Japan nuclear crisis, Fukushima Daiichi: Cleaning up Japan's radioactive water could take decades

 

Julie Makinen and Ralph Vartabedian Reporting from Tokyo and Los Angeles


For nearly four weeks, Japanese emergency crews have been spraying water on the damaged Fukushima Daiichi nuclear reactors, a desperate attempt to avert the calamity of a full meltdown.

Now, that improvised solution to one nuclear nightmare is spawning another: what to do with the millions of gallons of water that has become highly radioactive as it washes through the plant.

The water being used to try to cool the reactors and the dangerous spent fuel rods is leaking through fissures inside the plant, seeping down through tunnels and passageways to the lowest levels, where it is accumulating into a sea of lethal waste.

No one is sure how to get rid of it safely.

"There is nothing like this, on this scale, that we have ever attempted to do before," says Robert Alvarez, a former assistant secretary of the U.S. Energy Department.

Japanese officials estimate that they already have accumulated about 15 million gallons of highly radioactive water. Hundreds of thousands of gallons are being added every day as the plant's operator, the Tokyo Electric Power Co., continues to feed coolant into the leaky structures.

Ultimately, the high-level radioactive substances in the water will have to be safely stored, processed and solidified, a job that experts say will almost certainly have to be handled on a specially designed industrial complex. The process of cleaning up the water could take many years, even decades, to complete. The cost could run into the tens of billions of dollars.

Victor Gilinsky, a former member of the Nuclear Regulatory Commission and longtime advisor on nuclear waste, said the problems facing Japan are greater than even the most highly contaminated nuclear weapons site in the U.S., the Hanford Nuclear Reservation in Washington state.

The Department of Energy is decommissioning eight reactors at Hanford and plans to process about 58 million gallons of radioactive sludge now in leaky underground tanks, all at an estimated cost of $100 billion to $130 billion, according to outside estimates. But unlike Fukushima Daiichi, none of the Hanford reactors melted down and virtually all of the site is accessible to workers without risking exposure to dangerous levels of radioactivity.

"It will be a big job, bigger than Hanford," Gilinsky said, though he cautioned that U.S. costs are unnecessarily high and that the Japanese may be able to do the work more economically.

The immediate problem facing the Japanese is how to store all that water until the reactors and the spent fuel pools are brought under control. The plant's main storage tanks are nearly full. To make room, Tokyo Electric Power, known as Tepco, released a couple of million gallons of the least contaminated water into the ocean this week, with the expectation that its radioactive elements would be diluted in the ocean's mass.

But international law forbids Japan from dumping contaminated water into the ocean if there are viable technical solutions available down the road.

So Tepco is considering bringing in barges and tanks, including a "megafloat" that can hold about 2.5 million gallons. Japan has also reportedly asked Russia to send a floating radiation treatment plant called the Suzuran that was used to decommission Russian nuclear submarines in the Pacific port of Vladivostok. The Suzuran was built in Japan a decade ago.

Yet even using barges and tanks to temporarily handle the water creates a future problem of how to dispose of the contaminated vessels.

U.S. and Japanese experts say the key to solving the disposal problem involves reducing the volume of water by concentrating the radioactive elements so they can be solidified into a safer, dry form. But waste experts disagree on exactly how to do that.

The difficulty of concentrating and then solidifying the contaminants depends on how much radioactivity is in the water, the type of isotopes and whether the work can be done on the Fukushima site.

UC Berkeley nuclear engineering professor Edward Morse said the water needs to be diverted into a concrete-lined holding pond fairly soon, where natural evaporation can help reduce its volume.

Youichi Enokida, a specialist in nuclear chemical engineering at Nagoya University in Japan, agrees that the material should be put into some type of storage that would concentrate it through evaporation, though Japanese experts generally talk about the need for a sealed pool.

"We must concentrate the liquid," he said.

Even with a pond, it could take up to 10 years before the radioactivity would decay enough for the material to be handled, Morse said. Building a storage pond "buys you time," he said.

But other experts sharply disagree, saying exposing the material to open air could allow radioactive iodine and other volatile substances to blow off the site, adding to the remote contamination that is already spreading dozens of miles from the plant.

A factor that could vastly complicate the problem is the presence of tritium, or heavy water, which is produced during fission. Tritium cannot be filtered out of water, instead requiring an extremely expensive treatment process.

"If the contaminated water has relatively high tritium or tritiated water concentration, then treatment could be more complicated," said Joonhong Ahn, a nuclear waste expert at UC Berkeley.

Nuclear power plants normally have systems in place to treat tritium on site. But the condition and capacity of the Fukushima system is not known.

Enokida and Morse contend that if the water can be concentrated, it can then be put into dry form or even turned into glass, as is planned at Hanford and other contaminated sites around the world. But this process, called vitrification, is expensive and requires a small-scale industrial facility.

The alternative — processing the waste elsewhere in Japan — is likely to be controversial.

"The fishermen will protest; this is inevitable," Enokida said.

Morse said that the plant faces at least six months of emergency stabilization, about two years of temporary remediation and anywhere from two years to 30 years of full-scale cleanup. Furthermore, the high levels of ground contamination at the site are raising concerns about the viability of people working at the site in coming decades.

It will take hundreds or even thousands of workers years or decades to handle the cleanup, experts said.

