Procuring Industrial Pollution Control
The South Australian Case
1836-L97 5
Submitted for the Degree of Doctor of Philosophy from the Department of History,
Adelaide University, December 200L
Matthew Jordan Acknowledgements
From my father asking: 'Are you going to do a doctorate, then?', I am indebted to
So many academics, family, friends and acquaintances for advice and encouragement. I have been most blessed with such active supervisors as A.H. Denholm, V. Brodsky, ril. Gammage and W. Prest, who all provided invaluable and timely advice. Thanks are well and truly due to the Australian taxpayers, without whose adequate generosity I would never have been able to complete this thesis, and to the Department of Social Security and Centrelink for permitting me to devote up to twenty-four hours per week on this task. Thanks, too, are due to the librarians at the Barr Smith and State Libraries for their help and maintenance of the collections housed therein. The staff of the Cafe Shh at the State Library are well deserving of a special mention, the fine coffee from whom often revitalized my capacity to resume foraging through the Parliamentary Papers. Since commencing this thesis part-time in 1991, I have incurred numerous commitments. The most delightful of these has been finding the love of Susan Hall, her three children, Jenna-Belle, Benjamin and Bonnie-Sue and producing our now four-year old daughter Jade. Jade's needs required me to become a sole parent three months into her wondrous life and, together with occasional employment, to intermit for the total permissible time. This thesis would have endured further delays if not for the extraordinary ability of my brother, Jim, to fix the many crashes suffered by my computer. To my long-suffering, thesis-weary family and friends, thank you for your patience. This thesis is an expression of my gratitude to you all. Abbreviations
Broken Hill Associated Smelters BHAS
Broken Hill Proprietary BHP
Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organization CSIRO
Council for Scientific and Industrial Research CSIR
Department of Engineering and'Water Supply E&WS
International Labour Organization ILo
National Health and Medical Research Council NHMRC
Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development OECD
United Trades and Labour Council UTLC
World Health Organization wHo
Footnotes:
Australian Parliamentary Pap ers APP
South Australian Legislative Council Papers LCP
South Australian Parliamentary Papers SAPP
South Australian Parliamentary D ebat es SAP Debates Note to the reader
To avoid voluminous footnotes, I have condensed the titles of by-laws, petitions, regulations and reports from Parliamentary Papers. The years included in these abbreviated footnotes relate to the volumes of Parliamentary Papers in which the by-laws, petitions, regulations and reports of the committees, commissions and inquiries appear. The year appearing in the condensed title of the annual reports of agencies correlates to the year being covered by that report. I have used parentheses to signify the title of a parliamentary paper and to distinguish the year being reported on, or the volume in which it resides, from the page number on which it occurred. I have always denoted Commonwealth parliamentary sources either in the authorship or ascribed volume of Australian Parliamentary Papers, whereas South
Australian parliamentary sources are discernible by this omission. For instance, the by-laws of the Kensington and Norwood Council that were published in South
Australian Parliamentary Papers 1862 are footnoted as 'Kensington and Norwood
By-Laws, 1862', while the annual reports on the work performed by the Central Board of Health and Commonwealth Department of Health during 1966 are footnoted as Central Board of Health, 'Report, 1966' and Commonwealth
Department of Health Reports: '1965166' and'1966167' . The sources for all these
papers can be found either under these headings or the titles of the various agencies,
commissions and parliamentary committees in the Bibliography. I have always cited
secondary sources according to the usual conventions. Contents
Acknowledgements
Abbreviations ii
Note to the Reader iii
List of Tables vi
Abstract vii
Declaration of Authenticity ix
1 Why and How 1 Methodology and Evidence 8
2: Working for the Company 12
3: Drain, Drain, Drain 1840-1960 T9 Natural to Local Drainage: 1840-1857 19 Sanitation for Livelihood: 1857-I9I4 23 Drainage for Industrialization: 1914-1960 32
4: Councils By Law andZone 1861-1960 38 By-laws: 1861-1885 39 D-epressed Regulation and Municipal Socialism: 1885-1918 49 Zoning: 1918-1960 57
5: Central Board of Health 1874-1960 67 Too Committed: 1874-1892 68 Outcast: 1892-1932 76 Recalled: 1933-1946 82 Expansion: 1946-1960 88 6: Department of Mines 1886-1960 100 Unenforced Regulation: 1845-1886 101 Employing Regulators: 1886-1916 108 Reforms: 1916-1934 115 Industrialization: 1934-t960 r23
Factory Inspectors 1895-1960 135 Acknowledging Occupational Pollution: 1836-1895 135 Employing Regulators: 1895-1918 143 Seeing Red: 1918-1933 153 Doing it for Industrialization: 1933-7960 159
8: Commonwealth Intervention 1901-1960 1 70 Finding a Role: 190l-1914 1 70 Inspiration Dimmed: 1914-1929 1 76 Only What Pays: 1929-1945 1 83 ILO No, Bombs Ho: 1945-1960 1 90
9: One Environment 1960-1975 199 Set Practices: 1960-1975 r99 Differences on Occupational Pollution: 1960-1970 2t0 Air and V/ater Pollution Inquiries: 1969-1972 218 A Human Environment: 1972-1975 229
10: What'Works 240 The Getting of Government Intervention 240 Effective Prevention 242 Community Significance 2sl
Bibliography 253 Acts of Parliament 253 Official Publications 253 Printed Books, Maps and Newspapers 254 Australian Parliamentary Papers 255 South Australian Parliamentary Papers 26r Secondary Sources 274 List of Tables
2.1 Polluting industrial enterprises in South Australia, 1850-1870 18
4.1 Fines under council pollution-controlling by-laws and Acts, 1857-1884. 46
4.2: Fines under council pollution-controlling by-laws and Acts, 1889-1909. 51
4.3: Fines under council pollution-controlling by-laws and Acts, r909-t929130. 6l
4.4: Fines under council pollution-controlling by-laws and Acts, 1939140-1959160. 64
5.1: Fines levied by the Central Board of Health, 1879-1_930- 81
5.2: Fines levied by the Central Board of Health, 1933-1945. 84
5.3: Industrial disputes of more than ten days in South Australia, 1946-1960. 89
5.4: Fines levied by the Central Board of Health, t949-196O 9I
7.1: Regulatory preferences of Labor and Liberal governments between 1919 and 1,928. 156
7 .2: Industrial disputes of more than ten days in South Australia, t946-1960. t63
7.3: Use of proscription by factory inspectors, 1946-1958. 165
9.I: Industrial disputes of more than ten days in South Australia, 196l-1964. 2tt
9.2: Industrial disputes of more than ten days in South Australia, 1965-1967. 212
9.3: Fines levied by health and factory inspectors under state governments per annum, 1960-1970. 214
9.4: Industrial disputes of more than ten days in South Australia, 1968-1969. 217
9.5: Industrial disputes of more than ten days in South Australia, 1969-1972. 227
9.6: Industrial disputes of more than ten days in South Australia, r97t-1975. 235 Abstract
The South Australian case shows that economic development is both the cause of industrial pollution and the key to achieving sustained government regulation,
Only when debt was avoided would governors yield to the desire of colonists to form councils to drain wastes and dispose of garbage from highly polluting trades from 1840-1857. Leaving individual local councils to control pollution from economicatly significant industries from 1861 helped create highly polluting industrial suburbs and towns, a process which was formalized by town planning from the I92Os. Parliamentarians, seeking to avoid the high cost of building sewers, formed the British-inspired Central Board of Health in 1874 to curb industrial pollution in order to protect polluting industrialists from the enterprise- threatening law suits launched by the affluent. On protecting industrialists from litigation by providing sewers and pollution havens in manufacturing districts from
1882, South Australian governments limited the Board to controlling small-scale environmental industrial pollution, poison usage and the purity of food by 1892,
South Australian governments opted to control industrial pollution by employing mining and factory inspectors from 1886 and 1895, respectively, in order to make mining more attractive to private landowners and curb strikes and the appeal of
anarchism and communism to workers. State governments tailored support for these
inspectors to control occupational industrial pollution according to the needs of industrial polluters, the level of strikes and working-class militancy.
Commonwealth governments, confined by the states retaining the constitutional
powers to control industrial pollution, could only reduce industrial pollution in order
to free inter-state trade ftom I9I2, minimize expenditure, replace imports and
improve production from 1916, and stem working-class militancy from 1919. In
order to further economic growth, these governments co-opted industrialists to set Abstract v1l1
emission standards from 1963, restricted environmental industrial pollution according to international covenants from 1969 and established environmental agencies to co-ordinate regulators from 1972.
As economic development is the key to government control of industrial pollution and no form of control has proved perfect, the community must continually ensure that cutting industrial pollution is the means for industrial growth if it wishes to secure a pollution-free environment' Declaration of AuthenticitY
This work contains no material which has been accepted for the award of any other degree or diploma in any university or other tertiary institution and, to the best of my knowledge and belief, contains no material previously published or written by another person, except where due reference has been made in the text.
I give consent to this copy of my thesis, when deposited in the University
Library, being available for loan and
Matthew Jordan Chapter One
Why and How
Controlling industrial pollution is such a part of the human struggle to procure wealth from the environment without destroying ourselves in the process that it has helped build the modern nation-state and promoted international co- operation. Morton identified it as part of the second phase of development in
Adelaide, with the first devoted to building the city from 1836, the second to adding sanitary and anti-pollution refinements from the 1880s and, the last, to comprehensively plan development from 1918.1 Local histories and council and Parliamentary Papers show that South Australians sought self-government to construct local drains to remove industrial pollution during the first stage. These papers also demonstrate that, South Australian councils, parliaments and the
Commonwealth employed inspectors and formed organizations to control industrial pollution from 1861, 1874 and 1916, respectively. To achieve this, the
Commonwealth parliament also participated in creating international agencies from lglg.2 The desire to prevent pollution of the River Murray in Victoria and New South Wales convinced many South Australians to support forming the
Commonwealth Government.3 Standardizing state pollution controls to ensure free trade between the Australian states helped maintain the relevance of the
1. p. Morron, Afier Light: A History of the City of Adelaíde and its Council, 1878-1928 (Adelaide, t996),7 . 2. Details provided throughout the thesis. 3.66 South Australians,4 September 1901, 'Petition. Inter-State Commission. Rivers Murray and Darling.', APP 1g0I-2 v. 1, 1117. River Murray Irrigation, 'Report, 1885', 1-2. Correspondence between Premiers: '1886', Paper No. 59,3-4, Paper No' 59A, l-2 and Paper No. 598 a¡rd '1889', 3, 18,24,33' Chapter One Why and How 2
Commonwealth Government to Australians.a Improvements in public health won by government intrusions into the private practices of industrialists helped create the welfare state by striking the first blow against nineteenth-century laissez-faire capitalism.s It is not simply South Australia which has been so transformed by the need for government intervention to control industrial pollution. All Australian states have launched similar health, labour and mining inspectorates to combat pollution to
South Australia.6 Similar processes occurred throughout the developed world, with
South Australian and Commonwealth governments modelling regulations first on
British forms, then the U.S.A. and League of Nations from I9I9, members of the
Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) from 1970 and the United Nations ftom 1972.7 It is hardly surprising, given that South Australia is but another example of European colonial industrialization in the lands of Africa, Latin America, Siberia, Ukraine and Northern America, and that the state is representative of Australian economic development, albeit with less than average
4. 66 South Australians, ibid. River Murray Irrigation, ibid. Correspondence between Premiers, ibid. Acting-Director of Quarantine, 'Tuberculosis', APP 191 I v.2, l}6l-3. Commonwealth and States Conference, 'Report, I9I3' , APP 19/ 3 v . 3 , 13-14, 28-31 . 5. F.F. Langley, 'sanitary Conditions of the River Murray Communities, 1924',27. Morton, Adelaide 143. 6. G,H. Knibbs, Officiat Yearbook of the Commonwealth of Australia, Containing Authoritative Statistics for the Period 1901-1919 and Corrected for the Period i,788 to 1900 (Melbourne, t920),987-91, 1034-6. 7. Sanitation Commission, 'Report, 1876', 62, xx-xxii. Dr. Buchanan, 'Prevention of Nuisances in Towns and Villages', Paper No. 154 in SAPP I87l l, 11. J.B. Hirst, Adelaide and the Country 1870-tgl7 Their Social and Political Retationship (Melbourne, 1973), 133. Morton, Adelaide ll2. 'Treaty of Peace, Versailles, 1919', in APP 1917-18-19v.4, 1017,1022' Committee on Invalidity: 'Final Report', in APP 1917-18-19 v. 5, 1034. Royal Commission, 'Health Report, I9Z5', ApP 1926-27-28v.4, I29O-1. R.J. Murphy, 'Manufacturing Industries in the United States Report, lg25', APP 1926-27-28 v. 5, 1t45, 1183-5. Australian Bureau of Statistics, yearbook Austrqlia 1983 (Canberra, 1983), 397. P. Howson, 'Commonwealth Environment policy, 1972' , in APP 1972 v . 3, 4-6, 11 and 'Conference on the Human Environment , 1972' , in APP Ig72 v. 3, 9-10, 20,23, 29, 33-6, 43, 47-5I, 54-5, 60,64. Commonwealth Department of Environment Reports: ' 1972 to I97 4', , ä1, 1-2, 16-20, 33 , 44-5 , 48-9 and ', 197 417 s', , 4-5 . Chapter One Why and How 3 rainfall, forests and energy resources.s For these reasons and the need to reduce industrial pollution globally, I contend that the South Australian experience of
regulating industrial pollution is sufficiently significant and worthy to warrant the following examination. As such, I have investigated attempts by South Australian
governments to control industrial pollution as well as the influence that other states,
Commonwealth governments, countries and international bodies have had on these
controls. Yet, it has been exceptional for environmental, legal, labour or local
historians to examine how governments have been persuaded to regulate industrial pollution in South Australia. Environmental historians have only given the odd
instance of South Australian industrial pollution in their histories of Australia, unlike
the extensive examination by D.H. Coward of the impact of European industry on Sydney.e Hutton and Connors concentrated on the campaigns of the conservation
movement for parks and playgrounds, omitting the work of unions and regulators in
curtailing occupational industrial pollution in the aftermath of the sanitation drives of the nineteenth-century.l0 Those who have solely examined the South Australian
experience have concentrated on either the environmental impact of agriculture or
the trend towards conserving the natural environment.ll Legal historians have
8. D.W. Meinig, On the Margins of the Good Earth (Adelaide, 1988), 3-7. S. Perrens, 'Australia's 'Water Resources', N. Turvey, 'Australia's Forestry Future', I. Hore-Lacy, 'The Key to the Future' and 'Mining in Australia', M. Cooper, 'The State of the Rural Sector' and'The State of the Manufacturing Sector', and W. Hanley, 'The State of the Australian Service Sector', in W. Hanley and M. Cooper (eds.), Man and the Australian Environmenl: Current Issues and Viewpoints (Sydney, 1986),25,38, 48, 176-7,182-3, 189, 201. g. O. Wtritelock, ,4 Dirty Story: Pollution in Australia (Melbourne, 1971), 80. G. Bolton, Spoils and Spoiters: Australians Make Their Environment 1788-1980 (Sydney, 1981), 40. D.H. coward, out of sight: sydney's Environmental History i,851-1981 (Canberra, 1988). 10. D. Hutton and L. Connors, A History of the Australian Environment Movemenl (Melbourne, 1999), 19,21-3. 11. M. Williams, The Making of the South Australiøn Landscape: A Study in the Historical Geography of Australiø (London, 1974). D. Whitelock, Conquest to Conservation: History of Human Impact on the South Australian Environment (Adelaide' 1985)' Chapter One Why and How 4
