More than 60 members and backers of the Australian Nuclear Free Alliance met for this year's national session in the Flinders Ranges of South Australia from 14 to 16 August. First Nations environmental campaigners have long been a large part of ANFA, which began in 1997 under the name Alliance Against Uranium. People from First Nations communities in several states and the Northern Territory described mining firms pushing on with extraction and processing despite objections from native title holders.
A main focus of anger was BHP's Olympic Dam copper, gold and uranium mine in far northern South Australia. Attendees heard that BHP takes large volumes of water from the Great Artesian Basin, so that flow from mound springs shrinks or stops. Those springs hold cultural weight for the Arabana people. The AUKUS pact was also discussed, especially the shift toward nuclear-powered boats for Australia. Karina Lester, a Yankunyjatjara woman serving as a commissioner on the AUKUS Public Inquiry, reported on that inquiry's progress and on risks she linked to the pact.
Speakers said the still-open question of where to put nuclear waste is tightly tied to AUKUS. They described remote First Nations country in South Australia, Western Australia and the Northern Territory as places AUKUS backers are considering for storing highly radioactive material from the boats' reactors. Nuclear blasts and fallout were a painful memory for several people present. Two speakers from Japanese anti-nuclear groups described lasting effects of the Hiroshima and Nagasaki bombings and of the 2011 Fukushima accident. First Nations people from far western South Australia recalled British nuclear detonations in the region in the early 1950s. Aunty Sue Coleman-Haseldine of Ceduna and Roslyn Peters of the Yalata community spoke of relatives being rounded up and trucked off their country. Some residents beside the blast zones received no warning and later lived with harm they blamed on radiation. Delegates chose a committee to guide ANFA for the next year. The meeting closed with a joint text backing communities pressed to host nuclear waste and pledging to expose hidden schemes, including those framed as salt mining.
ANFA has organised around opposition to placing AUKUS submarine reactor waste on remote First Nations land.
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