U.S. officials have not yet discussed the water management problems with their Japanese counterparts. But Nuclear Regulatory Commission spokesman Scott Burnell said the nuclear industry has a long experience with filtering radioactive contamination out of water, though never at a plant that has suffered such damage. At Three Mile Island it was decided to allow the tritium-contaminated water to evaporate, though that meant the tritium escaped as well.

At some point, however, Japan will have to add facilities to existing treatment plants in order to vitrify the radioactive material into glass logs or other dry forms that could be stored in alloy canisters. Those logs or canisters would have to be buried somewhere.

Where that burial ground is built is a question that the Japanese are only beginning to consider.

julie.makinen@latimes.com

ralph.vartabedian@latimes.com

Makinen reported from Tokyo and Vartabedian from Los Angeles.



Devastating Effects to Environment Due to Japan's Radiation Leaks

By Jamie Epstein

Today, the operator at Japan’s Fukushima nuclear plant said that it has found traces of radioactive iodine that is a staggering 7.5 million times the legal limit. This sample of seawater was taken from right near the facility, forcing the Japanese government to begin a health limit for radioactivity in fish.

Radiation can cause many harsh consequences to any form of life—whether it be human, plants or animals. The high levels of radiation we are seeing in these first few seawater samples are unfortunately more than likely just the beginning.

Radiation can damage living things not just at a cellular level, but on a genetic level as well. In rare cases, damaged cells can repair themselves, but in most situations once the damage happens—it cannot be reversed. Genetic damage can be catastrophic as the radiation can damage a cell's DNA so bad, that it will result in a cellular mutation that can lead to various forms of cancer.

The consequences to seeds from radiation can cause damage which can completely stop them from sprouting and germinating, completely altering or in most situation halting plants from reproducing all together. Just like with humans, radiation can cause genetic mutations in growing plants which can make surviving virtually impossible.

Genetic changes in the cells of animals force cells to grow in abnormal ways. Levels of radiation can cause damage to capillaries and small blood vessels, and can lead to such extremes as heart failure or brain aneurysms. Because radiation usually is compounded by intense heat, exposure to extremely high levels of radiation can often "cook" an animal. A type of radiation called microwave radiation can actually cause an animal to "cook" from the inside out.

According to Ehow.com, all radioactive material decays over time but how long this time frame is depends on what type of material it is that has been leaked. For example: Strontium-90 is only radioactive for 53 days., Uranium-235 in the environment will remain radioactive for over 700 million years, Uranium-238 will remain radioactive for 4.5 billion years, and Rubidium remains radioactive for 47 million years.



China concerned by Japan's nuclear water discharge into ocean

China on Friday expressed concern over Japan's discharge of contaminated water from an earthquake- and tsunami-damaged nuclear power plant into the ocean.

'As Japan's neighbor, we are naturally concerned about the situation,' Foreign Ministry spokesman Hong Lei said. 'We hope Japan acts in accordance with international law and takes practical measures to protect the oceanic environment.'

Japan dumped 11,500 tons of radioactive water this week into the Pacific Ocean as it tries to stabilize the damaged reactors at the Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Station, 250 kilometres north-east of Tokyo. Partial meltdowns, explosions, fires and releases of radiation have occurred at the plant since the March 11 disaster.

'China is closely watching the development of the situation and at the same time carrying out an expert assessment,' Hong said. 'We will stay in close contact with Japan regarding the situation. We ask Japan to timely and comprehensively provide us with up-to-date information concerning the situation.'

Why Didn't Japan Tell Korea of Nuclear Waste Plans?

The Japanese government neither consulted nor informed Korea about a plan to discharge some 10,000 tons of contaminated water from the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant into the sea. Yet according to Japan's TBS Television on Tuesday, Tokyo discussed the matter with the United States in advance and they agreed that it is feasible to dump water tainted with low levels of radioactivity into the sea rather than storing it unless there are other options available.

Tokyo also told the International Atomic Energy Agency of the decision in conformity with the Convention on the Prevention of Marine Pollution, but it did not tell individual neighboring countries because the water was discharged on the Pacific side. That at least is the explanation offered by Japan's Chief Cabinet Secretary Yukio Edano in a press conference Tuesday after Tokyo's silence raised eyebrows in the region.

Japanese Foreign Minister Takeaki Matsumoto told reporters separately the dumping does not violate the 1986 Convention on Early Notification of a Nuclear Accident, which obligates nations to provide data such as the accident's time, location and radiation releases to affected states "when harmful trans-boundary radiation release is feared."

But Korea has already detected small levels of radiation linked to the stricken plant, and even Japan's own maritime pollution prevention act stipulates that Tokyo should consult with countries that could be affected when it decides to dump harmful materials into the sea. It is common sense for Tokyo to notify Seoul because seawater from the Pacific side is borne by currents to the East Sea.

Even in Japan itself some feel they could have been given more information. Japanese Minister of Agriculture, Forestry and Fisheries Michihiko Kano said it is "very regrettable that Tokyo Electric Power Company has released radioactive water into the sea without telling" the ministry. Fishermen in the nearby areas protested because they are worried about their catch.

"It stands to reason that Korea should be given more accurate information since it imports Japanese agricultural and fisheries products," a diplomatic source in Tokyo said. "It seems Japan is trying to downplay the scale of the disaster by keeping a lid on information."