provided either terse historical analysis as introductions to environment protection
laws or merely cited disasters which preceded the regulation of such lethal industrial
pollutants as DDT, PCBs, nitrates, mercury and ionizing radiation.r2 V/hile noting
that unions and the Labor Party campaigned to prevent occupational industrial
pollution since 1885 and in the 1893 elections, respectively, labour historians leave
the gains so won as controlling the 'conditions of labour in factories', or providing
instances where unions obtained dirt money for workers employed in polluted
environments.13 Only some local historians have expounded community reactions
and attempts to gain government intervention to prevent industrial pollution.la
Part of the problem has been that politicians and officials rarely distinguished
between domestic and industrial wastes or used ambiguous euphemisms. One such
euphemism was 'road dust,' which councils sought to control from the 1870s. It
comprised dehydrated manure, offal from slaughterhouses and any other form of
industrial and domestic waste thrown onto the streets, dried by the sun and blown by
the wind, horses and motor cars.15 Even when discussing particular pollutants,
rather than name the pollutant, South Australians, officials and politicians preferred
vague references: 'a sad nuisance', 'deleterious matter', 'as black as this table',
12. D.E. Fisher, Environmental Law in Australia (St. Lucia, 1980), 159-65, 167. A. Gilpin, Envíronment Poticy in Australia (St. Lucia, 1980), 207-13,222,227-8,304-6' 13. Factories Commission, 'Report, 1892',I59. Central Board of Health: 'Report, 1884/85" 7 and .Regulations, 1885'. L Turner, Industrial Labour and Politics: The Dynamics of the Labour Movement in EasÍern Australia 1900-1921(Sydney, 1979),24. K. Buckley and T' Wheelwright, No parød¡se for Workers: Capitalism and the Common People ín Australia 1788-1914 (Melbourne, 1988), 168-9. P. Cochrane, 'Doing Time' and L. Layman, 'United to Protect', in V. Burgmann and J. Lee, (eds.), Making a Life: A People's History of Australia Since 1788 (Melbourne, 1988), 180, 250. J. Moss, Sound of Trumpets: History of the Labour Movement in South Australla (Adelaide, 1985), 134, 160' 14. R. parsons, Hindmqrsh Town: A History of the Village, Distìct Council and Corporate Town of Hindmnrsh South Australia (Adelaide, 1974). S. Marsden, A History of Woodville (Adelaide, lgj7). H.I. Lewis, EnfietdqndtheNorthernVillages (Adelaide, 1985). Morton, Adelaide. 15. rbid., 209. Chapter One Why and How 5
,impure and foul' and 'so productive of disease'.16 It was not until 1876 that politicians began to make distinctions between industrial pollution and domestic wastes in official debates over sewerage and only from 1885 that occupational
pollutants became a cause for their concern.lT These were still exceptions, with
most politicians opting not to discuss pollution openly.18 Government health,
mining and factory inspectors chose words such as'nuisances', 'mining dusts'and ,factory ventilation' when raising instances of industrial pollution in annual
reports.le State politicians recoiled from using the word 'pollution', even when
investigating proposals for highly polluting industrial works, until 1958.20 To avoid such euphemistic traps, I have taken pollution to mean a
concentration of artificial substances which harms the health, property and comfort of humans, animals and plants ," o, makes an environment more hazardous to health. An industrial pollutant is created from processing raw materials or
components into products for sale. Finding no reason to distinguish between the
internal and external environments of industrial sites, I have included occupational pollutants. These comprise excessive heat and toxic liquids, dusts and fumes
emitted from industrial processes, as well as the oxygen deprivation caused by a lack of ventilation or overcrowded works. These criteria encompass not only the
16. ,petition Against Proposed Erection of Gas Works', Paper No. 182 in SAPP 1861' Select Committee, 'Report on Present Mineral Laws, 1862' , 37. Sanitation Commission, 'Report, 1876', vii. 17. Select Committee Reports: 'Waterworks Bill, 1851', iv, 3, 10, lZ and'Water Supply and Drainage of Adelaide, 1855-6', iii, 4. A.H. Freeling, 'Adelaide Water Supply and Drainage', paper Ño, 109 in LCp l855-62-3. Sanitation Commission, 'Report, 1876', iii-vii. Central Board of Health, 'Regulations, 1885' and 'Information Relating to fìlblic Health, 1886'. 18. Morton, Adelaide 3l' 19. Mining commission, 'Report, 1890" 7, lo, 12, 15,33,48, 51, 54, 153. Director of Mines, .Repori, lg17',T.Inspectorof FactoriesReports: '1896', l-4,'1897',3and'1898',4. Central Board of Health, 'RePort, 1952' , 1'2. 20. Select Committee, 'Report on Oil Refinery Bill, 1958', 9. 21. M.B. Jacobs, Associate Professor of Occupational Medicine, Columbia University, cited Commonwealth Senate Select Committee, 'Air Pollution Report, 1969' ,281 , Chapter One Why and How 6
pollutants produced at factories, but also contaminants created by mining, processing farm products and testing munitions. To mine an ore involves a level of processing and pollution, even if it is but selecting the quality range of ores to be treated at a
smelter or leaving an open hole in the ground. I have included dairies amongst the
more obvious processors of farm products (the slaughterhouses, breweries, wineries
and food processors) because it was common for dairy operators to process milk into
butter or cheese.22 Munitions testing plays an integral and knowingly polluting part in producing armaments. I have used the terms industrialist and manufacturer to
cover the employers of workers in, or owners of, factories, foundries, mines, mills,
smelters, workshops and other industrial sites. I have also used the phrase non-
proscriptive regulations to encompass the range of activities used by governments to
attempt to curb pollutants without imposing costs or emission reductions on industrialists, such as educational campaigns, providing research to use industrial
pollutants in the hope the private sector would find it profitable to recycle wastes, offering bounties for pollutants to be collected, or providing grants or tax
concessions to pay polluters to clean up their enterprises. In contrast, proscriptive
controls permitted inspectors to require industrialists to contain emissions according
to set standards under the threat of penalizing those who exceeded these limits by
either imposing fines or impeding production. My decision to examine the impact of government controls on processing
industries is due to the ability to limit pollution from both the processes and products of manufacture. I do not wish to deny the battles over public health played out in
the service sector. Members of service industries sought to reduce occupational
hazards as early as 1862 in South Australia, when 682 citizens petitioned parliament
22. R. Charlton, The History of Kapunda (Melbourne, l97I),47' R.J. Noye, Clare A DistricÍ History (Clare, 1986), 56. Chapter One Why and How 1
to build a home for female domestic servants in which they could reside away from their employers' Premises:
... on social and moral grounds, it is desirable to ... afford protection to all females of respectable character and prevent much misery amongst a most useful class of the cornmunity.23
By 1869 Wesleyan Church ministers petitioned government to suspend railway
traffic on Sundays for the noise that trains caused:
... on the ground that the number of employees whose day of natural rest and religious worship is interfered with is disproportionate to the number of persons who may be convenienced ...'*
Councils began regulating service industries to protect public health in the hope of
stemming venereal disease by banning brothels from towns from 187I, aftet 314
citizens including the Colonial Surgeon, the chair of the Destitute Board and four
eminent police officers unsuccessfully petitioned parliament to require prostitutes to
be medically examined by the police in 1867.2s By the 1960s, the Civil Aviation
Authority fined pilots who flew too close to towns, lobbied aircraft manufacturers to
reduce noise and soundproofed the Adelaide Airport Terminal in 1967, while a
Commonwealth select committee inquired into airport noise in 1969.26 Although
pollution issues arising from the activities of service industries are interesting and
increasingly important, limits of time and space prevent me from discussing them
further.
23. 'Petition for Servants' Home', Paper No. 192 in SAPP 1862' 24. ,Petition Against Sunday Railway Traffic" Paper No. 108 in s,4PP 1868-9. 25. R.W. Mooie, 'Reports on Lessening the Evils of Prostitution.', Paper No. 8ó in SAPP 1867I-5. 'petition Relative to Prostitution.', Paper No. 200 inSAPP 1867' By-laws: 'Unley, l87l',2, ,strathalbyn, Í87l" 3, 'Goolwa, 1874" 2, 'Adelaide, 1874" 13, 'Hindmarsh, 1875" 2, 'Kapunda, 1875' ,2,'Wallaroo, 1815' , 4 and 'Mount Gambier, 1876' ,3' 26. Commonwealth Department of Civil Aviation Reports: '1960161', 227, '1963164',263 and ,1968169,, 1184. Commonwealth Pa¡liamentary Select Committee on Public Works, 'Report on Adelaide Airport, 1967', ILT] Commonwealth Select Committee, 'Report on Aircraft Noise, t969', , 3. 8 Chapter One Why and How
Methodology and Evidence
Australia I have sought to trace the control of industrial pollution throughout South from 1836 to !975, rather than focus on a particular region, suburb, industry or epoch. Although lacking the depth gained from a narrower focus, this investigation state, national has enabled an examination of long-term trends in pollution control of
and international significance. To ensure that only case studies of industrial pollution control of state significance were included in this investigation, I have
relied on those detailed by the South Australian Parliamentary Papers and Australian
parliamentary papers. This has led to an examination of the installation of drains to
remove pollutants from urban communities; council by-laws, services and zoning to
curb the impact of industrial pollution; the regulation of industrial polluters by
South Australian health, mining and factory inspectors; and the regulation, research Each and incentives offered to industrialists by the Commonwealth Government. of
as a these is considered individually up to 1960, whence they are treated collectively
result of the co-ordination of the agencies to effect greater controls. I opted to end
this study at 1975 because the regulation of industrial pollution had traversed its first
cycle: all state inspectorates were co-ordinated by the Department of Environment,
just as the Central Board of Health had once been the co-ordinator of pollution
control irl 1874.21
The partiamentary Papers provide a wealth of information on the regulatory work of pollution-controlling agencies. The investigations by parliamentary commissions, inquiries, and select and standing committees into the need for for establishing government works and agencies provided an insight into the motives
Health Reports: 27. Sanitation commission, 'Report, 1876', , 25, 27 , 46, 68-9. Central Board of ,1877178" 4,',1878179" 6,',l879/80' , 4, g,'1880i81', 4 and'1881/82" 8. W.G' Inglis' .Environmental Protection council Report, 1973174 and 1974175', , 5. 9 Chapter One Why and How
establishing most industrial pollution-controlling agencies. council by-laws and or government regulations detailed the contemporary standards of pollution controls emission constraints that industrialists wele expected to apply' The annual reports of pollution-regulating agencies, not only disclose the work and reach of the by regulators, but the level of acceptance of legislated industrial emission standards industrialists, regulators, communities and governments. Government statistics on the instances of pollution-related diseases (such as typhoid, lead poisoning and industrial diseases) and investigations into the prevalence of disease and pollution provided indicators to the level of effectiveness of the controls' Petitions and the by-laws sought by councils highlight the types of communities which opposed industrial pollution and, by omission, those which accepted it.
However, the Parliamentary Papers fail to provide a complete explanation of all aspects of industrial pollution controls. The authors of the annual reports of the pollution-regulating agencies often assume the reader knows why regulations have been amended. The papers, as a whole, largely ignore the role of agitators and idealistic politicians in motivating governments to curb pollutants. Nevertheless, while all politicians may well have wished to curb pollutants which were hazardous to public health, the papers show that such intentions alone are insufficient for
parliament to opt to impose a cost on industrialists or the community to inhibit pollution. It took an offsetting economic benefit to secure the numbers in both how houses of parliament to pass such legislation. Good intentions alone, no matter
widely held, have been decidedly insufficient when the action required could curb
economic growth. This, the papers suggest, can only be gained when offsetting
another perceived threat to economic growth'
As these papers were frequently penned by public servants seeking to assure
parliament of the good working of the inspectorates, they hold the propensity to be 10 Chapter One Why and How
Often the biased towards staunchly-held departmental policies and interpretations'28 with more heads of government inspectorates proposed that merely providing them they legislation would, in itself, erase pollution from the environment' Similarly' usually preferred to canvas circumstances which had been resolved, omitting reference to anything about to become a menace: projected In places harbouring many instances of gross pollution the official image they *u, o.r" of a land whose streams purled purely beneath a southern sun because were guarded zealously by aitruistic citizens,^sanitary industrialists and the most pollution-conscious of ihe nation' s bureaucrats'29 known The unfortunate ability of the 'many instances of gross pollution' to become horrifically to the public and parliament has repeatedly negated the influence of the
bias of departmental authors. This bias has also been reduced by inspectorates
duplicating controls, the watershed inquiries into sanitation in 1876, mining in 1890,
factories \n 1892, disease from 1916 to 1920,lead poisoning in 1925 and air and water pollution in 1969, as well as the efforts of the parliamentary standing
committees on public works from 1928. I also sought out South Australian and
local histories to further undermine this bias, as well as to gain an insight into the
type of communities which sought to curtail industrial pollution. Of these histories,
the works of J.B. Hirst, T. Worsnop, R. Parsons, S. Marsden and P. Morton were
most rewarding. Unfortunately, my desire to pursue a wide chronological and
geographical range for this thesis negated an ability to further offset the potential papers and bias of the Parliamentary Papers by examining newspapers, politician's
council, company, professional and union records' pollution The examination of the South Australian case portrays a situation of controls being introduced by governments to curtail the appeal of anarcho-
Service of South Australia 28. D.C. Corbett, Report of the Committee of Inquiry into the Public (Adelaide, 1975),11. 1970', 195' 29. Commonwealth Senate Select Committee, 'Water Pollution Report' 11 Chapter One Why and How
I syndicalists and communists. This is the setting in which this case study occurs. Australia do not wish to suggest that the mere existence of leftist ideologues in South produced a cleaner environment, though many have fought long and hard to achieve that this, as the industries operating in communist-controlled countries demonstrate industrial pollution is not produced by one side of the political divide. I would productivity suggest that, just as South Australian governments sought to maintain by curbing industrial pollution to quell the strikes advocated by militant working- to class activists, so communist-led nations produced massively polluting industries provide the wherewithal to secure their revolutions against capitalist nations. In
