material, so I think it's unfortunate that people have this image by virtue of I think the nuclear issues in weapons etc. But the Cold War has ended and I think that it would be valuable if people were prepared to step back and look at the benefits, and stop thinking of it in the context of the historical past.

Bronwyn Adcock: This debate is not just about a philosophical opposition to all things nuclear though.

Barry Allen: So this is an area where a lot of cell work is done, the different cancer cells.

Bronwyn Adcock: Professor Barry Allen works at St George's Hospital in Sydney, applying nuclear technologies for the development of new cancer therapies. He is ANSTO's former Chief Research Scientist in the Division of Biomedicine and Health. Professor Allen worked at ANSTO for 30 years, but he's now sceptical of the value of a new reactor.

Barry Allen: I mean if this had been ten years earlier, I think I would have been really gung-ho. It's just that we've now moved on. But it's a question of whether we can move into the 21st century, or whether we really are committing ourselves to 20th century science. And a reactor, and all the things we can do on a reactor, are quite clearly 20th century science.

Bronwyn Adcock: Professor Allen is working now on a project that he tried to get started at ANSTO around six years ago. It's nuclear medicine and he's using radioisotopes, but not the type that come from a reactor. These are alpha emitting radioisotopes.

Professor Allen thinks his project was knocked back at ANSTO, because his work wasn't intrinsically linked to the reactor.

Barry Allen: Well again it's management problems, but one couldn't escape the conclusion that because you can't generate alpha emitting radioisotopes from a reactor, then it wasn't core, mainstream, or core business of ANSTO. And the question really is what the taxpayer of Australia wants. Do they want new cancer therapies or do they want the reactor to be the centre of all research.

Bronwyn Adcock: Professor Allen says that by relying on a reactor so heavily, ANSTO is cutting off valuable options. He says instead of building a reactor, we could simply import the radioisotopes then concentrate on more life-saving technologies.

Barry Allen: I mean it's reported that if we don't have a reactor, people will die because they won't be getting their nuclear medicine and radioisotopes. I think that's rather unlikely. Most of the isotopes can be imported into Australia; some are being generated on the cyclotron. But on the other hand, a lot of people are dying of cancer and we're trying to develop new cancer therapies which use radioisotopes, which emit alpha particles which you cannot get from reactors. And if it comes down to cost benefit, I think a lot more people would be saved if we could proceed with targeted alpha cancer therapy, than being stuck with a reactor when we could in fact have imported those isotopes.

Bronwyn Adcock: Professor Allen also has wider concerns about the implications for scientific directions in Australia. He argues that such a large expenditure will tie research down to one area at the expense of others. The reactor will actually hinder the quest for the ultimate nuclear breakthrough, the dreamed-of Blue Sky.

Barry Allen: What worries me is that it might have an impact on the scientific development of new directions for the 21st century, because at ANSTO, for instance, it will certainly require a lot of focusing of research to utilise the reactor, and that's absolutely inevitable. No-one builds a $300-million reactor and then lets people do non-reactor based research.

So there's really two aspect of it: there's the dollar cost and then there's the redirection of research interests into areas where the potential is already known. There's no Blue Sky there on that reactor, whether other approaches may or may not fail, but other approaches have some Blue Sky in them, and if you can't see Blue Sky, then you're not going to get a lot out of it. So Blue Sky is the future, and I think the reactor is - you're just looking at a raincloud of the past, you can't see too far.

Bronwyn Adcock: Professor Barry Allen.

The Executive Director of ANSTO, Professor Helen Garnett, disagrees that there are suitable alternatives to a reactor.

Helen Garnett: There's no technology existing that in one package can replace a multi-purpose research reactor of the kind that is proposed for Australia. There are clearly technologies which can do some things for science. They are not technologies which are appropriate for the production of a wide range of radio pharmaceuticals, nor are they technologies that are available to do a lot of the industrial work that is required, that is done currently for the mining industry etc., nor are they technologies that satisfy the level of knowledge and expertise and safety assessments etc. that's required for national interest.

Bronwyn Adcock: There is no singular view within the Australian scientific community on the benefits of a new reactor. While supporters and detractors can be found, there's also silence from some areas.  Australia's Chief Scientist, John Stocker, whose role it is to advise the Government on science policy, told Background Briefing he didn't want to comment. Mr Stocker said he learnt about the decision to a build a new reactor, in the press, and was not asked by the Government for advice. In 1993, Mr Stocker was Head of the CSIRO; his submission to the Reactor Review said: "CSIRO is of the general opinion that more productive research could be funded for the cost of a reactor."

The current Head of the CSIRO, Malcolm McIntosh, also said he was not asked by the Government for his view on the reactor.

SONG

Woman: Actually when I was leafleting, I saw 'React Against the Reactor', and I thought 'Here's a good song'.
React against the reactor, you may not get a second chance
(Clap along, get your hands warm)
React against the reactor, write your letters, make a stance;
React against the reactor, you may not get a second chance.
We'd like to believe that ANSTO is telling us
All that we need to know
But past records show
They can't be trusted, so
We'll have to do it on our own.
And we'll react against the reactor --

Genevieve Rankin: Hi, I'm Genevieve Rankin, and this function this morning has been organised by the People Against the Nuclear Reactor, which is the local co-ordinating group that we've started in order to try and fight the Federal Government's proposal to build another nuclear reactor on this site. Now we're going to kick off proceedings, I hope --

Bronwyn Adcock: Outside the main gates of ANSTO early on a Sunday morning, around 100 opponents of the reactor are gathered.