Meanwhile, contamination was worsening Tuesday in the sea near the Fukushima plant, with iodine-131 detected in coastal waters at 7.5 million times above normal. Contamination fears have led to a sharp drop in seafood consumption in Japan.

englishnews@chosun.com

EDITORIAL: Kan owes world explanation for pumping radioactive water in sea

The government's decision to pump radioactive water out of the damaged Fukushima No. 1 nuclear power plant into the ocean was far too grave to be explained simply as "unavoidable."

We saw little indication of the administration's dilemma over it. Moreover, the administration did an appallingly sloppy job of explaining its decision to the nation as well as the rest of the world.

Work has begun at the Fukushima No. 1 nuclear power plant to pump out low-level radioactive water into the ocean. The stated purpose of this exercise is to "prevent greater damage" by getting rid of low-level radioactive water to secure space for storage and containment of high-level radioactive water at the plant.

But under normal circumstances, resorting to such a measure would be simply out of the question.

Tokyo condemned Moscow in the past, when Russia dumped into the Sea of Japan low-level nuclear waste generated at a nuclear submarine base. And Japan supported the revision of the "London Convention," which was aimed at preventing maritime pollution and the dumping of waste, and later amended to include low-radioactive waste in the list of banned substances.

This is all the more reason why the Japanese government definitely owes the international community a detailed explanation of how it reached its latest decision and what further measures it intends to take.

Japan has deeply offended its neighbor, South Korea, by not consulting with it beforehand.

But more to the point, the government was too insensitive to the international community's growing concerns about the unfolding nuclear crisis in Fukushima.

Prime Minister Naoto Kan and others should have called an immediate news conference and explained in detail the circumstances and the reasons that led to the decision.

With any hope of an early containment of the nuclear crisis now gone, the Kan administration's crisis management ability is being severely tested.

The prime minister's job is to expect every contingency, double- and triple-check the soundness of his plans, provide speedy and accurate information to the nation and the rest of the world, and establish a comprehensive strategy to ensure that all available resources are put to effective use.

Reportedly, the idea of pumping contaminated water from the Fukushina plant into the ocean was suggested by Tokyo Electric Power Co., and the government decided to proceed with it after consulting the Nuclear Safety Commission.

Was the final decision reached after every possible option had been examined thoroughly? The nuclear emergency response headquarters is headed by Kan, and the government and TEPCO have formed an ad hoc joint headquarters to deal with the crisis. Did all the members concerned share and examine carefully their expert opinions?

The opinions of on-site personnel matter a lot, but our impression is that the government took a back seat even though it is ultimately responsible for a decision of this magnitude. From what we understand, Chief Cabinet Secretary Yukio Edano left it to TEPCO to provide a detailed plan of action, and the Ministry of Agriculture, Forestry and Fisheries, which overseas the fishing industry, was left completely out of the loop.

And the support system of nuclear experts to assist the administration is not adquate. Besides government organs, there should also be businesses, universities and public research institutes--such as the Japan Atomic Energy Agency and the National Institute of Radiological Sciences--participating actively in a comprehensive support system.

But the Nuclear Safety Commission should still occupy center stage. The commission's presence has been dimmed since the accident at the Fukushima plant, but it must live up to its intended role as the nation's nuclear safety watchdog.

--The Asahi Shimbun

Radioactivity from Japanese nuclear plant leak found across Scotland



Trace of Japanese radiation detected in Kansas

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Lendman: Venezuela's New Social Responsibility Law

 

by Stephen Lendman



Unlike Venezuela, U.S.American content is run by a government/giant media cabal, offering managed news, infotainment, and junk food news. Stephen Lendman takes a further look at the new law in Venezuela and its implications.
 
On December 20, Venezuela's National Assembly (AN) passed a new Law of Social Responsibility in Radio, Television and Digital Media. Contrary to harsh criticism, it doesn't impose censorship. It expands on existing legislation to promote responsible programming, including online. More on it below.

Whatever socially responsible laws the United Socialist Party of Venezuela (PSUV) led government passes, unfair criticism follows.

On December 20, Council on Foreign Relations International Affairs Fellow in Residence Joel D. Hirst called it an "attack on freedom of speech," saying:

It "place(s) severe restrictions on the Internet, centralizing access under the control of a government server. They require the airwaves as a 'public good' and set in place harsh penalties for arcane and obtuse violations of the law."

False, like more examples below.

On December 24, New York Times writer Simon Romero (a longtime Chavez critic) headlined, "New Laws in Venezuela Aim to Limit Dissent," saying:

"The National Assembly has approved a sweeping set of laws that impose penalties for spreading political dissent on the Internet," quoting opposition legislator Ismael Garcia calling it "a new dictatorial model."

Despite doing valuable work, Human Rights Watch (HRW) serves wealth and power interests, especially in areas of foreign policy. George Soros and the US State Department were involved in its founding, and its funding is largely corporate, including from the Ford Foundation, Rockefeller Foundation, Carnegie Corporation of New York, Time Warner, and wealthy private donors.

Notably, HRW failed to denounce the Bush administration's failed 2002 anti-Chavez coup or the successful 2004 one ousting Haiti's Jean-Bertrand Aristide.

It's unsurprising that on December 22, it headlined, "Venezuela: Legislative Assault on Free Speech, Civil Society," saying:

New Venezuelan laws "pose serious threats to free speech and the work of civil society." The new media law "introduce(s) sweeping restrictions on internet traffic, reinforce(s) existing restrictions on radio and television content, and allow(s) the government to terminate broadcasting licenses on arbitrary grounds."