both cases, it is the overwhelming desire for productivity that determines whether
pollution abounds or is curtailed. Chapter Two Working for the ComPanY
As in Africa, Latin America, Siberia, Ukraine and North America, Europeans used industrialization to colonize South Australia.r In their efforts to grab whatever wealth could be generated in South Australia, with no government constraints,
European colonists harmed the public health and environment with industrial noise and wastes from animal rendering from the 1800s and processing agricultural goods and ores and fuelling factories from the 1840s. European colonists landed in South Australia in 1836 to wrench the environment from Aboriginal subsistence and strip it of readily accessible resources with meagre common law and drainage constraints on subsequent pollution' Aborigines differed from the European colonists by using resources for survival, limiting their impact on the environment and holding to a culture which put the
Aborigine as a part of the environment, rather than to 'conquer nature' for a saleable
surplus of goods by maximizing the immediate exploitation of the environment.2
European colonists regarded indigenous environmentalism as a squandering of
resources which amply justified dispossessing Aboriginals from their lands'3 The
Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals, though formed in England in
l.D.W.Meinig,OntheMarginsoftheGoodEqrth(Adelaide,1988),3-7' 2. K. Buckley *O f . Wheelwrighi, No Parudise for Workers: Capitalism and the Common People in Australiq, lTBB-1g14 (Melbourne, 1988), 19. Burnam Burnam, 'Aboriginal Australia and the M. Green Movement'in D. Hutton, (ed.), Green Politics ín Australia (Sydney, 1987),92. \üilliams, The Making ol the South Austalian Landscape: A Study in the Hístorical Geography of Australia (London, 1giÐ, 13. F.M.L. Thompson, English Landed Society in the Nineteenth Century (London, 1963), 154. 3. Williams, Landscape 13. Thompson, Engtish Landed society 154. A. Davidson and A. wells, ,Carving up the Country', in V. Burgmann and J. Lee, (eds.),.,4 Most Valuable Acquisition: A People'i nistory of Austratia Since 1788 (Melbourne, 1988)' 45-6' Chapter Two Working for the Company t3
1824, was more the subject of ridicule than support from the English.a Indeed, the profitability of the whaling at Victor Harbour since 1800 inspired colonizing, regardless of the wholesale slaughter, tree clearing and stench from boiling down whale oil and rotting carcasses, which led local Aborigines to rename the beach,
Tankallila, the place of tragic smells.5 The only constraint the colonists held on industrial pollution, protecting the value of private property from 'nuisances' under coÍtmon law, failed to prevent urban Europeans from poisoning themselves in their own wastes.6 The Colonization Commissioners only sought to avoid some of the discomforts of European cities by ordering Colonel Light, Surveyor-General, to fix
Adelaide, the South Australian capital city, on a site which could be drained.T It is uncertain whether the Commissioners merely intended to ensure the capital did not lie on a swamp or to remove the cause of zymotic diseases, which Dr. Southwood
Smith had claimed to be the miasma produced from rotting matter in 1830.8
While Colonel Light took his order to mean siting the capital on relatively high ground, other colonists set about making products to serve pastoral, mining and agricultural settlements. Colonel Light adhered to his instructions and acted against the wishes of Governor Hindmarsh by refusing to relocate Adelaide on the flood
4. R.F. Nash, 7h¿ Rights of Nature: A History of Environmental Ethics (Leichardt, N.S.W., 1990), 25,34. 5. D. Whitelock, Conquest to Conservation: History of Human Impacl on the South Australian Environmenr (Adelaide, 1985), 63-5. R. Cockburn, South Australia What's in a Name? Nomenclature of South Australia. Authoritative Derivations of some 4,000 Historically Significant Place Names (Adelaide, 1990),222. 6. D.E. Fisher, Environmental Law in Australia: An Introduction (St. Lucia, 1980), 159. E.P. Hennock, Fit and Proper Persons. Ideal and Reality in Nineteenth Cenlury Urban Government (London, 1973),2, cited Morton, Adelaide 64. 7. Colonization Commissioners for South Australia, 'Letter of Instructions', in W. Light, Brief Journql and Australian Diaries (Adelaide, 1984), 126-7. 8. The zymotic diseases included bubonic plague, cholera, diarrhoea, diphtheria, dysentery, influenza, measles, mumps, scarlet fever, smallpox and typhoid. 'Statistical Register, 1876',Part II, 50. D.H. Coward, Out of Síght: Sydney's Environmental History 1851-1981 (Canberra, 1988), 3-5. Chapter Two Working for the Company t4
plain one and a half miles downstream along the Torrens on 30 December 1836.e
The Governor, by selling this flood plain, renamed Hindmarsh, to the industrialists he evicted from the park lands in 1838, added industrial pollution from the tanneries and fellmongeries to whatever lay in the streets that regular winter flooding of the
Torrens deposited onto the 'saturated plot of earth' of the residents of Hindmarsh.l0
Industrialists spread on the heels of successive waves of agriculturists to other villages on the Adelaide plains, in the Mount Lofty Ranges, the south and the mid north, entering the south east from 1847, along the River Murray from 1853, the far north from 1854 and the Yorke Peninsula from 1860.rr By 1870 most rural towns had a small-scale agricultural implement maker, baker, boot maker, brewer, cafpenter, miller and saddler to supply the needs of local farmers.l2 While some of these grew into substantial businesses, pastoralists created the large-scale works to process their stock or rich finds of minerals at Adelaide, Hindmarsh, Thebarton,
Port Adelaide, Gawler, Kapunda, Kadina, Moonta, Wallaroo and Burra, with the
9. Light, Journal92. 10. Southern Australian 23 June 1838, 3. R. Parsons, Hindmarsh Town: A History of the Village, District Councíl and Corporate Town of Hindmarsh South Australia (Adelaide, 1974), 4,26,236. 11. E. Richards, 'Paths of Settlement in Colonial South Australia', in A.F. Denholm, S. Marsden and K. Round, (eds.), Terowie Workshop: Exploring the History of South Australian Country Towns (Adelaide, l99l),25,32. D.A. Cumming and G. Moxham, They Built South AusÛqlia: Engineers, Technicians, Manufacturers, ContracÍors andTheirWork (Adelaide, 1986), 1. 12. Richards, 'Paths of Settlemenl',25,32. A. Jones, 'Farmers and Their Towns', in A.F. Denholm, S. Marsden and K. Round, (eds.), Terowie Workshop: Exploring the History of South Australian Country Towns (Adelaide, 1991), 94, 103. J.B. Hirst, Adelaide and the Country 1870-1917: Their Social and Political Relationship (Melbourne, 1973),29. R. Charlton, 77r¿ History of Kapunda (Melbourne, l97l), 126. The Southern Argus 15 May 1869, 3. N. Gemmell, Old Strathalbyn and its People 1839-1939 (Adelaide, second edition, 1995), 54. Chapter Two Working for the Company 15 smelters at Burra and Wallaroo world leaders in their duy.t' Town surveyors increased the impact of industrial pollution on urban dwellers in many South
Australian towns via the winter flooding of industrial areas by replicating the
Hindmarsh plains, rather than locating numerous settlements according to 'natural drainage'.la Industrial pollution further concentrated due to industrialists in towns tinked by railway taking the trade from those not so blessed.15
The level of pollution created by colonists was limited only by the scale of production and the amount of byproducts left from processing raw materials. The mines and smelters founded by pastoralists produced the most pollution, choking miners and smelter workers and poisoning surrounding communities, land and waterways with dust, sulphurous smoke, chlorine, lead and mercury fumes, undergound water and refuse from ore washing.16 The processors of pastoral stocks, the tanners, fellmongers, slaughterers, bone-crushers, soap and candle makers, created noxious odours, dumped wastes into rivers and, by washing fleeces in
13, Select Committee, 'Report on the Vy'aterworks Bill, 185 l',12, v. Sanitation Commission, 'Report, 1876' , 6-7 , Z4-7 , 68. T. Worsnop, History of the City of Adelaide From the Foundation of the Province in 1836, to the End of the Municipal Year 1877, with Appendíx and Map (Adelaide, 1878), map ard Advertisement Appendix, 28. J. Moss, Sound of Trumpets: History of theLabourMovementinSouthAustralia (Adelaide, 1985),23,91. Meinig, OntheMargins 190-3. G. Drew, 'Early Copper Mining in South Australia and its Effects on Town Development', in A.F. Denholm, S. Marsden and K. Round, (eds.), Terowie Workshop: Exploring the History of South Australian Country Towns (Adelaide, I99l), 116,123. Cockburn, Nomenclature 248. Parsons, Hindmarsh 14-15,20-1,24,26, 34-5. S. Marsden, A History of Woodville (Adelaide, 19'77),20. H.J. Lewis, Enfield qnd the Northern Villages (Adelaide, 1985), 2I2, 2t5. R.B. Lewis, 'Foreword', in Gemmell, Strathalb))n 7. Gemmell, Strathalbyn 9, ll, t6,69, 109, 197-8. Charlton, Kapunda 8-10, 12-13, 18-19, 36,78-9, 110, 1I2-5,126. P. Donovan, Between the City and the Sea: A History of West Torrens from Settlement in 1836 to the Present Day (A.delaide, 1986), 19. J.F. Drexel, Mining in South Austalia: A Pictorial History (Adelaide, 1982),29,34, 52-3. Cumming and Moxham, They Built 1,3, 12, 15, 35, 48, 80-1, 129-31, 169, 17 5, 206, 2r0, 213, 216. 14. Meinig, On the Margíns l8l-3. 15. Ibid., 195. 16. K. Bailey, Men of the Mines (Kadina and Moonta, 1988), 4-5. Mining Commission, 'Report, 1890', 54, 194, 197-9,201 . Factories Commission, 'Report, 1892',6. Director of Mines, 'Report, 1918',3. Charlton, Kapunda Il-12,20-1, 106, 108-9,ll7,719, 160, photographs and drawing opposite 18. Drexel, Mining34. Chapter Two Working for the Company t6
streams from the mid-1860s, killed a few settlers, cattle and the aquatic life of rivers, while making others ill.17 Industries supplying building materials were also very polluting, with the dust from quarries increasing the susceptibility of quarry workers and nearby residents to tuberculosis and silicosis, and subjecting them to noise and flying rocks, while brick, pottery and plaster kilns polluted the air with noxious lime oxides and vast quantities of smoke.18 Up to the 1870s, governments accepted polluting industries such as chemical plants and gas works, at Adelaide and seven regional centres, although such works were already renowned for polluting water, land and air with noxious fumes when firstproposed for Adelaide in 1861.1e
Aside from a bit of smoke, offensive odours, garbage dumped in the street, noise and the risk of fire, the implement makers, flour mills, boot makers, butchers and bakers of agricultural towns were far more dangerous to the workers employed therein than to the townsfolk.20 Indeed, factories often subjected workers to poisonous fumes by insufficient ventilation, causing at least one death from suffocation in 1855-1856.2r Agricultural communities only created substantial amounts of industrial pollution, such as noxious stenches and making water unpotable, when processing flax, producing wine, and mining and smelting small
17. Sanitation Commission, 'Report, 1876', iv, vi, 7-10, 12-14,47,56, 104. Parsons, Hindmnrsh 24,49 and 162. Charlton, Kapunda l2l-2. Gemmell, Strathalbyn 69. Cockbtm, Nomenclature 222. Donovan, West Torrens 40. Cumming and Moxham, They Built I. 18. J. Matthews, 'Report on Tuberculosis.' APP l9I4-15-16-17 v. 5, 89-90. Director of Mines Reports: '1922',5,'1939',3,'1946',5 and'1953',13-14. Select Committee, 'Report on the Gas Company Bill , 1861', 15. Commonwealth Senate Select Committee, 'Report on Air Pollution, 1969' , v. 5,789. 19. Factories Commission, 'Report, 1892',316. 'Petition Against Gas Works, 1861'. Select Committee, 'Report on the Gas Company Bill, 1861', ii,3. 'Statistical Register, 1877', Part II, 42. J. Fisher, J. Acraman and J. Evans, 'Petition from the South Australian Gas Company', Paper No. 127 ln SAPP 1885 1. Cumming and Moxham, They Built 213-4,216' 20. Sanitation Commission, 'Report,I876',44-5, ll9, 127-8. Factories Commission, 'Report, 1892', 159. Inspector of Factories, 'Report, 1909',4. R.J. Noye, Clare A DisÛict History (Adelaide, 1986), 40, 44. Gemmel, Strathalbyn68,74. 21. Sanitation Commission, 'Report, 1876', vi. Factories Commission, 'Report, 1892',6. 'Inquests 1855-7" 3. Chapter Two Working for the Company t7
finds of silver, lead, gold, copper and iron ore.22 However, by leaving shafts unfenced, miners contributed to the deaths of at least eight South Australians from
1869 to 1872.23
The colonists diligently developed polluting industries regardless of the lack of sustainability. By 1870, the number of polluting factories and mines had grown nearly seven times that of the sixty-six workshops of 1850 (see Table 1.1 below).
The pollution from individual factories may also have increased, such as at the sixty odd brickworks at the west of Adelaide where operations, rather than the number of operators, increased from the mid-1850s to the 1870s.24 The workers employed in polluting industries nearly doubled from 1861 to 1866, while some 2,211 South
Australians sought more mines,25 The nature of factories was becoming more polluting, regardless of the trade conducted, with over one-third of South Australian factories producing smoke or gaseous emissions to power machinery by 1877.26 The colonists seemed committed to exploit resources to depletion with whaling, their first industry in South Australia, closed in 1867 due to the near extinction of whales and the once rich copper lodes being mined ott.27
22. Sanitation Commission, 'Report, I876', vi, 43, J4. Commonwealth Departments of Development and Trades, 'Report on the Wine Industry of Australia' , APP 1929-30-31 v. 3,395. Drexel, Mining 5,7-8,49,51,85, i03. Cockburn, Nomenclature 38, 59, 113, 184. Cumming and Moxham , They Built 3 , i 83 , 2I0 , 216 . 23. Select Committee, 'Report on Present Mineral Laws, 1862', iv,2, 4, 10. Statistical Registers: ' 1871', 51 and'1872', 5L 24. Marsden, Woodville 52-3. 25. T\e number of miners, smelter workers and supporting transporters rose from 1,908 to 3,519; blacksmiths, founders, whitesmiths and mechanics from 919 to I,417; and tanners, fellmongers, soap boilers, woolwashers and charcoal burners from 183 Lo 212. The colonial government had issued 1,738 gold licences and 473 mineral leases by 1870. 'Census, 1866', 3. 'Statistical Register, 1872',54. 26. Half of the factories in the colony in 1877 !üere powered by manual labour, 33 per cent by steam, 13 per cent by horse power, 3 per cent by gas, and I factory by water. 'Statistical Register, 1877' , PartII, 42. 27. 'statistical Register, 1869', 55. Whitelock, Conquest to Conservation 64. Charlton, Kapunda 40. Chapter Two Working for the Company 18
Table2.l: Polluting industrial enterprises in South Australia, 1850-1870 (ten-yearly intervals).
Number of Operators Industrial Operations 1850 1860 1870 boiling down works 2 J^ 6 bone and dust works I 4 breweries 1 8 36 38 dye works 3 foundries ,_ 13 29 gas works 8 glue and size works 2 goldfields 2 implement makers ¿ * {< lime kilns * 35 84 potteries 2 * * quarrres * 70 160 smelters 8 7 t2 soap and candle factories 1 4 9 7 steam powered saw mills 8 26 stone crushing works 1 10 tanneries/ fellmongeries 1 0 20 34 {< whale/fishery works 1 working mines * 15 36 total 66 2r9 459 x The number of these works were not tallied by the Government Statist. - No enterprises were then operating in that industry. Source: Statistical Registers: '1854', 6, 16, '1859',48,52 and '1869', 55, 59
The pollution caused by the drive of colonists to exploit South Australian resources produced such health risks and discomfort that it could not be ignored.
How were South Australians to deal with such an integral result of their labours? Chapter Three
a Draln, Drain) Drain
1840-1960
The first attempts of South Australians to control industrial pollution were linked to their pursuit of democratic government. South Australians required local government to build drains to remove domestic and industrial pollution from towns,
Governors limited local drain construction by requiring councils to balance budgets while elected parliaments would only lay sewers to ensure industrial development.
Natural to Local Drainage: 1840-1857
The desire to drain industrial pollution added impetus to the campaign for self-rule by South Australians to achieve the same political rights of fellow Englishmen, as governors were seen to be too preoccupied with repaying debts to initiate new public works. A partially elected Legislative Council in 1851 immediately enabled local communities to form councils to build drains and became committed to sewering the
Adelaide plains to eradicate typhoid.