Genevieve Rankin is a local Labor Councillor. Some of the people here are experienced anti-nuclear campaigners; others have been more recently politicised by the Holsworthy Airport campaign. They all want the reactor out of their backyard. They are angry about lack of consultation on the Environmental Impact Statement, and worried about the impact the reactor has on their health.

Genevieve Rankin: And certainly the standards that ANSTO goes by are ten times more weak than the standards of the United States Environment Protection Agency has for the amount of Millisieverts of radio iodine that people can be exposed to. And this is why it's dangerous, because it's taken up by the body and it causes, it's been proved to cause, cancers and genetic defects. I mean this is why our population and the whole population of Sydney, should be concerned about siting another toxic nuclear facility within this area. It will condemn the area to continue to receive the waste, for another fifty years at least, because it's producing it here, and ANSTO have said over and over that they are the best place in Australia to do reprocessing. And that was why the Government said last year it was considering reprocessing here, but when they made the announcement they said 'We'll just have a reactor, we won't do reprocessing yet.' They did not say 'ever', and not only that....

Bronwyn Adcock: The question of what to do with the waste from the reactor added to the political sensitivities last year. The vexed issue of the stored 1600 spent fuel rods from the current reactor had not been solved. Reprocessing at Lucas Heights was a widely canvassed option, but fear of public reaction on this issue decided Government policy. It was too controversial to both build a reactor and a reprocessing plant, so the Government decided to ship the fuel rods to the United States and Britain. Our senior Government source explains.

Source: I understand that Cabinet considered reprocessing, but decided that it was an issue for another generation.

Bronwyn Adcock: Why was that?

Source: Well they knew that they could dispose of the current spent fuel rods in the US and the UK, and then not have a storage problem till the year 2015. You see, the new reactor comes on stream 2005. The spent fuel rods have to cool down for seven years and then be stored for another five. So 2015 they've got to worry about their spent fuel rods. Someone else can worry about it. And reprocessing is a possibility then. The technology might be better, the costs lower, but that's 20 years away. So the Government thought 'We're not going to make decisions about reprocessing 20 years before we have to.'

But there was a strong lobby within the science community, and even industry, that said, 'It's a legitimate technology, it's safe, and relatively inexpensive. Do it.' And in fact, the reprocessing option was roughly the same cost as the repatriation of the spent fuel rods.

Bronwyn Adcock: So it would have been the same cost as sending the rods overseas. What was it then that stopped the reprocessing happening?

Source: The Big Ticket item was the new reactor, and it was felt that politically you just couldn't win the reprocessing argument and the new reactor.

Bronwyn Adcock: So you think that Cabinet had to choose one or the other for it to be politically acceptable?

Source: Yes.

SONG
Sing this song and I'll sing it again
And again and again until ANSTO says when
They'll make no more radioisotopes here
Too much radioactive waste build-up by fear
And it's so long, it's been --

Bronwyn Adcock: The debate about the new reactor is about to become very political. It's likely to be an election year; the marginal seat of Hughes is currently held by the Liberal Party; and the ALP has just taken a 'No Reactor for Lucas Heights' stance.

Labor Senator Michael Foreshaw who lives in the area, was at the rally.

Michael Foreshaw: Now I've been involved in politics for a long time, and I've seen some pretty cynical exercises, cynical decisions. And I know many people in the community, most of the community, would hold politicians in pretty low regard. And it's no wonder, when you see what happened last year. On the same day , the Government making an announcement that you will not get an airport in your backyard, and then on that same day you will get a nuclear reactor in your backyard. Now is it any wonder that people have such disregard, such contempt for politicians and governments, when they can do that to a community on the same day?

And they thought that they could soften that decision by saying 'We reject the concept of having nuclear reprocessing. Well I mean do they think people are fools? They're not. Well, they think they are, but people aren't fools, and the decision that they made that day is one that we'd have to of course, stop.

Now I can tell you from the position of the Australian Labor Party, Kim Beazley has made it absolutely clear that there is no way that a Labor Government would support or build a new reactor on this site, or on any other site in Australia with any proximity to any residential or community area.

APPLAUSE

Bronwyn Adcock: Those already jaded by the political process might call this good old-fashioned pork-barrelling. Prior to losing Government, the Labor Party at a Federal level had a history of strong support for the reactor.

MUSIC

Barry Allen: You know, I don't see why these things have to be closed-door, I mean this is science and technology. If there are better facilities which would demonstrably service us better in the 21st century, we should be looking at them and comparing them to the new reactor. And if it turns out the new reactor just stands head and shoulders above everything else, OK, we can all quote that publication and get on with it. But you know, I really don't think that would be the case, that's the real problem. There's nothing intrinsically wrong with the reactor, it's just it's too late and it's not going to take us in the new directions that we should be going.

Source: So it was a big thing for the Government, and there was a sense of excitement about it too. This Government had made a decision that a number of their predecessors had avoided. It was a major achievement within the Government; they were ushering in a new era of nuclear medicine and guaranteeing the educational and scientific research base. But because of the politics, it had to be low-key. They would be judged on how quietly this slipped through unnoticed.

THEME

Bronwyn Adcock: Co-ordinating Producer is Linda McGuinness; Technical Production by Greg Richardson and Judy Rapley; Research, Vanessa Muir. The re-enactment of the Government source was by Ivor Kants. Executive Producer of Background Briefing is Kirsten Garrett. I'm Bronwyn Adcock.