Absolutely false. HRW knows it, and quotes passages from the new law refuting its own claim. More on the new law below.

On December 24, Dow Jones Newswires (Wall Street Journal publisher) headlined, "Flurry of New Laws Strengthens Chavez's Grip on Venezuela," saying:

The new media law "bans the broadcasting of anything that may 'foment anxiety in the public or disturb public order,' which international organizations say could clamp down on free speech....The only thing left is for a new law renaming everyone Hugo."

The corporate funded Committee to Protect Journalists "condemn(ed)" Venezuela's new media law," saying:

It "could promote further censorship and seriously limit freedom of expression in Venezuela. (It's) a clear attempt by the Venezuelan government to further its clampdown on critics and independent media."

It does nothing of the kind. Most countries, including America, have laws and regulations setting acceptable media standards, especially for radio and television reaching large audiences, including children to prevent their exposure to offensive material.

Jurist Legal News & Research was more measured headlining, "Venezuela passes law banning certain Internet content," saying:

"The law expands 2004 restrictions on television, radio and print media to Internet and electronic subscription services content (by banning content) that promotes unrest among citizens or challenges legally established authorities."

Media violators face increased fines, repeat offenders possible revocation of the licenses. Critics argue it restricts free speech and constitutionally guaranteed rights. Honest observers disagree, saying it promotes responsible programming.

Venezuela's 2004 Law of Social Responsibility for Radio and Television (LSR)

It defined and "establish(ed) the social responsibility of radio and television service providers, related parties, national independent producers, and users in the process of broadcasting and reception of messages, promoting a democratic equilibrium between their duties, rights, and interests, with the goal of seeking social justice and contributing to citizenship formation, democracy, peace, human rights, education, culture, public health, and the social and economic development of the Nation, in conformity with constitutional norms and principles, legislation for the holistic protection of boys, girls, and adolescents, education, social security, free competition, and the Organic Telecommunications Law."

It affirms:

-- freedom of expression without censorship;

-- judicial mechanisms for families and the whole population to develop socially responsibly as an audience;

-- the exercise and respect for human rights;

-- an emphasis on social and cultural information and material for children and adolescents to aid their development and social conscience;

-- the encouragement of domestic independent productions;

-- a balance between public duties, rights, and interests  and those of radio and television providers as well as  related parties;

-- dissemination of Venezuelan cultural values;

-- meeting the needs of the hearing-impaired; and

-- promoting active citizen participation in affairs of the country.

Nonconformance to these standards may result in fines, denial of broadcast spaces, suspension or revocation of broadcast licenses, or refusal to renew the right to continue broadcasting. Specific violations include:

-- transmitting messages that illegally promote, apologize for, or incite disobedience to the law;

-- transmitting material that impedes the actions of citizen security organisms and the judicial branch necessary to guarantee everyone the right to life, health and personal integrity;

-- transmitting propaganda or advertisements deemed lawless under the LSR code of conduct; and

-- noncompliance with the obligation to offer free spaces to the State, including the Executive Branch's Information and Communication Ministry.

Violations may result in license suspensions for up to 72 hours when messages transmitted are intended to:

-- incite war;

-- adversely affect public order or promote crime; or

-- incite actions detrimental to Venezuela's national security.

A license may be revoked for up to five years when a penalty for any of the above violations is repeated following suspension, and within five years of the first penalty.

Yet Venezuela's media are notably free, open and corporate dominated, especially its five leading private TV companies, controlling over 80% of the market and majority of viewers. In addition, all major newspapers are corporate-owned. TVes public broadcasting and Caracas headquartered TeleSur (the Latin American terrestrial and satellite TV broadcaster) reach much smaller audiences.

Venezuela's New Media Law

It enforces digital as well as conventional media social responsibility by "guarantee(ing) respect for freedom of expression and information, without censorship, within the limits of a social and democratic state." It creates a Television Programming Commission to establish ways and conditions for assigning air waves space to national independent producers "with the aim of guaranteeing the democratization of the radio electric spectrum, pluralism, freedom of creation, and....effective conditions for competition."

A comparable Radio Programming Commission is also established under the same mandate. On January 5, Venezuela Analysis published answers to four questions provided by the Ministry of Communication and Information.

(1) How does the new law change the old one?

Besides "radio and television, Internet media are added as subject to regulation, (not to) limit web sites or services available, (but) to ensure the responsible use of this important tool. Currently, the law provides for sanctions against those who use the Internet to incite hate, criminal activity, war propaganda, alterations in public order, homicide; or advocate to disobey constitutional authority." The new law also requires broadcast "of at least 50% of nationally-produced television programming during prime time hours."

(2) Why weren't these provisions included in the 2004 law?

It regulated television and radio, not the Internet. As a result, sites like "Noticiero Digital....published numerous articles and messages inciting violence, rape, criminal activities and even the assassination of public figures." Often calls are heard "for the Armed Forces to revolt against the government or even to assassinate President Chavez on different web sites, blogs, Twitter or Facebook. These are dangerous actions that no civilized society can permit."

In fact, they're prohibited in America where anti-government propaganda intended to incite public hostility, violence, or rebellion would subject abusers to charges of sedition or treason.