By building the first drains in Adelaide to expedite travel, local government improved public health by removing pollution and so demonstrated to colonists that democratic institutions were more responsive than governors to the health needs of the public. Within a yeaî of its founding in 1840, the Adelaide council began building arched masoffy drains to prevent streets turning into quagmires, in accord with the wishes of the colonists and making use of the 2,000 unemployed Governor Chapter Three Drain, Drain, Drain 20
Grey funded during the recession to fulfil his obligation to provide the infrastructure of settlement.l The number of colonists dying per annum declined by nearly one- third from 1840-1844, to 8.1per 1,000 colonists, following the completion of these drains, which washed garbage from Adelaide streets into the surrounding park lands and the River Torrens.2 Thereafter the death rate rose, as public works ceased with the first Adelaide council bankrupt and factory, human and animal wastes polluting the air as 'road dust' or reaching the Torrens via the drains where carriers collected the water they sold across the Adelaide plains.3 While newspaper columnists and colonists called for clean water and ridding the Torrens of pollution from 1846, with infant deaths doubling the mortality rate, Governor Robe would only maintain the city streets.a As one colonial doctor, Woodforde, began describing the city as 'a dunghill of 13 years standing' at public meetings, colonists started to view the
Torrens as a prime source of typhoid (or 'Colonial Fever') and real estate agents
1. S. Marsden, 'The Role of Government in the Formation of Country Towns in South Australia', in A.F. Denholm, S. Marsden and K. Round, (eds.), Terowie Workshop: Exploring the History of South Austrqlian Country Towns (Adelaide, I99I), 42-3 and A History of Woodville (Adelaide, 1977),69. R. Parsons, Hindmqrsh Town: A History of the ViÄage, District Council and Corporate Town of Hindmqrsh South Australia (AdeIalde, 1974),39. N. Gemmell, O/d Strathalbyn and its People 1839-1939 (Adelaide, 1995), 49, 53. S. Sidney, (ed.), Sidney's Emigrant's Journal cited E. Richards, 'South Australia Observed 1836-1986', in E. Richards, (ed.), The Flinders History of South Australia: Social History (Adelaide, 1986), 13. The report of a German tourist, cited ibid., 15. 2. 'statistical Register, 1865', 88. W. Light, Brief Journal and Austrqlian Diqries (Adelaide, 1984), 92. J. Moss, Sound of Trumpets: History of the Labour Movement in South Australia (Adelaide, 1985), 18. P. Morton, Afier Light: A History of the City of Adelaide and its Council, 1878-1928 (Adelaide, 1996), 26. Department of Lands, Adelaide 6628 - III & PT 6528 - 11 (Adelaide, 1980). 3. 'statistical Register, 1865', 88. Register 9 April 1850,2,29 April 1850,2-3. T. rilorsnop, History of the City of Adelaide From the Foundatíon of the Province in 1836, to the End of the Municipal Year 1877, with Appendix and Map (Adelaide, 1878), 68,75,71,132, M. Hindmarsh, drawing of the first Government House, reproduced in R.M. Gibbs, A History of South Australia: From Coloniql Days to the Present (Adelaide, 1984), 45. Morton, Adelaide 26, 208. 4. 'statistical Register, 1865', 88. Worsnop, Adelaide 84-6, 89. I.L.D. Forbes, 'Aspects of Health Care' in E. Richards, (ed.), op. clt.,274. Parsons, Hindmarsh26. D.A. Cumming and G. Moxham, They Built South AusÍrqlia: Engineers, Technicians, Manufacturers, Contractors and Their Work (Adelaide, 1986), 48. Chapter Three Drain, Drain, Drain 2l
stressed dust-free environs and pure water at land sales.5 However, only when Britain waived the colonial debt in 1849 would Governor Young appoint five commissioners to construct sewers and waterworks for Adelaide.6
While colonists gained greater ability to build drains through representative government, the Legislative Council finally agreed to fund the city to treat, rather than merely remove, pollution. V/ith two-thirds of the Legislative Council elected in 1851, it reconstituted the Adelaide city council to make sewers and regulate garbage collectors to prevent wastes from polluting the Torrens and empowered other communities to form district councils to maintain roads.T By 1854, twenty- one communities, with support from local industrialists and the press, had formed councils to build roads and organize garbage disposal.s The Adelaide council defined some of its duties as building sewers and waterworks to remove:
... that mass of corruption which ... now liberally festers the surface of our city to a considerable depth, evolving gases fatal to health, and by which the lives of the citizens must ... be ... materially shortened ...9 as 19.4:1,000 colonists died per annum by 1855.10 Insufficient rates and the
Legislative Council only funding drains for the cemetery, limited the city council to
5. Cited, H.J. Lewis, Enfield and the Nofihern Villages (Adelaide, 1985), 22I and R. Cockburn, South Austrqlia What's in a Name? Nomenclature of South Ausftalia Authoritative Derivations of Some 4000 Historically Significønt Place Names (Adelaide, I99O),'79,244. Moss, Trumpets 53. 6. Worsnop, Adelaide 91.-2, 94-5. Morton, Adelaide 6. 7. Select Committee, 'Report on the Waterworks Bill, 1851', 3. 'An Act to Appoint District Councils, 1852',75,82-3. 'An Act to Constitute a Municipal Corporation for the City of Adelaide, 1852', 157-8. Vy'orsnop, Adelaide 9l-2, 106, lI4. A. Munyard, 'Making a Polity: 1836-1857', in D. Jaensch, (ed.), The Flinders History of South Ausîralia: Political History (Adelaide, 1986), 63-4, 67. 8. J.R. Robbins, 'An Outline History of South Australian Local Government', in D. Jaensch, (ed.), The Flinders History of South Australia: Political History (Adelaide, 1986), 397-8. R. Cha¡lton, The History of Kapunda (Melbourne, l97l), 31. Marsden, Woodville 35. P. Donovan, Between the City and the Sea: A History of West Torrens from Settlement in 1836 to the Presenl Day (Adelaide, 1986), 30. Cockburn, Nomenclature 122-3. The Kapunda Herald and Northern Intelligencer 10 December 1864,2. The Wallaroo Times 25 May 1872,2. 9. Cited, Worsnop, Adelaide 105. 10. The death rate for the colony rose from 15.5:1,000 in 1850 to 19.4:1,000 in 1855. 'Statistical Register, 1865',88. Chapter Three Drain, Drain, Drain 22
building watertables, bluestone gutters, which sent domestic and industrial wastes, such as blood and offal, to the park lands and Torrens.ll The Legislative Council only agreed to provide the city council with f280,000 to pipe water and sewer Adelaide in 1856 after Mayor Fisher resigned in protest, 339 colonists and the councils of Hindmarsh and West Torrens petitioned against slaughterhouses polluting the Torrens, the Hindmarsh council ceased attempts to drain industrial wastes and doctors collated the number of preventable deaths.l2 The Legislative Council hoped to turn these industrial byproducts from a breeding ground for 'fevers' into useful manure, as advocated by the British inventor Robert Stevenson and employed at
Leicester in England, rather than dumping sewage into the sea.13 The interim attempt by the Adelaide council to make manure from city and slaughterhouse sewage by settling wastes in tanks and absorbing effluent on four areas of the park lands was undermined by industrialists.la At least one tannery, brewery and two soap factories polluted the park lands and the Torrens by overloading the settling tanks with wastes previously dumped outside the city.15 As the Legislative Council knew, this added to the wastes from slaughterhouses upstream of Adelaide already contaminating the Torrens, the waters from which were still being sold by carriers to
1i. Select Committee, 'Report into the West-Terrace Cemetery, 1854' , 3-4. Worsnop, Adelaide 106, 1 12. Morton, Adelaide 208. 12. 'Votes and Proceedings', in LCP 1854 13. 339 Adelaide residents, 'Adelaide Water Supply', Paper No. I04 in LCP 1855-6. A.H. Freeling, 'Adelaide V/ater Supply and Drainage', Paper No. 109 in LCP 1855-6 I-2. Select Committee, 'Report into the Water Supply and Drainage of Adelaide, 1855-6', 4, 6. 'Statistical Register, 1860', 2. Worsnop, Adelqide ll2, l3l-2, 152' R.R. Torrens, Chair of the Hindmarsh District Council, 'Report of the Chairman', cited Parsons, Hindmarsh 46. Donovan, West Torrens 40. Gemmell, Strathalbyn 15. Cumming and Moxham, They Built 74,213, 13, Freeling, 'Adelaide Water Supply and Drainage, 1855-56', 2. Select Committee, 'Report into the Water Supply and Drainage of Adelaide, 1855-6', 4, 14. Sanitation Commission, 'Report, 1876',32,47,72. J. Lazat, W.A. Hughes, J. Brown & F. Wicksteed, 'Accounts of Municipal Corporations', Paper No. 34 in SAPP 1857-8 1-2. Worsnop, Adelaide 130-1. Morton, Adelaide 26. 15, Sanitation Commission, 'Report, 1876' , l, 3, 5, 20-2, 70, 72, 84-5, 87 , 89. Chapter Three Drain, Drain, Drain 23
most colonists on the Adelaide plains for drinking.16 Meanwhile, the number of colonists killed by typhoid increased three-fold to sixty per annum from 1856 to
1960.17
Colonists found that elected representatives in local councils and on the
Legislative Council were more likely to respond to popular calls for public works to benefit public health than governors. The early attempts of the Adelaide council to drain industrial and domestic pollution from 1841 and 1851, while corresponding with decreases in disease in the city, created a public health risk by draining wastes directly into a public water supply, the Torrens. Although the trial by the Adelaide council to recycle these wastes into manure in 1856 held the promise of eliminating a public health risk, industrial wastes overran the scheme and polluted the Torrens.
It seemed that disease could be prevented if this scheme was conducted on a sufficiently large scale and did not drain into a water supply. While the Legislative
Council had promised the funds to achieve this, it was one thing for a soon-to-be superseded form of government to make a promise and quite another for its successor to deliver.
Sanitation for Livelihood: 1857-1914
Parliament, rather than fulfil the commitment of the Legislative Council to sewer
Adelaide, enabled the regulation of industrial pollution by local councils and the
Central Board of Health as piped water alleviated disease. Only when livelihoods were threatened by industrial pollution would parliament build drains.
16. Register 9 April 1850, 2 and29 April 1850, 2-3. Freeling, 'Adelaide Water Supply and Drainage, 1855-56', 3. Sanitation Commission, 'Report, 7876', 47-8, 89-91. Worsnop, Adetqide map, 133. Cumming and Moxham, They Built I55. Parsons, Hindmnrsh 91. Lewis, Enfield 57. 17.'Statistical Register, 1860', 2. Chapter Three Drain, Drain, Drain 24
Parliament, while accepting that pollution caused disease, would only drain industrial wastes to preserve economic growth, preferring to extend piped water and for councils to drain and remove industrial pollution. The first parliament, elected by South Australian men on 22 Aprtl 1857, recognized that diseases were spread by water and air pollution by recording colonial deaths under a variety of 'zymotic diseases', a term applied to sicknesses which were believed to have been caused by contact with rotting matter or gaseous emissions.ls Parliament, following the wishes of most South Australians to improve public health, nearly halved the typhoid death rate in 1861 by taking over the waterworks from the Adelaide council in 1859 to pipe clean water to the communities on the plains and not just Adelaide,le
Parliament would only fund drains for industrial wastes to enable further mining at
Kadina in 1863. The government drained mine water to the sea after such water re- entered and closed one mine, one-third of the residents of Kadina left and mine owners intended to pump out enough to flood the surrounding plains to continue digging copper ore.20 To counteract continuing outbreaks of typhoid, parliament supplied the funds to pipe water to more suburbs on the Adelaide plains and build
18. Zymotic diseases included ague, chicken pox, cholera, croup, diarrhoea, dysentery, erysipelas, hydrophobia, influenza, measles, remittent fever, roseola, scarlatina, scurvy, small pox, syphilis, thrush, typhus and whooping cough. 'Statistical Register, 1859' ,2. D.H. Coward, Out of Sight: Sydney's Environmental History 1851-1981 (Canberra, 1988), 3. Munyard, 'Making a Polity: 1836-1857',72-3. K. Seaman, 'The South Australian Constitution Act of 1856' and P.A. Howell, 'Constitutional and Political Development, 1857-1890'in D. Jaensch, (ed.), op. cit., 89, 95, ll7,164. 19. The number of deaths from typhoid in the colony fell from sixty in 1860 to thirty-five in 1861. Statistical Registers: '1860',2 and'1865', 3. Howell, 'Constitutional and Political Development, 1857-1890' , 122. Worsnop, Adelaide 160, 168-9,224. 20. Even nine years ago, all the exposed shafts of the Kadina mines contained water 3 to 5 metres from the surface, hued a deep jade green and effusing a sulphurous gas, detectable from 200 metres on a gusty day. G.V/. Goyder, 'Report on Wallaroo District', Paper No. 56 in SAPP 1861 2-3. Petitions: Duryea Mining Company, 'Drainage from Mines Bill', Paper No. 196 and Cornwall Mineral Association Ltd., 'Drainage from Mines Bill', Paper No. 197 in SAPP I86L Select Committee Reports: 'Mineral Laws, 1862',35-7,43,45 and 'Drainage from Wallaroo Mines, 1863', iii, 1,3, 6,9, 14. Department of Lands, Wallqroo 6430-1il I:50,000 Topographic Map (Adelaide, 1978). Personal visit,24 November 1992. Chapter Three Drain, Drain, Drain 25
more reservoirs in 1866 and 1867, rather than prevent the pollution of waterways by industrialists who increasingly used rivers as drains on being connected to piped water.2r Far from rebuking such industrial practices, parliament rewarded new water-polluting industries if they replaced imports or could export commodities, while frantically building railways and ports until 1885 so that primary producers could compete with interstate and Californian rivals.22 Parliament left drainage to local government, enabling communities to form town councils from 1861 to build drains and remove nuisances from any property and extending this power to the
Adelaide council which sought funds to sewer the city which suffered a death rate four times the rest of the colony in 1866.23
Though at least eleven councils attempted to use these powers to remove industrial wastes from water supplies, they still proved insufficient to curb typhoid. The Clare council drained brewery wastes in 1864 to free town wells from pollution.24 The Adelaide council covered its open drains to manure tanks in the park lands and planted thousands of trees to curb the impact of pollution in 1866.2s
21. Typhoid killed 137 South Australians per annum from 1865-67 and, following the piping of water to Port Adelaide in 1866 and Hindmarsh in 1867 and the construction of reservoirs to supply Glenelg and Kapuda in 1867, killed 61 South Australians per annum from 1868-69. Statistical Registers: '1865', 3 and '1870', 3, Petitions: 124 residents of Adelaide suburbs, 'For Water Supply to Suburban Localities', Paper No. 155 and 100 residents of Port Adelaide, 'For Extension of Water-Works to Port Adelaide', Paper No. 182 in SAPP 1860. Sanitation Commission, 'Report, 1876',7-10, l3-I4, 56,76-7, 122. Parsons, Hindmarsh 9I. Cumming a¡rd Moxham, They Built 5,214. Charlton, Kapunda 34-5. Donovan, West Torrens 76. Lewis, Enfield 3l. 22. In 1870, parliament granted f2,000 to W. Mullett for producing paper and rope from Psitticoschaenus erythrocarpus, the processing of which polluted water with half the reed used. Select Committee, 'Report on Mr Mullett's Petition, 1870-1', i-1i,2,4-5,7. D.\ü. Meinig, Or the Margins of the Good Earth, (Adelaide, 1988), 48-9,60-I,125. 23.T\e death rate for Adelaide was 63.2:1,000 in 1866 when it stood at 16.8:1,000 for the entire colony. 'Census, 1866',2. 'Statistical Register, 1870',2-3. By-laws: 'Adelaide, 1866-7', Paper No. 47 and'Strathalbyn, 1871',4,'7. S. Goode, Mayor, 'Petition from Adelaide Municipal Corporation' , Paper No. 51 in SAPP 18ó4. Worsnop, Adelaide 224, 229-30 , 269-70 . 24. RJ. Noye, Clare A District History (Adelaide, 1986), 133, 145. 25. Worsnop , Adelaide 143, 148, 228,268, 297 . J.8. Hirst, Adelaide and Country 1870-1917 Their Social and Political Relationship (Melbourne, 1973), 61. Morton, Adelaide 26. Chapter Three Drain, Drain, Drain 26
The Adelaide and Hindmarsh councils required industrialists to make their byproducts fit for council drains by filtering liquid wastes into manure tanks.26 Six other councils introduced by-laws to control cesspit construction and designate dumps for nuisances, 'offal, dung, soil, dead animals, blood, or other filth or annoyance' and four to remove 'offensive matter' from any property from 1867.21
The Kapunda council began street watering to curb the aerial sewage that was road dust in 1869, to be followed by the Adelaide and Port Adelaide councils on winning free water from parliament in 1870.28 With yet another typhoid epidemic abating, the Adelaide council opted not to raise the sewage rate that parliament permitted from 1871, rather than sewer the city itself.2e All these measures were insufficient to prevent land values halving near the manure tanks and the wealthy moving from the city to North Adelaide to escape typhoid outbreaks and the smells of the noxious trades in the western suburbs by 1870.30
Parliamentary regulation of industrial pollution to appease public typhoid scares finally demonstrated the inability of existing drains to protect public health.
