Deputy Leader of the Opposition

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PRESS STATEMENT BY TOM UREN, M.P., DEPUTY LEADER OF THE  OPPOSITION - THURSDAY 9 DECEMBER, 1976

In the 1960/61 period the Australian Government  had co-operated with the British Government in the secret

evasion of an international agreement limiting the testing of

nuclear weapons, the Deputy Leader of the Opposition, Mr. Tom Uren, said today.

.  He said that in 1958 the Governments of the United States, the Soviet Union and Britain convened a conference

of technical experts on the problem of supervising a ban on

testing. A temporary moratorium on testing, while the

officials' talks continued, went into effect on October 31st,

1958. The moratorium lasted almost three years until the  Soviet Union officially resumed tests on September 1st, 1961.

"However during this moratorium period the

Australian Government co-operated with the British Government  to secretly carry out certain atomic tests in the Maralinga  area."

.  Mr., Uren said that these tests were of atomic .  Ã¢ÂÂ   r) .  .

"triggers" for thermo-nuclear bombs.  The explosions caused

by these tests were so small that they could escape public  scrutiny and international detection. Officially the tests

of that period had been described as safety trials on  atomic weapons.

.  -  Mr. -Uren.claimed that there were over 40 kilograms

of high level plutonium waste buried at Maralinga. This volume

of waste could only have come from these tests, a failed

detonation of a bomb or from a nuclear power station.

.  "The Australian Government has already denied

that they were wastes from British Nuclear power stations.

In a press statement on September.14, 1972 the then Minister

for Supply, Mr. Garland, said that no permission had been

Parliament House,. Canberra, A.C.T. 2600 /2 .

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given by the Australian Government for the British to bury  wastes from "nuclear establishments" in Australia. Ã¢ÂÂ   .

'  Mr. Uren said that further evidence for secret

tests, in the 1958-61 period, came from the Minister's

statement itself. Mr. Garland's statement, noting that  Australia had never produced nuclear weapons or bombs said:

"So it is clear that original radioactive

material required for the range of experiments  had to be brought from Britain. It is .

possible that in some cases it arrived by air in  Â·  .  lead lined boxes."

Mr. Uren claimed that the Minister's statement was  literally true. This reference to Mr. Avon Hudson's allegations

of the airborne lead-lined boxes, while intended to make

people think that the reference was to the 1956/57 official

tests, was actually an admission that in 1960/61 secret  tests were then being conducted. Mr. Hudson's confusion arose  perhaps because he was not sufficiently trained to distinguish

between wastes and fuel for atomic "trigger" tests.

Nevertheless Mr. Hudson could distinguish between

whether he was at Maralinga in 1956/57 or in 1960/611

Mr. Uren said that, considering the incontrovertible

fact of the existence of nuclear wastes at Maralinga, the

former Minister for Supply's press statement gave further

indirect evidence of these wastes being from nuclear tests in

his assertion in the press statement :  Â·

"But what is buried at' Maralinga and the other

places is purely the radioactive waste from the

experiments conducted with this original

material."

Mr. Uren claimed that it was significant that the

Memorandum of Agreement between the U.K. and Australian

Governments had been classified and so it was not available for

public scrutiny.

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In conclusion, Mr. Uren called for a Royal

Commission/or a Judicial Inquiry to consider in full all

allegations and claims that have been made concerning the  origins and disposal of nuclear wastes at Maralinga and the

Australian Ionising Radiation Advisory Council should have

the funds restored to enable them to investigate all the

environmental questions involved.