Seditious conspiracy under Section 2384 of the US Code, Title 18 states:

"If two or more persons in any State or Territory (of the US)....conspire to overthrow, put down, or to destroy by force the (elected) Government of the United States, or to levy war against them, or to oppose by force the authority thereof, or by force to seize, take, or possess any property of the United States contrary to the authority thereof, they shall each be fined under this title or imprisoned not more than 20 years, or both."

Article 3, Section 3 of the US Constitution defines treason that may subject offenders to capital punishment if found guilty, stating:

"Treason against the United States shall consist only in levying War against them, or in adhering to their enemies, giving them Aid and Comfort."

Courts would then decide guilt or innocence of actions such as the following:

-- insurrection or rebellion involving armed groups, creating a reasonable expectation that force or violence may be used against the sitting government;

-- mutiny or unlawfully taking over command of the US government, or any part of it, including the military;

-- sabotage to include damaging or tampering with any national defense material or utilities;

-- sedition as covered above, including inflammatory TV, radio, print or digital material intended to incite rebellion against the government;

-- subversion defined as free speech gone too far, including transmitting blatantly false information aiding enemy or opposition forces;

-- syndicalism organizing of a political party or group advocating the violent overthrow of the government; and

-- terrorist systematic use of violence or threats thereof to intimidate or coerce the government or whole societies by targeting innocent noncombatants.

(3) How will the new law affect social networks like Twitter and Facebook?

It prohibits censorship, including for social networks like Twitter, Facebook and others.

(4) Do other countries have Internet regulations?

Many, in fact, including America where "the President can disconnect all Internet services for up to four months based on" perceived cyber-attacks, true or false. Web sites may also be closed, and "all content inciting violence against individuals or criminal activity is strictly prohibited on commercial websites."

On January 13, National Assembly deputy William Lara headlined on Venezuela Analysis, "Clearing doubts About Venezuela's New Media Law."

In Q & A format, he affirmed no freedom of expression limitations in the new law, saying it "neither limits nor restricts freedom of information." The disinformation about the law is entirely spurious. Other questions related to:

-- corporate media disapproval: their "campaign (of) lies" demonized and criminalized it unfairly;

-- the effect on live calls from listeners: no restrictions are imposed as before;

-- criticism of public officials: slandering, injuring or vilifying any citizen is forbidden because the "Constitution protects human dignity. We cannot allow a third party, using a television program, to insult another human being;

-- on-air responsibility: both hosts and callers share it;

-- time table for implementing regulations: "The law allows the TV and radio stations (time) to adjust themselves....we're not trying to run roughshod over any sector of the country;"

-- potential excessiveness of sanctions: National Commission of Radio and Television (Conatel) must abide by provisions of the law in imposing sanctions; it "establishes the causes that can determine a sanction;"

-- need to enhance the Constitution and Journalists' Code of Ethics: serious past abuses have occurred, including promoting insurrection on television;

-- modifying specialized channels programming: introducing "creativity" is required, not abandoning their "style or format;"

-- enforcement authority: "the Directorate's Counsel on Social Communication and the National Commission on Telecommunications will" have overseeing power; "it is wrong to state that a committee of users will become censors or will pressure the journalists;" and

-- independent productions: many already exist on TV and radio but haven't "developed into a powerful industry because they have neither space nor market;" the new law wants to assure they do.

Other answers said the new law isn't unique; programming is strengthened, not harmed; censorship won't be imposed; TV and radio stations will be required to air five hours of independently produced programs in prime time; children and adolescents will be protected from offensive content; programming containing violence or sex will air in adult time slots; media/Internet users (through committees) will participate in enforcement; and public funding will help promote independent producers.

Overall, Venezuela's broadcast and digital media will remain open, free, fair and uncensored. The new law aims to improve programming with public committees involved in enforcement. Compared to it, American content is run by a government/giant media cabal, offering managed news, infotainment, and junk food news, creating what Project Censored calls a "truth emergency" needing fixing to restore fast eroding democratic values near extinction.

Stephen Lendman lives in Chicago and can be reached at lendmanstephen@sbcglobal.net. Also visit his blog site at sjlendman.blogspot.com and listen to cutting-edge discussions with distinguished guests on the Progressive Radio News Hour on the Progressive Radio Network Thursdays at 10AM US Central time and Saturdays and Sundays at noon. All programs are archived for easy listening.

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Labor's killing machine: The destruction of the party was an inside job

David Humphries

The execution was set for the day after the 2003 NSW election. Bob Carr was to pull the switch on Eddie Obeid, who had been summoned to the premier’s office on level 40 of Governor Macquarie Tower, with its sweeping views of Carr’s domain reaffirmed by his second electoral landslide.

Initially, Carr was calm but assertive. The ministry needed fresh blood and Obeid’s must be spilt to make room, he told him. What the premier really meant was he wanted to be rid of Obeid once and for all, and if that meant a miffed Obeid quitting his upper house seat and retiring his political networking, all the better.

It was not the first time Carr underestimated Obeid, and it would not be the last. The junior minister flatly refused to acknowledge Carr’s point. There simply was no need for the premier’s prescription, he insisted ... and insisted, and insisted.

Carr had anticipated a meeting of perhaps 30 minutes, long by Carr’s wishes but inflated to accommodate Obeid’s well-established propensity to hold his crease and block everything thrown at him until the adversary gives up in exhaustion and despair.