Rather than sewer the city, Premier A. Blyth preferred forming the Central Board of
Health as advocated by both Adelaide newspapers, the Register and Advertiser and
J.M. Solomon, Mayor of Adelaide and sewerage proponent, who won a seat in the
26. Sanitation Commission, 'Report, 1876', 18, 22,32-3,47,54. 27. Cesspit and dumping by-laws: 'Gawler, 1867' ,2-3, 'Clare, 1868-9', 4-6, 'Strathalbyn, 1868-9', 4, 'Glenelg, 1870-1', 3-4, 'Unley, l87I',2 ald'Goolwa, t874',2. Nuisance removal by-laws: 'Gawler, 1867',2,'Clare, 1868-9', 5 and 'Strathalbyn, 1868-9', 4. 'Corporation Balance Sheets, 1872' , Paper No. 49 in SAPP 1873 7-8. 28. Charlton, Kapunda 35. Select Committee, 'Report into Question Between Corporation and Waterworks, 1870-1', iii. Morton, Adelaide 208. 29. The number of South Australians dying from typhoid dropped from 98 in 1870 to stabilize at 57 in 1871 and 56 in1872. In 1871, the death rate for Adelaide was 12.1:1,000, while that of the colony was 12.8:1,000. Statistical Registers: '1870', 3 and '1875', 3-4. 'Census, l87l', 4. 'CorporationBalance-Sheets,18J2', PaperNo.49inSAPP 18732. Worsnop, Adelaide34l. 30. Typhoid accounted for fifty-seven South Australian deaths in 1869 and ninety-eight in 1870. 'statistical Register, 1870', 3. Sanitation Commission, 'Report, 1876',72, 117. Hirst, Adelqide and Country 132. Chapter Three Drain, Drain, Drain 27
House of Assembly in 1871 amidst the fear of another typhoid epidemic.3l Merely the six parliamentarians linked to noxious trades opposed the measure, which aped the British system of forming local health boards in towns with death rates over 23:1,000 since 1848, banning flex retting in streams from 1869 and making industrialists responsible for their wastes in 1871.32 Parliament, while offering rewards for industrialists to set up polluting industries, sought to sanitize industrialization, by allowing councils to raise up to f300 per annum to make drains, control garbage and set sanitary standards under the guidance of the Central Board.33
With parliament preferring to build roads and railways outside Adelaide, rather than sewer the city, the Adelaide council raised the sewerage rate, built sewers and planted more trees, the Central Board prosecuted eleven industrialists and ordered one to sever a drain into the Torrens, while the press derided Adelaide as the 'stench capital of Australia'.34 Adelaide council, aping industrialists, sought land on which to dump industrial wastes to escape prosecutions by the Board and civil suits in
1876, when Supreme Court Justice Stow could not determine whether it would be worse to close the council drains or permit these to continue polluting the park lands and Torrens.35
31. Advertiser 13 September 187I,2. South Australian Register 9 November 1871,4. Worsnop, Adelaide 448. Hirst, Adelaide and Country 132-3. 32. SA Parliamentary Debates, 1871 163. Sanitation Commission, 'Report, 1876',62, xx-xxii. Dr. Buchanan, 'Prevention of Nuisances in Towns and Villages', Paper No. 154 in SAPP 1871 l, ll . Hirst, Adelqide and Country 133. Morton, Adelaide ll2. 33. Sanitation Commission, 'Report, 1876', 72. 'Bonuses Voted, 1864 to 1874', Paper No. 80 in SAPP 1874. 'The Public Health Act', Act No. 22 in Acts of the Parliamenî of South AusÛalia. 1873 (Adelaide, 1873), 156-7. Worsnop, Adelaide 229-30. Hirst, Adelside and Country 133. Parsons, Hindmarsh 92. Morton, Adelaide ll2, lI5. 34. Central Board of Health, 'Report, 18'75176',2. Sa¡ritation Commission, 'Report, 1876',43,62, 74. Statistical Registers: '1875', 10 and '1878', Part V, 10-11. Worsnop, Adelaíde 364,366, 368, 372-4, 378-9, 385. Marsden, Woodville 1 I 1. Morton, Adelaide 28. 35. Sanitation Commission, 'Report, 18'16', 1,5-7, l0-11, 13, 15-17,23-4,27,73,76, 100. 'Worsnop, Adelaide 377 -8. Chapter Three Drain, Drain, Drain 28
Faced with this impasse and regulation failing to curb deaths from typhoid,36 parliament funded sewerage schemes to ensure that industrial wastes of both the city and Hindmarsh were treated free from the litigation inherent in the proposal of the
Adelaide council. Finding most manufacturers favoured deep drainage to remove their wastes over interference from the Central Board of Health, the Sanitation
Commission which parliament formed in 1876 to determine the need for sewerage endorsed sewering Adelaide to either a sewage farm to prevent zymotic diseases, as the optimum, or to the sea, as temporarily acceptable.3T The Commission assured manufacturers that the government sought to help:
'We are anxious to do what we can to protect the different manufacturers ...'38
With parliament still expecting the city to pay most of the costs in 1877, H. Scott, who became Adelaide Mayor after pledging to drain the city, and the Central Board developed a f145,000 plan to sewer the city to a farm or the sea that would cost industrialists less than carting wastes.3e Parliament took over the scheme in late
1877 to ensure that the industrial wastes of Hindmarsh and the city, rather than terminate at the property of C. White, the only successful litigant against industrial pollution, as proposed by the Adelaide council, would be taken to a sewage farm at
Yatala, where prevailing winds would blow odours away from the city and effluent
36. While doctors contended that South Australians, with more food and money than the English should be far healthier, the number of South Australians killed by typhoid rose from 68 in 1873 to 94 per annum from 1874 to 1876. The death rate for Adelaide more than doubled from 12.1:1,000 in 1871 to26.8:1,000 in 1876,4.2 over the death rate of dirty old England and Wales since 1846. Statistical Registers: '1875', 3-4 and'1876', Part II, 37,40,50, 59, 'Census, l87I', 4. Sanitation Commission, 'Report, 1876', iii, lll, ll4, 127. Central Board of Health Reporrs: '1875176' ,2-3 and'r876177' ,3-4. 37. Saritation Commission, 'Report, 1876', vi, 2, Il ,16,18-19,57. 38. Ibid., 68. 39. Ibid., 51. W. Clark, 'Drainage of City of Adelaide', Paper No. 63 in SAPP 1878 1,5,8. Sewage Farm Commission, 'Report', Paper No. 174 in SAPP 1879 7-8, 10, 19. Worsnop, Adelaide 380-1, 399, 448. Chapter Three Drain, Drain, Drain 29
could be dumped into the swampish Port River should the farm fail.a0 Adelaide was so sewered, ten years before any other Australian capital, to ape the Edinburgh sewage farm, which confined zymotic epidemics to those who could not afford to be sewered and, by manuring industrial and domestic wastes collectively, to avoid either producing the disease suffered in China and Melbourne from manuring with human waste alone or mirroring Sydney by contaminating recreational beaches by dumping raw wastes at sea.41
Viewing the sewering of Adelaide and Hindmarsh as a complete success, subsequent governments put the unemployed to work on expanding the system to take more industrial wastes and ignored its defects until after the Great War.
Parliament deemed using unemployed labour to sewer Adelaide and Hindmarsh to the Islington sewage farm a complete success by 1885, reducing the deaths of
Adelaideans from zymotic diseases by nearly 250 per cent, immediately improving the quality of the Torrens and almost recouping its operating costs by growing vegetables.42 Amidst such low suburban and rural death rates, government sewerage schemes were initiated to curb unemployment during depressions from 1885 to prevent typhoid in schools for the children of the wealthy in St. Peter's by 1886 and to take industrial wastes from Thebarton, Kensington and Norwood by 1892,
40. O. Brown, 'Report on Disposal of Sewage', Paper No. 70 in SAPP 1879 l. Commission on Sewage Farm, 'Report, 1879', 9-10, 16. Sanitation Commission, 'Report, 1876', 128. Worsnop, Adelaide 399. 41. Sanitation Commission, 'Report, 1876', 4-5,7-10, 13-16, 18,2l-2,27-9,33,39, 42-4, 47,56, 70-1, 80, 85-6, 89-91 ,96-9, 103-4, 106-9,121, 129-30, 134. R.H. Ferguson, 'Experiment Re Proposed Drainage of City Sewage into the Gulf', Paper No. 182 in SAPP 1877 l. Commission on Sewage Farm, 'Report, 1879',3,25,34. Howell, 'Constitutional and Political Development, 1857-1890" 157, 172. 42. The death rate from miasmatic diseases fell from 5.4:1,000 in 1881 to 2.4:1,000 in 1886 in Adelaide where the general death rate fell from 26.8:1,000 in 1876 to 18.9:1,000 in 1886. The farm earned an income of fl3,l94 with expenses of î.13,728 for 1886/87 to 1888/89. Statistical Registers: '1876', Part II, 37, '1881', Part II, 5, 16 and '1886', Part II, 5, 8. Central Board of Health, 'Report, 1880/81', 8. A.B. Moncrieff, Engineer-in-Chief, 'Particulars Re Sewage Farm', Paper No. 109 in SAPP /889. Parsons, Hindmarsh lI9. Lewis, Enfield 222. Morton, Adelaide 29,130. Chapter Three Drain, Drain, Drain 30
Glenelg by 1903 and West Torrens by 1910.43 South Australian governments disregarded calls for more sewers from the Central Board and complaints over the stench from the sewage farm, only venting sewer gas and leaving the Hindmarsh sewer as a typhoid-infested, elongated cesspit until finally providing enough water to flush it in 1898.aa Similarly, governments did nothing to prevent storms dumping industrial and domestic wastes from the sewage farm into the Port River and left it to the Adelaide council to remove stormwaters in 1889, when storms threatened to back up sewers.45 Governments loosed the Central Board on slaughterhouses after city health officers discovered pollution in reservoirs from 1881, deferring the use of filters until 1920 and chlorination until 1937.46 Not even typhoid claiming the life of D. Jelley, member of the Legislative Council, on 27 January 1907, altered such policies of South Australian governments,aT V/ith parliament-funded sewerage schemes so limited, communities began emulating the pre-1881 drains and regulation of industrial wastes of Adelaide as their wealth permitted. Inspired by the example of Adelaide, local newspapers, the sewerage rate and prodding from the Central Board, forty-six councils built drains in regional trade and industrial centres and six Adelaide suburbs by 1889.48 However,
43, The dearh rate for the colony dropped from 16.4:1,000 in 1876 to 13.9:1,000 in 1881, 13.4:1,000 in 1886, 13.3:1,000 in 1891 and 11.5:1,000 in 1896, while the death rate for South Australians living beyond the Adelaide plains was 16,4:1,000 in l8'76, 12.4:1,000 in 1881, 12.5:1,000 in 1886, 10.7:1,000 in 1891 and 9.3:1,000 in 1896. Statistical Registers: '1876', Part II, 37,39,'1881', Part II, 5, 15, '1886', Part II, 5, '1891', Part II, 5, '1896', Pat II, 1' Central Board of Health Reports: '1886187',4, 6, '1888/89', 6,8,'1890/91', 5 md'1891192', 4. Hirst, Adelaide and Country 149. Donovan , West Torrens 77 , 129. 44. Central Board of Health Reports: '1880/81', 8-9, '1881/82',7,' 1883/84', 5 and'1886/87', 8, 14-15. Parsons, Hindmarsh ll9-20. 45. Morton, Adelaide222-5. Lewis, Enfield223' 46. Centrat Board of Health, 'Report, 1880/81', 10. Morton, Adelqide 120-1,125-6,139-40. 47. The Gadfly 30 January 1907,977 ' 48. Central Board of Health Reports: '1878179',8, '1879/80',7,'7886187', 6 and '1888/89', 20-3, Hirst, Adelaide and Country 62. R. Wiltshire, Copper to Gold: A History of Wallaroo 1860- 1923 (Wallaroo, undated),149-50. Charlton, Kapunda22-3,28' E. Carmichael, Four Make One: The District Council of Yorketown Celebrates 100 Years of Local Government 1875-1975 (Adelaide, 1975),21,25. D. Cook, The Striding Years: A History of the Minlaton District Council Area (Port Pirie, 1980), 13, 60. Chapter Three Drain, Drain, Drain 3t
only sixteen chose to recycle wastes as manure, with the remainder refusing urgings from the Board to cease polluting the land, creeks, sea and bores by drains.ae As parliament sought to regulate polluters to lessen the contamination of water supplies, so some of these councils sought to curb the impact of local drains, with all of the suburban councils protecting drains and waterways from uncontrolled dumping, eleven rural councils either limiting connections or banning nuisances from drains and the Kapunda council making noxious trades use manure tanks by 1890.50
Twenty-eight councils also controlled local garbage collection, obliging occupiers to clear gutters, regulating night-soil workers and garbage collectors or banning nuisances from town.51 The remaining councils, without the crows that picked
Renmark streets clean, opted to risk recurring outbreaks of typhoid rather than finance waste control.s2
As piped water appeared to have stemmed typhoid epidemics, parliament preferred leaving drain construction to local communities, while funding works to benefit provincial economic development not public health, be these a drain for the
49. Central Board of Health Reports: '1879180" 3, '1880/81" 8, '1883/84" 4 and '1888/89" 20-3. 50, Sanitation Commission, 'Report, 1876', 12, 18-19, 50. Suburban council by-laws: 'Hindmarsh, 1877',2, 'Unley, 1880','Glenelg, 1882',33-4,'St. Peter's, 1883/84',8,'Semaphore, 1883/84', 9, 17,'Brighton, 1887',8, 1l and'Hindmarsh, 1888',4. Rural council by-laws: 'Wallaroo, 1876',3,5, 'Moonta, l8'll', 4,'Port Pirie, 1880', 4, 'Kapunda, 1882',9, 16, 'Maitland, 1884', 4, 'Port Augusta, 1885', 4, 15, 'Davenport, 1888', 1, 'Port Augusta West, 1888', l-2,9 and 'Port Pirie, 1890', 10. 51. By-laws: 'Adelaide, 1874',7,9,'Goolwa, 1874',2, 'Wallaroo, 1875',3,'MountGambier, 1876',3-4,'Port Augusta, 18'76',2,4,'Hindmarsh, 1877', 2,'Port Pirie, 1877',4, 'Moonta, 1877' ,3-4, 'Kadina, 1878' , 4, 'Yorketown, 1879' ,2-3, 'Gawler, 1879' ,2, 'Port Pirie, 1880', 4- 5, 'Mount Gambier, 1880', 3-4, 'Port Augusta, 1880', 8-9, 11, 'Kensington and Norwood, 1881',6-7, 'Burra, 188 1', 1, 'Brighton, 1882',7-8, 'Glenelg, 1882', 17, 'Unley, 1882',43, 'Kapunda, 1882', 9-I0, 14, 'Laura, 1882' , 7, 'Mount Gambier, 1882', 14, 'Glenelg, 1883-4', 'St. Peter's, 1883-4', 8-9, 'Port Adelaide, 1883-4',9, 'Semaphore, 1883-4', 10, 16-17, 'Port Wakefield, 1883-4', 14,'Quorn, 1883-4',8,'Laura, 1884',8,'Maitland, 1884',6,'Port Adelaide, 1885', l-2,'Port Augusta, 1885', 1,4, 11 , 17, 'Brighton, 1887', 1,'Petersburg, 1887', 5, 8, 14, 'Hindmarsh, 1888', 4, 'Davenport, 1888', l, 5,7, 10, 'Port Augusta West, 1888', 1, 6, 12 and'Port Pirie, 1890' , 4, 12-13. 52. Central Board of Health, 'Report, 1889/90',7. Robbins, 'Local Government', 388. Charlton, Kapunda 46,97. Chapter Three Drain, Drain, Drain 32
Kadina mines or railways. By 1889, at least forty-six councils organized some form of drainage, some of which polluted other communities by contaminating waterways. As the level of wastes produced by industrialists increased on being connected to piped water, parliament opted to set the Central Board of Health against polluters rather than pay for sewers. Parliament reversed this decision to prevent the Central Board and courts from prosecuting industrialists and the city council from building sewers which would deposit city wastes on the lands of the first successful anti-pollution litigant. The latest British methods were trialed, recycling industrial and domestic wastes on a sewage farm, with the option of throwing the wastes into the sea should the farm fail. Parliament would only expand the system to ease unemployment. V/ith other communities not suffering the high death rate of Adelaide, parliament preferred that councils provide drains and, with the Central Board of Health, regulate industrialists to preserve public health and prevent the pollution of public water supplies from 1881.
Draining for Industrialization: L9L4'1960
Seeking to ease unemployment during the Great Depression, state governments expanded sewerage to provide a taxpayer-funded service to industrialists on and beyond the Adelaide plains.
