Australia’s Pacific Maralinga: Nauru’s War of Rehabilitation in nuclear perspective

Abstract

By focusing on the Nauruan and Maralinga Tjarutja campaigns for environmental rehabilitation from and justice regarding colonial-era phosphate mining and nuclear testing, this article investigates a striking double standard in the way the Australian Government dealt with the legacies of environmental extraction and toxicity in the Robert (Bob) Hawke–Paul Keating era (1983–96). As the Nauruan politician Alfred Derangdedage Dick underlined, Australia’s reluctance to accept liability for environmental damage inflicted during its administration of the island was inconsistent with its demands that the United Kingdom take responsibility for cleaning up residual radioactive waste from the British nuclear testing program in South Australia. The comparison reveals that despite the natural tendency towards legal solutions that minimised their respective liability and avoided the creation of unwanted precedents, Australian and British officials nonetheless took seriously the moral and political implications of their respective positions. While admitting that moral, legal and political tensions are at the heart of all modern environmental policy (especially when significant costs are involved), this article nonetheless demonstrates that the absence of official co-operation at key moments in the Nauruan pursuit of a practical, post-mining solution is what ultimately led to an unsatisfactory legal settlement and further acrimony.