Carr’s demeanour, meanwhile, cracked. Those waiting on level 39 – the floor below – for a meeting with the premier now delayed several hours, heard the rage. They could hear too what sounded like furniture being thrown. Obeid’s record crackled on but his was now the only semblance of calm in the room.

Enough, enough, Carr declared, telling Obeid that his four-year stint as a minister was over. And that was that. “You’re finished after this,” Obeid fired back.

How do we know this? Because Obeid made an occasional practice of boastfully citing to colleagues the showdown with Carr, at the highpoint of the latter’s long political history. If he could tell Carr where to get off, and survive politically to savour the memory, imagine the power he could exercise over the ambitions of lesser mortals.

Obeid, of course, was shown the cabinet door, having unwisely been admitted after the 1999 election triumph because Carr, like Lyndon Johnson and J. Edgar Hoover, thought it better to have him ''inside the tent pissing out than outside pissing in''.

At Carr's instruction, Obeid's mates deserted him in the subsequent 2003 ballot by the caucus masquerading as the master of its own destiny. But he was far from buried.

More than any other individual - from a long list of contributors to Labor's appropriately punishing fall from grace in NSW - Edward Moses Obeid is challenged only by John Robertson, perversely the ALP's new leader, for the title of having wreaked greatest damage on the party that governed this state for 52 of the past 70 years.

Rather than serve the ALP, Obeid was determined for it to serve him. Essentially a policy-free zone, his skills were limited to the assiduous pursuit of those vulnerable and hapless souls whose ambitions in politics far outweigh their talents, and to enforcing the consequences of disloyalty (that is, anything short of craven obedience) towards him and his clique. He who must be Obeid, went the line.

Many factors, many individuals, many shortcomings, many scandals and much stupidity, hubris and short-sightedness contributed to Labor's worst election defeat, a result so emphatic it questions whether revival is likely, even possible. But if any events are pivotal points at which things went seriously wrong for Labor's 16 years, two stand out as emblematic. One was Obeid's challenge to Carr's authority - indeed, his declaration of war on the then premier. The other was the union leader Robertson's chest-beating humiliation of government leaders and MPs, as if the demands of self-serving union leaders are ascendant to the people's choice expressed at the ballot box.

After Robertson et al demolished the then premier Morris Iemma in 2008, having already bullied and blockaded Labor MPs from entering Parliament because the unions did not like reform of a rickety workers compensation scheme, Paul Keating wrote him a note. ''If the Labor Party's stocks ever get so low as to require your services in its parliamentary leadership, it will itself have no future.''

That Obeid could persuade enough office-holders that their interests were best invested in him says much about the quality of Labor preselections. This became embarrassingly more obvious with the departure of more able MPs - Carr, Michael Egan, Andrew Refshauge, John Watkins, Bob Debus, Michael Knight and Craig Knowles, Carr's choice as successor.

Obeid got tantalisingly close to inclusion in the first Carr ministry after Labor squeezed into government with a fragile one-seat majority in 1995. The vote by Labor MPs for the last position was tied and Obeid missed out only when Bob Martin's name was drawn from a hat.

It is only now clear that Obeid did remarkably well to get that close. Those who regarded him as a mere irritant should have been alerted then to the numbers he was mustering, to the influence he would exert.

Why? The 1995 caucus ballot followed several meetings where Labor heavyweights carved up the cabinet spoils. At these meetings, Obeid's ambitions were championed by Knight, the leading light of the Terrigal subfaction of Labor's then insurmountable right wing.

Opposing the Obeid candidature was Egan, Carr's closest ministerial confidant, the new treasurer and a leading member of the non-Terrigal right-wingers. He objected to Obeid's only talent being the energy to persuade enough people, ''enough idiots'', that their futures were best tied to him.

Egan, like Knight an occasionally abrasive character, insisted he would quit the cabinet if Obeid got the heads-up. The Terrigals (so named because Obeid's grand beach house at the central coast location was used to woo MPs to the cause) kept Egan in their sights for the rest of his 10 years at the Treasury.

That enmity would have devastating impact on the state's ability to massively improve infrastructure. And it facilitated the ongoing festering of electricity privatisation - the policy issue that would do more than any other to sully Labor administrations, right to the end.

In 1997, for instance, after Egan unveiled his plan to sell the electricity sector for an estimated $25 billion, the Terrigals caucused. Ideologically inclined to support the sale, Joe Tripodi, who had wanted a job inside the party machine instead of in Parliament, cited Egan's advocacy of the sale as justification for the Terrigals opposing it.

It was typical of the political bastardry for which Tripodi and his mentor, Obeid, would become household bywords. More importantly, perhaps, their activities and associations drew a pall of suspicion over government motives. In the toxic cocktail that would eventually engulf Labor, their poison would prove one of the more enduring sources of public outrage.

Tripodi, a former research economist with the Reserve Bank, was much more capable than Obeid at policy development but nonetheless was keener on political intrigue than he was on outcomes beneficial to NSW citizens.

This emphasis on political warfare - particularly the internecine - was an overhang from the games of Young Labor. Tripodi and Reba Meagher fashioned their winner-take-all skills at Young Labor. So too did an earlier generation of luminaries but they were more likely to leave their bows and quivers at the door of grown-up politics.