Renewed government interest in sewerage was instigated by the desire to eradicate unemployment. The Register quashed the re-opening of public debate for more sewers by women campaigning to curb child mortality in council elections from 1916, by deriding the contenders as exceeding the boundaries of the fairer sex.53 Rather than introduce new treatments of sewage from 1917, when the
53. Morton, Adelaide 49-50. Chapter Three Drain, Drain, Drain 33
industrial wastes which made the sewerage farm possible in 1877 began killing vegetation, successive South Australian governments daily jettisoned 8,560,000 gallons of untreated domestic and industrial sewage into the Port River causing typhoid, stomach complaints and jeopardizing dairying in neighbouring suburbs and killing mangrove swamps for half a mile.5a So too, state governments did nothing on learning that industrial and domestic sewage in the River Murray caused typhoid in towns along its banks in l924.ss Though under consideration since 1920, only during the Great Depression did the Butler Liberal and Hill Labor governments provide f.636,270 to fund work for the unemployed to introduce the new British aerated and activated sludge treatments to produce manure and safe effluent at the
Islington and Glenelg sewage works.s6 The Hill Government (1930-1933) formed the Department of Engineering and \Water Supply (E&WS) to take over building sewers and water supplies from the Public Works Department in 1932.s7 This revamp of sewerage on the Adelaide plains also alleviated the industrial pollution spread by winter storm water flooding the west of Adelaide, following council requests since 1916, by concreting the creeks of the Adelaide plains.58
Reports from the Parliamentary Standing Committee on Public Works make it clear that Liberal governments used these schemes to provide a taxpayer- subsidized service to industry to aid industrialization on and beyond the Adelaide plains. The Butler Government (1933-1938) funded connecting the industries at
54. Select Committee, 'Report on the Adelaide Sewerage System, 1920' , 5,7-9, ll, l3-I4,20, 55. F.F. Langley, 'Sanitary Conditions of the River Murray Communities, 1924' , Paper No. 75 in 9APP 1924 5,8-11, 14-17,20,22. 56. Parliamentary Standing Committee on Public rùy'orks Reports: 'Sewerage of Adelaide and Suburbs, 1928', iiiiv, vii, ix, 'Second, 1929', rä, vi, xiii, 'Third, 1930', xiii-xiv and'Glenelg Sewage Treatment Works, 1939',6. 57. G.H. Knibbs, Official Year Book of the Commonwealth of Australia, Containing AuthoriÍative Statistics for the Period 1901-1919 (Melbourne, 1920),97I. Parliamentary Standing Committee on Public Works, 'Report on Glenelg Sewage Treatment Works, 1939',6. 58. Marsden, Woodville 193, 195. Chapter Three Drain, Drain, Drain 34
Woodville, such as General Motors Holden, to the Islington sewage works in 1934 and provided a sewage plant for industrial Port Adelaide in 1935 from general tax collection and by using unemployed labour.se During World'War Two, the Playford
Liberal Government (1938-1965) up-graded the Glenelg and Port Adelaide treatment plants and built a sewage plant at Salisbury to take wastes from munitions work, at a cost of over f220,000 and piped River Murray water to Port Pirie, Port Augusta and Whyalla to bolster war production by 1944.60 The Liberal Governments had approved f386,655 taxpayer-funded upgrades of the Glenelg and Port Adelaide sewage plants to enable these to treat industrial wastes so as to lift E&WS bans on sewering toxic industrial wastes which crippled the recycling of domestic sewage and polluted at least one and a half miles of coastline.6r Following the war, the
Playford administration extended sewerage to areas designated for industry such as
Port Adelaide in !946, Croydon Park in 1953, the munitions industries at Salisbury and the new industrial town of Elizabeth in the north of the Adelaide plains in 1955, costing f.1,257,444.62 By 1957, the Playford Government decided to build sewage works to tfeat current wastes from abattoirs and cheese factories and future industrial wastes at Gumeracha, Mount Gambier and Naracoorte at a cost of f379,250.63
Whereas all these schemes protected public health, government priorities demonstrated that industrial development provided the main incentive. The Playford
59. parliamentary Standing Committee on Public Works Reports: 'Glenelg Sewage Treatment Works, lg3g', 22-3 and'Port Adelaide Sewerage Treatment Works, 1944' , 4' Marsden, Woodville 179. 60. parliamentary Standing Committee on Public Works Reports: 'Glenelg Sewage Treatment Works, Ig3g',22-3,30,'Port Adelaide Sewerage Treatment Works, 1944',3-5, 11 and 'New Town Sewerage, 1955', 4. Cumming and Moxham,They Built 10,220' 61. Parliamentary Standing Committee on Public Works, 'Report on Glenelg Sewage Treatment Works, lg3g',4, lg,2l-3,30, 'Port Adelaide Sewerage Treatment Works, 1944',4-5, l1 and 'Port Adelaide Sewerage Treatment Works, 1946' ,8. 62. lbld.,'Port Adelaide Sewerage Treatment Works, 1946' , 8, 'Croydon Park Sewerage Extension, 1953' ,3-4 and 'New Town Sewerage, 1955', 3-6, 8. 63. Ibid., 'Gumeracha Sewerage Scheme, 1956-7',3-4, 'Mount Gambier Sewerage Scheme, 1957', 3-6 and 'Naracoorte Sewerage System, 1957' ' 5, l0' Chapter Three Drain, Drain, Drain 35
Government would only attend to major defects, such as the collapse of the main sewer at Port Adelaide in 1951, ignoring the continued pollution of the region with hydrogen sulphide from the sewers since 1947.64 That economic development was the prime focus of this government was shown by its decision to supply the Port
Pirie uranium treatment plant with water piped from the River Murray in 1953 prior to supplying Adelaide, which had been rationing water since 1950.6s The Playford ministry only prevented pollution of the Adelaide water supply from the Gumeracha cheese factory, leaving industries at the Chain of Ponds, Birdwood and Mount
Pleasant to continue polluting the supply because the towns had insufficient populations to pay for sewering the local industries.66 Whereas these sewage schemes operated on activated and aerated sludge treatment to provide an irrigable effluent, the Playford administration left Broken Hill Associated Smelters (BHAS) to drain whatever it did into the Spencer Gulf, merely adding the effluent from the domestic sewage the E&WS treated at Port Pirie.67
Successive governments allowed the Islington sewage farm to be little more than a conduit for dumping industrial and domestic wastes into the sea via the Port
River from 1917, causing disease and environmental degradation. The desire to ease unemployment during the Great Depression prompted Liberal and Labor governments to extend sewerage on the Adelaide plains. However, from 1934 to
1960, successive Liberal governments only funded sewerage schemes of benefit to industrial development as distinct from public health. Despite the outbreak of typhoid along the Murray, South Australian governments would not provide
64. Ibid., 'Report on Ethelton Sewerage Pumping Station, 1951', 3-5. Commonwealth Senate Select Committee, 'Air Pollution Report, 1969' , APP 1969 v . 5, 7I9. 65. Parliamentary Standing Committee on Public Works, 'Report on Port Pirie Uranium Treatment Plant, 1953', 3-4,6. Cumming and Moxham, They Built II,22O. 66. Parliamentary Standing Committee on Public Works, 'Report on Gumeracha Sewerage Scheme, 1956-7' ,3-4. 67.lbid.,'New Town Sewerage, 1955', 5-6 and 'Port Pirie Sewerage Scheme, 1.957' , 5. Chapter Three Drain, Drain, Drain 36
sewerage, even when supplying industrial centres with polluted River Murray water from 1944. Although this enabled economic growth at Port Pirie, Port Augusta and
Whyalla, it appears as dubious a practice for sustaining public health as allowing industries in Adelaide Hills towns to pollute the Adelaide water supply. As shown at Islington from 1917, Glenelg in 1935 and Port Adelaide during World War Two, relying on sewerage to treat industrial wastes without continually upgrading these systems led to typhoid outbreaks in communities on the Adelaide plains and River
Murray and at least the gross pollution of one and a half miles of coastline, rivers and the destruction of mangroves.
oo0oo
The South Australian case of laying drains and sewers shows that representative government is more likely to allocate funding to public works to improve public health than an unelected central government. At least forty-six councils, enabled by the elected Legislative Council and parliament, emulated the trials of draining
Adelaide wastes and collecting garbage by 1889 and often redirected wastes from one community to another by draining domestic and industrial wastes into
waterways. However, elected parliaments could only be convinced to fund sewer
construction to maintain economic growth. In this manner the government drained
underground water to keep the Kadina mines operational from 1863, sewered
Adelaide industries to free industrialists from the Central Board of Health and court injunctions in the 1880s, sewered industries on the Adelaide plains to use the
unemployed in the 1930s and sustain munitions works during'World rùy'ar Two and,
thereafter, began sewering rural towns to aid regional development. The South
Australian experience of sewerage shows that treating wastes is not a permanent Chapter Three Drain, Drain, Drain 37
solution to industrial pollution because industrialists have overloaded each system.
Such was the case with the first drains laid by the Adelaide council in 1841 and
1851, its settling tanks in 1856, the Islington sewage farm by I9I7 and the aerated sludge treatments at Glenelg in 1935 and Port Adelaide during V/orld War Two.
When overloaded, sewerage systems infected communities with typhoid, despoiled coastline and rivers, and killed mangroves. V/ith governments laying sewers more for the sake of industrialization rather than public health, South Australians were recurringly required to use polluted water, from the Torrens from 1841, reservoirs from 1881 and the River Murray from 1920. Chapter Four
Councils
By Law and Zone
1861-1960
Until very recently, only a few South Australian councils were prepared both to employ inspectors and control industrial 'nuisances', stenches which jeopardized land value and public health, that were permitted under the municipal acts passed by parliament from 1861. Fearing the loss of employment, most councils would only regulate insignificant offenders and, by tolerating industrialists who produced toxic pollutants, assisted in creating industrial suburbs and towns. Parliament and councils formalized this process from the 1920s by planning town development to zone residential areas from industry. The rare instances when councils of industrial areas effectively prevented industrial pollution were during the 1900s, when amalgamated local inspection and municipal socialism were employed to combat tuberculosis spread through foodstuffs, and in the mid-1950s, when these councils could expel noxious trades and curtail toxic polluters with cleaner manufacturing ensuring unhindered economic development. Chapter Four By Law and Zone 39
By-laws: 1861-1885
Up to 1885, only one-sixth of South Australian councils acted on community demands to curb industrial pollution. Councils were bound too closely to the local economy to do anything other than control pollution to preserve the well-being of the wealthy, leaving the pollution of communities which were dependent upon the most noxious of industries unchecked. The regulation of industrial pollution, though derived from the popular pressure of democratic government to eradicate industrial odours, was controlled by industrialists and traders who dominated councils. The mainly elected Legislative
Council granted local control over slaughterhouse pollution when creating the
Adelaide city and district councils in 1852.r Parliament extended local pollution control to the noxious trades (candle and soap factories, tanneries and breweries) in
1861, when under the sway of the Political Association, representatives of workers and small-scale farmers seeking to promote the well-being of all and not only the rich.2 Lobbying by the Adelaide city council and the Register and Advertiser newspapers over the growing stench from animal processing in the western suburbs blowing over Adelaide led parliament to extend local control over pollution in
18ß.3 All of these regulations, based on the by-laws employed by British councils, gave the wealthy control over pollution regulation, with the rich able to cast six times the votes of the property-less constituents in council elections.a In effect,
1. 'No. 16, An Act to Appoint District Councils' and'No. 23. An Act to Constitute a Municipal Corporation for Adelaide', in LCP I 852 7 6-8, 157 -8. 2. J. Moss, Sound of Trumpets: History of the Labour MovemenÍ in South Australia (Adelaide, 1985),79,83. By-laws:'KensingtonandNorwood,1362',3and'Strathalbyn, 1871',7. 3. J.B. Hirsl, Adelaide and the Country 1870-1917 Their Social and Polítical Relationship (Melbourne, 1973), L32. A.H.F. Bartels and T. Worsnop, 'Petition from Adelaide Municipal Corporation', Paper No. 150 in SAPP 1873. 4. P. Morton, After Light: A History of the City of Adelaide and its Council, 1878-1928 (Adelaide, 1996), xi, 36-7 . HJ. Lewis, Enfield and the Northern Villages (Adelaide, 1985), 79, 81. Chapter Four By Law and Zone 40
parliament promoted self-regulation for leading industrialists, since they usually held local and parliamentary office like the four councillors, three mayors, a justice of the peace, four members of parliament and two premiers cited for polluting the environment by various inquiries.s
Pollution-controlling by-laws were only passed by councils operating in regions of industrial diversity prior to 1889. Out of the 170 councils operating in
South Australia, twenty-nine towns supplying agricultural and mining industries adopted pollution controls, once the initial pride of townsfolk in industrial development waned.6 Beginning on the Adelaide plains, which contained two-thirds
5. Councillors: R. Hayley, tanner, T. Paltridge, woolwasher, E.J.F. Crawford, Hindmarsh brewer and District Councillor, V/,H. Burford, soap maker and Adelaide Councillor, l84I-2 and W.K. Simms, Adelaide brewer and Councillor, 1867-68. Mayors: Moonta Mayor, C, Drew, a director of the Moonta Gas Company, B. Taylor, tanner and first Mayor of the Town of Hindmarsh and C. Peacock, tanner and Adelaide Mayor, 1875-77. Justice of the Peace: E.M. Bagot, tanner, woolwasher and fellmonger. Members of parliament: Charles Bonney, Commissioner of Crown Lands, superintendent of the Great Northern Mining Company, W.K. Simms, brewer, H. Martin, Great Northern Mining Company and J.T. Bagot, a relative of E.M. Bagot. Premiers: H. Ayers, gas works, Burra mine and B.T. Finnis, Duryea Mining Company. R.A. Fiveash and Co., 'Memorial from Mineral Claimants in the North, 1865-6',2. C, Bonney and A. Scott, 'Great Northern Mining Company, 1866-7', 3. Sanitation Commission, 'Report, 1876', ll-12, 19-20, 56, 64-5, 67. Select Committee Reports: 'Gas Company Bill, 186I',2,'Mineral Laws, 1862', 8, 'Wallaroo Mines, 1863', 17-19,'Waterworks Management, 1867', iii and 'Moonta Gas Company Bill, 1873', 6. D. Jaensch, (ed.), The Flinders History of South Ausftalia: Political History (Adelaide, 1986), 487, R. Pa¡sons, Hindmarsh Town: A History of the Village, DisÛict Council and Corporate Town of Hindmarsh South Austrqlia (Adelaide, 1974), 48,95, 111. T. Worsnop, History of the City of Adelaide from the Foundation of the Province of South AusÛalia in 1836, to the end of the Municipal Year 1877, with Appendix ønd Map (Adelaide, 1878), 444-8. Hirsf , Adelaide and the Country 3L 6. 'Clare By-laws, 1868-9' , '7. M. Williams , The Making of the South Ausftalian Landscape: A Study in the Historical Geography of Australla (London, 1974), 59. Hirst, Adelaide and the Country5. R. Cockburn,SouthAustraliaWhaÍ'sinaName? Nomenclatureof SouthAustralia Authoritative Derivations of some 4000 Historicølly Significant Place Names (Adelaide, 1984 reprint), 59, 173. A.H. Denhom, 'Setting the Scene', E, Richards, 'Paths of Settlement in Colonial South Australia', S. Marsden, 'The Role of Government in the Formation of Country Towns in South Australia', P. Donovan, 'The Influence of Transport on the Development of South Australian Country Towns', L. MacGillivray, 'Whisky, Wheat and Wool - a Brief Examination of Four Towns of the Lower South East of South Australia, 1840-1880', and A. Jones, 'Farmers and Their Towns', in A.F. Denholm, S. Marsden and K. Round, (eds.), Terowie Workshop: Exploring the History of South Australian Country Towns (Adelaide, l99I), I0,29, 32, 40, 63-4,79-81, 84, 103. J.R. Robbins, 'An Outline History of South Australian Local Government', in D. Jaensch, (ed.), The Flinders History of South Australia: Politicul History (Adelaide, 1986), 400-1. Chapter Four By Law and Zone 4T
of the population and the greatest industrial diversification, 10 councils passed the pollution-controlling by-laws from 1862, closely followed by 4 towns in the mid
north and 2 in the south.T Councils enacted the by-laws soon after settlement by
farmers at six towns on the Yorke Peninsula and by traders at eight ports or railway junctions in the far north from 1875.8 In 'company' towns such as pastoral Mount
Gambier and the Kapunda and Burra mines, townsfolk only sought by-laws to
control industrial pollution after machine making and trade eclipsed the revenue of
founding industries in the 1870s.e Parliament and insurance companies spurred local pollution control by
threatening council revenues. Parliament, prodded by the Political Association and
wealthy North Adelaide residents objecting to odours, inspired councils to regulate
slaughterhouse pollution by threatening to remove slaughterhouse fees from
Adelaide council revenue in 1861, the loss of which had bankrupted the city in
1843.10 Not only did this prompt the city council to impose sanitary obligations on
slaughterhouses, but inspired the Kensington and Norwood council to requirÞ
7. By-laws: Adelaide Plains Councils: 'Kensington and Norwood, 1862', 'Adelaide, 1866-7', Paper No. 153, 'Port Adelaide, 1868-9', 'Glenelg, 1870-1','Unley, l87l','Hindmarsh, 1877', 'Brighton, 1882', 'Thebarton, 1883-4', 'St. Peter's, 1883-4', and 'Semaphore, 1883-4'. Mid North Councils: 'Gawler, 1867', 'Clare, 1868-9', 'Kapunda, 1875',2-4 and 'Port Wakefield, 1883-4'. South Councils: 'strathalbyn, 1868-9' and 'Goolwa,1874'. Williams, Landscape3ST.
