atomic oz explodes

The Story ..
In 2000, the WA anti-nuclear movement created and staged Atomic Oz, to show the story of the nuclearisation of Australia and how ordinary people can get in its way. Played out on a giant map of Australia, the show travels from 1947 to 2001 in a circus sideshow of military, industry and Prime Ministerial figures doing their stuff with the assistance of the Public Relations aide and their pet monstrosity 'the Friendly Atom'. This 45 minute show, packed with comedy, song, dance routines and pyrotechnics, is about celebrating our community’s desire for the 21st century to be nuclear free.

Audiences will time-travel from the British bomb testing at Maralinga and the Montebello Islands, the establishment of the research reactor at Sydney’s Lucas Heights, through the uranium mining boom times and the Jabiluka blockade to the arrival of the international waste dump masterminds - Pangea. Atomic Oz is the all singing, all juggling, very funny history of Australian mums, dads, grandparents, students, indigenous groups and unionists standing up and saying 'NO' to a future contaminated by nuclear waste.

The original script was devised by folks from the Community Anti-Nuclear Network with guest director Vivienne Garrett, and written by Scott Ludlam. It has just been revised by Scott and current director Mar Bucknell, and will update itself as it goes along like all true folklore….

The Story Behind The Story..
The show answers these questions: How did we come to be Atomic Australia? Could things have been even worse today if there had been nobody protesting along the way? (The answer to this one is a resounding 'YES!' by the way.) Now, with a Federal election in view, it’s time once more to make serious decisions about the future of our country and raise our voices, pens and barricades once again. Australia is poised at a nuclear crossroads.*

It's all about participation...
This massive organisational task has only been made possible with amazing contacts we’ve made from cross-continental journeys with Cycling For Sustainability, to the Global Greens, Students for Sustainability and Independent Media conferences - plus financial help from WA anti-nuclear groups (Pilgrimage Project, Anti-Nuclear Alliance of WA and People for Nuclear Disarmament) and individual donors. We do need more $$$ to complete our itinerary. See Share Float/Donations. The West Australian crew are taking the bones of the production to other capitals, where the flesh will be provided by local talent (Like to be involved? See dates, states and local contacts) at festivals, theatres, university campuses, and prominent public places. Community involvement is being further encouraged through benefit gigs and film screenings of the amazing new documentary "Fight for Country" (Rockhopper Productions) about Jabiluka, “Buddha weeps in Jaduguda”, by Shriprakash (about an Indian community’s struggle for survival beside a U-mine) and “Fire & Water”, Roxtop’s doco about the world’s largest uranium mine in SA.

*Nuclear Crossroads 2001
a) a continuation of the Liberal government’s open-slather expansion of the uranium industry in Northern Territory and South Australia; construction of a new nuclear reactor for Sydney (which would gobble up half our Science budget) deadly radioactive waste trucked from Sydney through dozens of rural communities and dumped on Aboriginal land in South Australia; and involvement in George W. Bush's Star Wars plans via the Pine Gap installation near Alice Springs
OR
b) An ALP government which is committed by party policy to blocking any new uranium mines. This fact alone seriously differentiates the ALP from the Liberals’ nuclear path. There are also real hopes that the ALP would block the building of the new reactor, return the Jabiluka lease to Kakadu National Park, re-examine the Beverley approval in light of the fact that acid leach mining is not world’s best practice, block a national waste dump for South Australia and NOT allow Pine Gap to be used for Star Wars. These hopes do not comprise the anti-nuclear movement’s whole wish list by a long shot (see charter) and of course only time will tell whether these hopes are well-founded. Greens, Democrats and ALP members of Parliamentarians for a Nuclear-Free Future will undoubtedly continue to push a strong anti-nuclear agenda in a new parliament.