Tripodi and Meagher conquered the seemingly unassailable Young Labor left wing at its last bastion (albeit with much help from dominant right-wingers at Sussex Street).

Egan recalls addressing a weekend seminar of right-wing Young Labor activists in the Tripodi-Meagher aftermath. Another guest speaker was Mark Arbib, then the ALP assistant general secretary but later a Labor kingmaker and assassin, and a minister in the Gillard federal government after helping to elevate, then destroy, Kevin Rudd.

''His speech to all those bright-eyed bushy-tailed kids was that they should follow the example of Joe and Reba and devote their time to endlessly recruiting numbers,'' says Egan.

''I spoke immediately after and told them to forget everything they had just heard, get an education, read widely, develop an interest in public policy, establish their lives and, by doing so, they would have a much better contribution to the party and society and to their own and their family's future.

''It struck me driving home that Arbib had not once mentioned any policy achievement of any Labor government, or anything about the philosophical and policy differences between the Left and the Right.''

That is mostly because Arbib is like so many Labor hotshots. He has little regard for the hard work of persuading public opinion, which some people might naively think is the business of politics.

Arbib is more inclined to read the mood through opinion-research and insist that policy be crafted around that. Focus group research, however, is like a tool of war. In the wrong hands, it can harm your own side more than the enemy. Just consider the drubbing of Rudd's reputation for policy courage after Arbib and others persuaded him to drop his commitment to fighting climate change.

Tripodi and Meagher arrived at Parliament House in 1995 and 1994 respectively as models of what the Right expected of up-and-comers.

Traditional Labor voters, of course, did not give a toss for this supposed prowess. They were expecting the government to apply itself to the provision and maintenance of first-class services - in health, education, transport, water and clean air, public safety, public amenity and, yes, the reassurance of environmental sustainability and the pleasures of artistic expression.

Writing in The Australian this week, Luke Foley, a left-wing upper house MP, insisted, ''Labor values are Australian values. Since 1891, Labor has stood for a fair go for all and a decent life for everyone.''

These are worthy aspirations but Labor has no monopoly on them. A third of voters who identify themselves as Labor - 625,500 - voted against Labor out of disgust for the ALP, undoubtedly, but also because they were persuaded to invest faith in the Coalition.

As Foley said, Labor values are Australian values. Those values of a fair go and a decent life for all are not eschewed by Barry O'Farrell and Andrew Stoner, decent men with apparently authentic determination to govern even-handedly.

In a less ideological age, when the bonds of tribalism have lost their glue, what matters is how well one side turns those values into outcomes. Much is made of vision but the concept is ill-defined.

This is about making the instruments of state work at their optimum. This really is about pragmatism. Good state government is about practicality, about servicing need according to appropriate priorities. Underpinning all that is the sense of well-being that citizens enjoy.

To Labor's shame, such values all too often were put to the backburner over the past four years. Self-interest, power as an end in itself, self-indulgence, exclusiveness and arrogance entrenched themselves as hallmarks of warlords whose Balkanisation of the ALP into self-serving units was allowed to march on because resistance was too fractured.

Discipline, too, took flight. Carr and his office crew, hardened by seven years of opposition, were formidable enforcers. The leader was obeyed, mostly, and Carr spoke with the authority of leadership. Under the then party general secretary, John Della Bosca, the ALP head office understood its role was to assist the leader; even the trade unions (admittedly with notable exceptions) mostly appreciated the need to keep their noses out of government business.

This was the model forged by Carr's inspiration, Bill McKell, who led the ALP from the political wilderness to an emphatic 1941 election win. The purpose of government was to serve voters, not the demands of those claiming proprietorial interest in the Labor Party - unions, land developer donors, the insatiable environment lobby.

It held that the parliamentary party was paramount over the party machine. This focus on electability and moderation helps explain how NSW became the jewel in the Labor crown. Conversely, when its preconditions are trashed, so too is the Labor brand.

Dissipation of individual integrity and discipline was not the consequence of tolerance or the overlooking of reckless or dishonest or seriously criminal behaviour. The conga line of departing ministers and backbenchers who did not meet standards of higher public office illustrates that.

But decay spreads its own rot. When incumbents cease (or never begin) to routinely ask whether their actions or intentions meet public expectations, they begin to imagine themselves above accountability. A what's-in-it-for-me focus takes hold.

Voters lost faith because there was practically nothing deserving their faith. What began four years ago as a disillusioned Labor vote - they voted for Iemma's premiership only because they preferred Peter Debnam less - became an anger tsunami.

Curiously, some in the ALP's much diminished army of election volunteers - fewer booths were staffed than at any time since NSW Labor pulled itself limb from limb in the 1930s - reported that voters last Saturday were more civil than four years earlier, when they begrudgingly gave Labor a final state vote. Evidence of this varies, but, if voters were more placid, it indicates their contentment with the Coalition as well as their acrimony towards Labor.

The carcasses of the Labor dead were still warm when party figures ludicrously began congratulating themselves for a campaign that delivered a more generous result for the ALP than the party expected.

But it is unlikely the campaign shifted more than a handful of votes either way. ''Any prospect of the campaign having an impact on Labor winning votes was lost with the decision by the government to prorogue Parliament,'' acknowledges John Faulkner, a Canberra ministerial veteran and a man of uncanny political judgment.

''It was seen as symbolic of the way the government did business for the past few years. It was perceived to be a sneaky and underhand manoeuvre in the lead-up to the election campaign.''