Richards, 'Paths of Settlement', 25, 27 . 8. By-laws: Yorke Peninsula Councils: 'Wallaroo, 1875', 'Moonta, 1877','Kadina, 1878', 'Yorketown, 1879','Edithburgh, 1883-4' and 'Maitland, 1884'. Far North Councils: 'Port Augusta, 1876', 'Port Pirie, 1877', 'Burra, 1881', 'Laura, 1882','Quorn, 1883-4', 'Petersburg, 1887', 'Davenpon, 1888' and 'Port Augusta West, 1888'. Hirst, Adelaide and the Country 5. Marsden, 'Formation of Country Towns', 40. Donovan, 'Transport' , 63-4. Cockburn, Nomenclature 59,173. 9. By-laws: 'Kapunda, 1875',2-4,'Mottnt Gambier, 1876'and'Burra, 1882',7,9, 12-15. R. Charlton, The History of Kapunda (Melbourne, I97 l),36,40. Donovan, 'Transport', 52. MacGillivray, 'Whisky, Wheat and Vy'ool', 79-81,84. G. Drew, 'Early Copper Mining in South Australia and its Effects on Town Development', in A.F. Denholm, S. Marsden and K. Round, (eds.), Terowie Workshop: Exploring the History of South Ausftalian Country lowtts (Adelaide, r99t), tt7, t27 . 10. 'Act No. 16', 77-8. 'Act No. 23', 157. T. English, 'Petition from Adelaide Corporation,1362' and 'Petition Against Cattle Slaughtering Bill, 1862'. Worsnop, Adelaide 68-9, 186. Moss, Trumpets 79, 83. Chapter Four By Law and Zone 42
slaughterers to soundproof premises and contain wastes in 1862 and for twenty- seven other councils to do likewise or ban slaughtering from town.11 Lobbied by insurance companies since 1857, councils were more willing to regulate domestic fire risks (open fires in summer from 1862, the use of chimneys from 1867 and storing flammable matter from 1868) than the potentially more serious industrial hazards, with only Moonta and Gawler councils regulating gas leaks from 1877 and eighteen regulating explosives from 1881.12 Only the Hindmarsh council resisted calls from insurance companies to join the more expensive State Fire Brigade for fifty-eight years, despite its Volunteer Brigade proving inadequate in the conflagration of three noxious trades on25 December 1907 .r3
Councils only voluntarily contained industrial pollution if they were serving the interests of wealthy residents, sought to encourage consumers or tourists to visit
11, Petitions: T. English, 'Petition from Adelaide Corporation, 1862'and'Petition Against Cattle Slaughtering Bill, 1862'. By-laws: 'Kensington and Norwood, 1862', 3, 'Gawler, 1867',2, 'Clare, 1868-9',4-5, 'Port Adelaide, 1868-9', l-2, 'Strathalbyn, 1868-9',4, 'Glenelg, 1870-1', 3, 'Unley, l87l' , 2-3,'Wallaroo, 1875', 3, 'Mount Gambier, 1876' , 3, 'Port Augusta, 1876' ,3, 'Hindmarsh, 1877' ,3, 'Port Pirie, L877' ,3, 'Moonta, 1877' , 4, 'Kadina, 1878' , 4, 'Yorketown, 1879',2,'Gawler, 1879',2,'Burra, 1881', 2, 'Brighton, 1882', Paper No. 100, 9, 'Glenelg, 1882', 36-38, 'Kapunda, 1882', 13-14, 'Laura, 1882',11, 'Glenelg, 1883-4', 'Thebarton, 1883- 4',2-3, 'St. Peter's, 1883-4',8-9,'PortAdelaide, 1883-4', i4-15,'Semaphore, 1883-4', 14-15, 'Edithburgh, 1883-4',4,'Kadina, 1883-4',5,'Quorn, 1883-4',8-9,'Petersburg, 1887', 12, 'Hindmarsh, 1888', 8, 'Davenport, 1888', 9, 'Port Augusta West, 1888', 11 and'Port Pirie, 1890', 12. R. Thornton, 'Altruism and Enterprise: The Greater Adelaide Abattoirs, 1898-1933', in B. Dickey, (ed.), William Shakespeare's Adelaide 1860-1930 (Adelaide, 1992),160. 12. 8 Insurers, 'Amendment to Building Bill', Paper No. 99 in SAPP 1857-8 I-2. 13 signatories, 'Petition from Fire Insurance Companies', Paper No. 90 in SAPP 1872. By-laws: 'Kensington and Norwood, 1862',2, 'Gawler, 1867',1,'Clare, 1868-9', 4-5, 'Glenelg, 1870-1', 2-3,'UnIey, l87I',2, 'strathalbyn, I87l',3-4, 'Adelaide, 1874',5, 'Wallaroo, 1875',2-3, 'MountGambier, 1876',3,'Port Augusta, 1876',2-3, 'Hindmarsh, 1877', 3, 'Port Pirie, 1877', 4-5, 'Moonta, 1877',3-5,'Kadina, 1878', 3, 'Yorketown, 7879' , l-2, 'Gawler, Í879' , 2, 'Port Pirie, 1880', 5, 7, 'Mount Gambier, 1880', 3, 6, 'Port Augusta, 1880', 8, 10, 'Adelaide, 1881', Paper No. 174, 2,'Burrà, 1881', 1-2, 'Glenelg, 1882', 39, 'Unley, 1882', 46, 'Kapunda, 1882', ll, 13, 15, 'Laura, 1882', 5, 7, 'Mount Gambier, 1882' , 14,'Port Augusta, 1882' ,31, 'Thebarton, 1883-4', 2,'St. Peter's, 1883-4', 8,'Port Adelaide, 1883-4', 10-11,'Semaphore, 1883-4', 18, 'Yorketown, 1883-4',2, 'Kadina, 1883-4',5, 'Quorn, 1883-4',5, 'Maitland, 1884',3-6,'La.ura, 1884',7, 'PortAugusta,1885', ll,14-15,17,'Petersburg,1887',6,8,14, 'Davenport,1888', 6-9,'Port Augusta West, 1888', 7, 11, 'Port Pirie, 1890', 11-14 and 'Brighton, 1893'. 13. Parsons, Hindmarsh 167,169. Chapter Four By Law and Zone 43
their towns, or administered an economically mixed region. Although 21 councils decided that industry was too objectionable to operate near churches on Sunday,la only 3 councils located in wealthy districts, 8 with merchants as mayors or publicans seeking to attract tourists and 7 councils located in towns which were then burgeoning as trading centres passed by-laws to control pollution from noxious trades from 1862 and only the Kensington and Norwood council regulated nuisances from factories from 1871.15 The Unley council passed the by-laws controlling pollution from noxious trades in 1871 when under the mayoralty of J.H. Barrow, the editor of the Advertiser which was then campaigning for more local pollution- proscribing by-laws from parliament.16 Only councils promoting tourism joined the
Adelaide council from 1874 to afford townsfolk the right to clean air by banning the burning of wastes that produced noxious smoke, such as rags, leather or any matter
14. By-laws: 'Clare, 1868-9',6,'Strathalbyn, 1868-9',5,'Glenelg, 1870-l',4,'Strathalbyn, l87l',6, 'Kensington and Norwood, 1871', 3, 'Wallaroo, 1875', 4, 'Port Pirie, 1877', 3, 'Hindmarsh, 1877',3, 'Moonta, 1877',4, 'Unley, 1877',12, 'Kadina, 1878',4,'Brighton, 1882', Paper No. 185, 3,'LanJra, 1882',6,'Thebarton, 1883-4', 2,'Port Adelaide, 1883-4', 16, 'Semaphore, 1883-4', 16, 18, 'Kadina, 1883-4', 5, 'Quorn, 1883-4', 8, 'Maitland,1884',4, 'Laura, 1884', 8, 'Petersburg, 1887', 13, 'Davenport, 1888', 10 and'Port AugustaWest, 1888', 12. 15, By-laws from councils in wealthy districts: 'Kensington and Norwood, 1862',3, 'Kensington and Norwood, l87l',5, 'Unley, l87l',2 and 'St. Peter's, 1883-4', 9. By-laws from councils with merchants for mayors: 'Strathalbyn, 1868-9', 5, 'Adelaide, 1874',6, 9, 'Wallaroo, 1875', 4, 'Hindmarsh, 1888', 8, 'Yorketown, 1879', 2,'Maitland, 1884', 4 and 'Davenpon, 1888', 8. By-laws from councils with publicans seeking to attract tourists: 'Clare, 1868-9', 5. By-laws from trading centres: 'Gawler, 1867', 2, 'Mount Gambier, 1876',4, 'Moonta, 1877', 4, 'Kadina, 1878',4,'Kapunda, 1882', 16,'Semaphore, 1883-4', 19 and'Quorn, 1883-4',8. Sanitation Commission, 'Report, I876',73. Worsnop, Adelaide 448 and'Trade Index', 43, Hirst, Adelaide and the Country 39. R.J. Noye, Clare A Distict History (Adelaide, 1986),24, 62-3. Lewis, Enfield 37. N. Gemmell, Old Strathalbyn and iÍs People 1839-1939 (Adelaide, 1985), 36,49, 53, 64. R. Wiltshire, Copper to Gold a History of Wallaroo South Australia 1860-1923 (Wallaroo, undated), 30. Parsons, Hindmarsh 138. E. Carmichael, Four Make One: The District Council of Yorketown Celebrates 100 Years of Local Government 1875-1975 (Adelaide, 1975),26, 100, 106. Charlton, Kapunda 19. D. Cook, The Striding Years: A History of the Minlaton District Council Area (Port Pirie, 197 5) , 49 . 16. 'Unley By-laws, I87l',2. P.A. Howell, 'The South Australia Act, 1834', in D. Jaensch, (ed.), The Flinders History of South AusÍralia: Political History (Adelaide, 1986), 50. Chapter Four By Law and Zone 44
likely to offend, within 100 yards of anyone who might object.l7 Only councils independent of dairy production introduced regulations to prevent the spread of contagious diseases, as publicized by health officers, by preventing waste and excreta contaminating dairy goods from 1878.18 Councils of industrial towns and those recovering from mining or located in arid zones preferred public works, such as tree planting and protecting parks, to interfering with private industry.re
The prevention of disease transformed the local regulation of pollution from a fee-collecting inspector to one who sought out pollution to control. The Adelaide council initially employed a slaughterhouse inspector and nuisance inspector in 1852 and formed a mayor's court to collect licence fees, not to enforce pollution controls.20 Following the threat from parliament to take over the regulation of slaughterhouses in 1861, the city inspectors began regulating industrial pollution according to the complaints received from wealthy North Adelaide residents and landowners near noxious trades.2l Thirteen other councils could afford to employ slaughterhouse or nuisance inspectors full-time by 1889, with a further ten councils employing part-time inspectors and the rest requiring the town clerk or surveyor to
17. By-laws: 'Adelaide, 1874',8, 'Kadina, 1874',2, 'Gawler, 1876','Port Pirie, 1880', 6, 'Edithburgh, 1883-4', 3 and 'Maitland, 1884', 5. Carmichael, Yorketown 26. Cook, MinlaÍon 49. 18. Central Boa¡d of Health Reports: '1879180',9 and '1882183',6. Morton, Adelaide 126-7. MacGillivray, 'Whisky, Wheat and Wool', 82-3. Lewis, Enfield I34. By-laws: 'Adelaide, 1881', Paper No. 73, 3, 'Kensington and Norwood, 1881', 6-7, 'Kapunda, 1882', 13, 'Laura, 1882',6, 'St. Peter's, 1883-4',7,'Semaphore, 1883-4', 14,'Quorn, 1883-4',7,'Gawler, 1884', 2-3,'Laura, 1884',8, 'Port Augusta, 1885', 16, 'Unley, 1886','Petersburg, 1887',7-8, 'Hindmarsh, 1888', 7, 'Davenport, 1888', 8, 'Port Augusta West, 1888', 10-11 and'Port Pirie, 1890" 11. 19. By-laws: 'Kadina, 1878',4-5, 'Burra, 1881',2, 'Quorn, 1883-4',8,'Laura, 1884',7 and 'Petersburg, 1887' , lZ. Parsons, Hindmarsh ll9, 140, 296. Charlton, Kapundø 160. 20. Corporation Accounts: '1854', 1-3, '1855/56', 1 and '1857/58', 1-2. Vy'orsnop, Adelaide I02, 131. 21. T. English, 'Petition from Adelaide Corporation, 1862' . Morton, Adelaide l8O-1. Chapter Four By Law and Zone 45
perform these functions.22 To curb industrial pollution to prevent the spread of zymotic diseases, rather than merely stenches, 5 councils employed sanitary inspectors from 1871, the city and 6 other councils employed doctors as health officers to supervise inspectors from 1876 and 36 councils formed local boards of health to set sanitary standards for noxious trades and supervise council inspectors by 1888.23 So strong was the desire to control diseases by preventing pollution in the mid-1870s that council inspectors at Adelaide, Port Adelaide and V/est Torrens no longer waited for complaints of pollution, but checked industries for its likelihood and advised industrialists on the means of curbing it.2a
The need for councils to fine by-law transgressors between 5s. and f10 increased, aside from when court injunctions in 1873 and the supply of sewerage on the Adelaide plains in 1881 reduced industrial pollution:
22. By-laws: The thirteen councils employing full-time pollution regulators: 'Gawler, 186l', 2, 'Port Adelaide, 1868-9', 1, 'Clare, 1868-9',4-5, 'Strathalbyn, 1868-9',4, 'Wallaroo, 1876',5, 'Unley, 1877', 12, 'Moonta,1877', 4, 'Port Pirie, 1880', 5, 'Glenelg, 1882',20-I,'Laura, 1882', 10, 'Burra, 1882',12-13, 'St. Peter's, 1883-4',9 and'Semaphore, 1883-4',6. Part-time regulators: 'Moonta, 1877',4,'Brighton, 1882', Paper No. 100, 8, 'Kapunda, 1882', 8-9, 'Port Augusta, 1885', 4-5, 'Petersburg, 1887',ll-12,'Davenport, 1888', 2, 'Port Augusta West, 1888', 2-3 and 'Port Pirie, 1890', 8. Wiltshire, Wallaroo 149-50. Parsons, Hindmarsh 52,144, 223. Charlton, Kapunda 96. S. Marsden, A History of Woodville (Adelaide, 1977),75-6, 105. Lewis, Enfield 100, 109. 'Adelaide By-laws, 1882' ,2. 23. By-laws to employ sanitary inspectors: 'Unley, l87I',2-3,'Port Pirie, 1877',4,'Port Augusta, 1880', 8-9, 'Thebarton, 1883-4', 2-3 and'Port Adelaide, 1885', 2. By-laws to employ health officers: 'Laura, 1882', 9, l2-3,'Port Augusta, 1882', 20-1, 'Port Adelaide, 1883-4',4-6, 'Semaphore, 1883-4', 4-6, 'Petersburg, 1887', 10 and 'Port Pirie, 1890',6-7. By-laws for local boards of health: 'Adelaide, 1874',3-4, 'Glenelg, 1882', 36-8, 'Brighton, 1882', Paper No. 100,8-9, 'Kapunda, 1882', 8-9, 'Port Adelaide, 1883-4',4-6, 'Semaphore, 1883-4',4-6,'Port Augusta, 1885', 4-5, 'Petersburg, 1887', ll-12,'Davenport, 1888', 2, 'Port Augusta West, 1888', 2-3 and 'Port Pirie, 1890', 8, Central Board of Health Reports: 'I875176',5,'1876177', 4, '1877178', 5-6, '1885 186', 3 and '1887/88',3, 12. Factories Commission, 'Report, 1892', 229. Robbins, 'Local Government', 398-401. Worsnop, Adelaide366. 24. Sanitation Commission, 'Report, 1876',46-7,54,58,60, 123, 127-8. Factories Commission, 'Report, 1892', 228. Morton, Adelaide Il4, 116, 122. P. Donovan, Between the City and the Sea: A History of West Torrens from Settlement in 1836 to the Present Day (Adelaide, 1986), 40- 1. Chapter Four By Løw and Zone 46
Table 4. 1: Fines under council pollution-controlling by-laws and Acts, 1857-1884
Number of Number of Fines under Fines per Councils Municipal District Cattle Council with Councils Councils Slaughter with By-laws Act Act Act By-laws
1857 0 0 2 3 1861 0 73 9 19 1862 1 72 5 3 80 r869 5 204 t6 1 44 1874 9 t28 38 0 18 1879 l7 404 29 2 26 1884 26 362 39 1 15
Source: Statistical Registers: '1857', 26, '1861' , 6, '1862' , 7, '1869' , 6-7, '1874' ,9, '1879', Part V, 11 and'1884', PartY,12. By-laws: 'Kensington and Norwood, 1862',2,'Adelaide, 1866-7', Paper No. 153 and 'Gawler, 1867',2-3,
The decline in fines imposed by councils with industrial pollution-proscribing by- laws occurred in the mid-1870s, when industrialists conformed to these by-laws in fear of court injunctions and the recently formed Central Board of Health.25 From
1881, sewerage removed many causes for complaints over industrial pollution in
Adelaide, such as the offal which butchers had repeatedly dumped in the streets.26
However, the need to fine industrialists to curb pollution remained: Adelaide inspectors were often assaulted during the performance of their duties, town councils were thirty-eight times more likely to fine transgressors than the more rural district councils, while local boards of health fined industrialists for failing to comply with 8 per cent of the 3,761nuisance abatement notices issued between 1878 and 1887.27
25. Sanitation Commission, 'Report, 1876', I, 5-7, 10-11, 13, 15-17,23-4,27,73,76, 100. Worsnop, Adelaide 366, 377 -8. 26. Sanitation Commission, 'Report, 1876' , 99. 27.Local boards of health made299 prosecutions resulting in f459 63s. 6d. in fines after issuing 230 nuisance abatement notices to slaughterhouses, 1,369 to piggeries, cowyards and dairies, 1,868 over drainage defects and 45 to overcrowded factories from 1878, 126 to noxious trades from 1880, and, from 1886, 10 for selling adulterated food. Central Board of Health Reports: '1877178"6,',18781'79"7,',r879180" 13,'1881/82"r0,',1882183"9,',1883184" 8,'1884/85" 10, '1885/86',12and '1886/87', 16, G.S. Wright, 'Subsidies to Councils, 1885', 1-2. Morton, Adelaide 122. Chapter Four By Law and Zone 47
Wealthy industrialists could limit the control over industrial pollution exercised by local government after the Burford's Soap Company, which polluted Adelaide until its factory burnt down in 1919, convinced a jury in 1883 that the council should pay relocation costs.28
The councils of communities dependent on noxious industries would only regulate industrial pollution to protect industrialists from litigation. The Hindmarsh district council, siding with the more numerous Hindmarsh industrialists and workers associated with noxious trades, ignored the complaints of pollution lodged by wealthy merchants and farmers from 1862.2e The Hindmarsh council only ordered its nuisance inspector to investigate the complaints made against noxious trades after wealthy farmers, such as C. White, whose farm was situated at the end of the Torrens, obtained court injunctions to stop the Peacock and Taylor tanneries polluting the Torrens in 1873.30 The council aped Collingwood by forming a town council in 1874 in order to exclude those constituents who objected to the noxious trades and prevent the Central Board of Health from requiring Hindmarsh industrialists to cease pollution, with the Supreme Court having just determined that municipalities and the Board had equal standing.3l The creators of the Hindmarsh town council may have also sought to protect industrialists from suits over pollution by making the community pay for sewering such nuisances, as the Public Health Act permitted municipalities to impose a sanitary rate on constituents.32 The Hindmarsh
28. Ibid,, 180-1. 29. Forty-three farmers and merchants sought council action against industrial polluters of the Torrens in 1862, compared with 103 workers and businessmen associated with noxious works seeking the continuation of the trades. Parsons, Hindmarsh 77 , 79-80, 90. 30. rbid., 80. 31. 'The Public Health Act', Act No. 22 inActs of the Parliament of South Austalia. 1873 (Adelaide, 1873), 156, 161. Worsnop, Adelaide 377. Parsons, Hindmnrsh 102-3,106. C. McConville, 'Conflicting Loyalties' in V. Burgmann and J. Lee, (eds.), Staining the Wattle: A People's History of Australia Since 1788 (Melbourne, 1988), 16. 32.'T\e Public Health Act', 156-7. Chapter Four By Law and Zone 48
town council limited its health inspector to advising industrialists of the need for pollution control after receiving complaints and deferred introducing by-laws for slaughterhouses until 1877 and noxious trades and dairies until 1888,33 Except when the council blamed stench on the sewers, the Central Board of Health and press excused it for the wealth created from processing wool, bricks and cattle.34 The industrial towns of Wallaroo and Thebarton formed municipalities at this time too.3s
The hopes of the Political Association that the well-being of all South
Australians would not be determined according to their wealth were not met by council regulation of industrial pollution. Voluntary local regulation of industrial pollution was most likely in regions with mixed economies and least likely in the areas most needing it, the industrial districts of South Australia. The knowledge that curbing industrial pollution could prevent disease inspired councils of non-industrial areas to employ sanitation and health inspectors to seek out and curb dangerous emissions from 1871. At best, the residents of industrial districts could expect their councils to plant trees and build sewers to offset pollution. If pollution was to be effectively controlled in these areas, new forms of regulation would be required.