That's because it was sneaky and underhanded. And if voters did not know what it meant to prorogue Parliament, they certainly smelt a rat.

When tenants on Housing Commission estates began tackling Labor doorknockers over this technical procedure for shutting down the Parliament, it was clear the electorate had seen the tactic for what it was - a ham-fisted effort to avoid the scrutiny of an upper house inquiry hostile to the sale of electricity retailers and trading rights.

If the 11th-hour deal was so good for taxpayers, as the treasurer, Eric Roozendaal, insisted, what risk flowed from allowing aninquiry?

Roozendaal resigned as ALP general secretary in 2004 for a place in the upper house. Unlike Della Bosca, who made the same switch in 1999, there was no cabinet seat for him because he took a casual vacancy rather than await a general election.

This ''tardiness'' by Carr aggrieved Roozendaal, who began to side more and more with Obeid and Tripodi, the duo which claimed to have done the Macquarie Street bidding of head office when Roozendaal ran Sussex Street.

In late 2009, in the weeks before the fall of Nathan Rees as premier at the hands of Obeid and Tripodi, Roozendaal the treasurer was a frequent visitor to Obeid the backbencher.

''Roozendaal spent much of his time there participating in the overthrow,'' says one insider.

''He actually wanted to be the premier, and threw his hat in the ring.''

Meanwhile, Kristina Keneally was emerging through the middle, championed by Obeid and Tripodi.

A month before she successfully challenged Rees in a leadership ballot, Keneally announced: ''I have always supported the premier - Bob Carr, Morris Iemma and now Nathan Rees. Now is the time to put this ridiculous leadership speculation behind us.'' Of course it was. Why anyone takes seriously such denials of leadership ambition remains an enduring mystery of modern politics.

Keneally was preferred by head office over Frank Sartor, an electorally risky proposition for the leadership but nonetheless one of the diminishing few with a grasp on policy.

She won the day but her leadership was plagued by the perception (Rees and others insist the reality) she was orchestrated by the puppet masters Obeid and Tripodi. How was it, for instance, that the Obeid ally Ian Macdonald was immediately restored to the cabinet after Rees had done the heavy lifting by getting rid of him?

The answer certainly did not rest in Macdonald's reliability. He limped from cabinet and the Parliament six months later amid allegations he misused travel entitlements.

Others' scandals, of course, also blemished the Keneally administration, but could be quarantined to some degree in the pile marked ''others' stuff-ups''.

It won't forever save a leader's neck, or even their reputation, but it helps to be able to tell the grandchildren it wasn't all grandmother's doing.

The proroguing of Parliament is in another category altogether.

With Tripodi's encouragement, Roozendaal had brushed off the lame old electricity privatisation bitzer that had gathered dust since Carr, then Iemma, had rejected it.

He therefore bears responsibility for thrusting such a lacklustre privatisation program on to taxpayers. They get a miserable proportion of the riches available from privatisation 14 years ago, when Carr and Egan stuck their heads in the lion's jaws and got out just in time.

And Roozendaal's half-baked deal does little to rid taxpayers of the burden of massive commercial risk attached to state ownership of power generators reaching their use-by dates.

It is for Roozendaal's memoirs to explain why he threw this hand grenade into his own troop's trench when there was only electoral pain for Labor, no overwhelming financial reward for taxpayers and the likelihood that he has made life even easier for the O'Farrell government by paving the way to full privatisation. Some suggest he was motivated by a desire to stamp himself as the treasurer who achieved at least some reform in the Labor briar patch where Egan and Morris Iemma's treasurer, Michael Costa, had earlier tumbled. If so, it was a pyrrhic victory.

Allowing Roozendaal a free rein on an electoral stinker of this magnitude is one thing; to personally initiate the parliamentary shutdown quite another. Yet this was Keneally's own handiwork.

Whatever the role in this sorry affair of her chief-of-staff, Walt Secord, who was parachuted into the Keneally office from Roozendaal's when she became premier at the end of 2009, her job was to weigh advice and choose the wisest course.

Her course was to open herself to accusations of complacency, arrogance, sleaziness - the very Labor contagions her cleanskin image was meant to shield her from. That Keneally opted for such clumsy concealment quickly tarnished her too, and questioned her political judgment.

Labor had prospered on the back of Coalition tumult.

Liberals and Nationals turned on their own, partly in misguided stabs at survival but often out of personal ambitions and the settling of old scores, ancient hatreds.

Rather than learn from this contemporary lesson, however, Labor chose to mimic it.

After the stability imposed by Carr's leadership and success, the smart alecs decided they knew better.

For a man who had aspired to be foreign minister, and who had his ticket booked to Canberra before party heavyweights demanded he take the reins of a parliamentary state Labor Party shattered by the thrashing of 1988, the leadership (at least initially) was mere consolation.

But Carr persevered, surprised his doubters, chipped his way to victory, consolidated a place in the Labor pantheon with emphatic election victories in 1999 and 2003 and became the state's longest continuous serving premier.

His administrations were not perfect and nor were his judgments or attitudes.

In politics, they never are.

If Carr could turn back time, however, would he have put his authority on the line by insisting the Labor Party wasn't big enough for him and Eddie Obeid?

You can bet on it.

David Humphries, a former state political editor of the Herald, is married to Diane Beamer, a former Carr government minister.

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