33. HindmarshBy-laws: 'I875','1877',3, and'1888',7-8. Parsons,Hindmnrsh 80, 119 34. rbid., r20-t, 127-9. 35. Wiltshire, Wallaroo 30. Donovan, West Torrens 58, Chapter Four By Law and Zone 49
Depressed Regulation and Municipal Socialism: 1885-1918
With councils ceasing to press prescribed pollution decreases on industry during the economic depressions of 1885 to L902, councils on the Adelaide plains sought to amalgamate their efforts and the Liberal-Labor ministries offered municipal socialism as the means to curb the pollution of foodstuffs by tuberculosis and other contagious diseases.
Councils opted to permit disease rather than maintain regulations during the depressions from the mid-1880s. The wave of local disease prevention through sanitation and preserving the cleanliness of dairies and purity of milk, commended by the Central Board in 1883 and 1884, waned by 1886.36 During the depression councils such as West Torrens resumed protecting industrial polluters to the point where the Central Board had to order councils to abate pollution.3T At Adelaide, with sewerage working so well, the sanitation inspectors preferred clearing slums to curtailing pollution and ceased regulating small-scale dairying if it was the sole income for unemployed householders.3s Because constituents refused to fund new abattoirs in 1877 and 1883, until 1898 the Adelaide council ignored public criticism and the pleas of its health officer, Dr. Sprod, to curb filth and diseased meat at the
City Slaughterhouse, ban slaughter in the city and move its abattoirs out of the city.3e The Playford Government (1887-1889) charged communities with responsibility for public health without providing councils with the resources to fund the burden. To cut its spending, the Playford Government obliged all l7I councils
36. Central Board of Health Reports: '1882183" 3, '1883/84" 5, 7 and '1886/87" 11. 37. Donovan, West Torcens 7l-2. 38. Morton, Adetaide 178,123. Factories Commission, 'Report, 1892',232, 39. Select Committee, 'Report on City Abattoirs Bill, 1902', 6. Morton, Adelaide 128-9,I31 Chapter Four By Law and Zone 50
to form local boards of health in 1887 and convinced eighty-three councils to adopt the model by-laws drafted by the Central Board of Health in 1889.40 The by-laws obliged councils to control pollution from slaughterhouses, dairies, garbage disposal and nuisances (waste infected water, noxious trades not burning odours in furnaces and unclean, ill-ventilated and overcrowded factories injurious to workers).4l The redrawing of local boundaries by the Playford Government in 1887 failed to provide councils with sufficient ratepayers to uphold the by-laws.a2 Subsequently, councils ignored requests from the Central Board to control pollution and 111 councils refused to submit annual reports in 1889, claiming that government should provide for public health from the revenue gained from land sales, rather than the community through rates.43 The Playford Government responded by enabling the
Central Board of Health to charge councils for the cost incurred by its two inspectors physically removing any nuisance in council districts.aa
The government failed to inspire local regulation, with councils ignoring industrial pollution to aid employment through the depressions. Councils mainly prosecuted men for offences against by-laws, with women representing merely 5 per cent of those prosecuted.a5 Prosecutions of the transgressors of council by-laws and acts were paltry to say the least:
40. Central Board of Health Reports: '1887/88', 3,12 and'1888/89', 3. Hirst, Adelaide and the Country 146. Robbins, 'Local Government', 400-1. 41, Central Board of Health, 'Regulations, 1885'. 42. Hirst, Adelaide and the Country 124. Charlton, Kapunda 45. Robbins, 'Local Government', 400-1. 43. Central Board of Health Reports: '1877178',6, '1883/84', 10, '1887/88', 13 and '1888/89', 8. Hirst, Adelaide and the Country l5l, 225-6. 44. Central Board of Health, 'Report, 1888/89', 8. 45. Statistical Registers: '1909', Part V, 18,'1919120', Part ll, 12,'1929130', Part III,9, '1939/40', Part I, 16,'1949/50', Part I, 13 and '1959160', Part I, 8. Chapter Four By Law and Zone 51
TabLe 4.2: Fines under council pollution-controlling by-laws and Acts, 1889-1909 (five-yearly intervals).
Number of Number of Fines under Fines per Councils Municipal District Cattle Council with Councils Councils Slaughter with By-laws Act Act Act By-laws
1889 29 r43 4l 10 1 r894 170 169 29 1899 170 69 I4 2 i 1904 t70 49 t7 4 1909 170 130 49 2 1
Source: Statistical Registers: '1889', Part V, 12, '1894', Part V, 16, '1899', Part V, 16,'1904', Part V, 16 and '1909' , Part V, 18.
Although local boards issued 5,552 nuisance abatement notices to industrialists between 1888 and 1892, the average number of notices fell from 10.4 per board per year from 1878 to 1887, to 6.5 from 1888 to 1892, as the average fine collected fell from f1 6s. to 7d.46 Many local boards awaited complaints over pollution before acting or half-heartedly inspected their districts fortnightly, monthly or annually.aT
The closing of the Lee and Ford manure works in 1892 by the Thebarton local board following complaints from residents and the Hindmarsh local board was a rare instance of drastic pollution prevention.as Industrialists at Adelaide only complied with local inspectors without the threat of fines when parliament investigated the pollution of workplaces in the early 1890s.4e However, to the disbelief of workers,
Adelaide inspectors ignored dangerous and foul fumes inside factories while checking privies, vents and external pollution twice per week at noxious trades,
46.354 of the nuisance abatement notices were served on slaughterhouses, 2,285 on piggeries, cowyards and dairies, 2,803 over drainage defects, 5 to overcrowded factories, 62 to noxious trades and 44 for selling adulterated or unwholesome food. Central Board of Health Reports: '1887/88', 14, '1888/89', 16-19,'1889/90', 16-19, '1890191', 14-17 and'1891/92', 12-15. 47 . Ibid.,' 1889 /90', 7- 10,' 1 890/9I', 7 -9 and' l89l 192', 5. 48. Ibid., '189t/92" 8. 49. Factories Commission,'Report, 1892', 229-30. Chapter Four By Law and Zone 52
butchers and slaughterhouses and the purity of food processing twice per year.s0
Rather than the need to curb pollution at Mehrten's bone mill, the Dry Creek smelters and Conrad's boiling down works, after beating a hasty retreat from the
'poisonous fumes' enveloping these works the Yatala councillors and inspector recorded their pleasure at finding so many employed during their annual inspection in 1892.51 Such works remained a constant nuisance to and source of complaint from the community.s2
During the nadir of local regulation in the depression of the 1890s, the
Kingston Liberal-Labor Government (1893-1899) proposed municipal socialism as the means to eradicate slaughterhouse pollution in order to prevent tuberculosis. As middle-class professionals began displacing manufacturers and traders who had dominated local elections, councillors looked to operating utilities as British councils did and amalgamating as their London counterparts had in 1888.s3 The Adelaide council, denied such enterprises by ratepayers refusing the funds and governments preferring private monopolies, gained requirements that electrical generators employ a safety inspector, abide by council orders for rubbish disposal and pay for any property damaged when laying mains.5a That Melbourne already allowed overhead cables was sufficient for the Kingston ministry to renege on underground electric mains in 1895, creating what would soon prove to be a deadly traffic hazard and visual pollution.55 The Kingston coalition passed the Health Act of 1898 to help
50. Ibid.,36-7,42-3,70,93,139,164,206,209,211,257,261-2,298,307,314,346. 51. Lewis, Enfield 34, 109, 2I0. 52. tbid.,34. 53. Morton, Adelaide 36-7, 65, 67, 87. J. Docker, The Nervous Nineties: Ausftalian Cultural Life in the 1890s (Melbourne, l99l) , 6l . 54. Petitions: E.T. Smith, 'Against the South Australian Electric Company's Bill, 1882', 1-2, C. Tucker, 'Against Electric Light Bill, 1897', and'Against Electric Light, Etc., Bill', Paper No. 110 in SAPP 1897. Select Committee Reports: 'Electric Company's Bill, 1882', 15-16, 18, 21 and 'Electric Company's Bill, 1895', 2,25,30-3. Morton, Adelaide 6-9. 55. Select Committee Reports: 'Electric Company's Bill, 1882', 10, 13 a¡d'Electric Company's Bill, 1895" 34. Chapter Four By Law and Zone 53
councils control tuberculosis by building public abattoirs when it was proven that tuberculosis could be passed from cattle to humans amidst contaminated meat scares from 1891 and tuberculosis causing one-sixteenth of South Australian deaths in the
1890s.56 But, South Australians would have to wait for the end of the depression for cleaner, municipal production with the Adelaide council deferring such public works until then and rural townsfolk as yet too pleased to have electric lighting to take offence at subsequent pollution.5T
The Health Act of 1898, while inspiring councils to amalgamate regulatory efforts to control dairying and the meat trade, failed to control the purity of meat and dairy goods. The Act was a landmark which, by basing pollution control on scientific investigations to reduce disease, began to break the reticence of parliament to interfere with private competition.5s The Adelaide council revamped its pollution control by employing the bacteriologist, Dr. T. Borthwick, as health officer, to train its sanitary inspectors and search out polluting industries.5e While some councils on the Adelaide plains unified efforts to control the cleanliness of dairies through regulation by the Metropolitan Dairies Board in 1900, rural town councils began supporting private dairy factories to provide employment and prevent disease from unhygienic processing.60 On the Adelaide plains Dr. Bollen, Port Adelaide health officer, condemned 19,000 tins of meat at one meat works in 1902 and the Adelaide council finally declared conditions at the City Slaughterhouse abhorrent in 1904,
56. 'The Health Act, 1898', Act No. 711 in Acts of the Parliament of South Australia. 1898-9 (Adelaide, 1899), 17. Central Board of Health, 'Report, 1890/91', 11. Morton, Adelaide I27, 130, 136-7 . Thornton, 'Greater Adelaide Abattoirs', 161-2. 57. Select Committee Reports: 'Electric Company's Bill, 1895',5, 7-8 and'City Abattoirs Bill, 1902', 2, 12. Morton, Adelaide 98. Donovan, West Toruens 66. Cook, Minlaton 23-4, 50, 60- 1. Noye, Clare203,2O6, 58. Morton, Adelaide 143. 59. Ibid., t20-3, r37-8. 60. Ibid., 141, Charlton, Kapunda 47. Noye, Clare 56. Chapter Four By Law and Zone 54
with its superintendent resigning to avoid dismissal.6l These were the exceptions, however, with the veterinarians needed to identify infected meat unaffordable by most councils, while those with a significant dairy sector ignored health warnings by issuing licenses to and not regulating unsanitary dairies.62 Thus, South Australians were supplied meat from private slaughterers who refused to employ the personnel to prevent contagion, unlike the public abattoirs supplying Melbourne, Sydney and most large European and New Zealand towns.63
The Price Labor Government (1905-1909) assured meat and dairy purity by further unifying local regulation and enabling councils to fund municipal socialism to provide export goods. The Adelaide council sought to monopolize slaughtering on the Adelaide plains at a public abattoirs in 7902 and 1907 to ensure the sale of pure meat and end slaughterhouse pollution, as council inspectors could only determine that 60 per cent of the 38,000 cattle sold on the Adelaide plains per annum were slaughtered on clean premises, not whether the meat was pure.6+ The
Adelaide council rallied all suburban councils, the public, newspapers and some butchers to its cause by 1907, with slaughterers found to be knowingly selling diseased meat, failing to hire qualified inspectors and the butcher, W.H. Pape, suing the Hindmarsh council for preventing him from selling diseased meat.65 The Price
Labor Government allowed the council to raise the loan to build the abattoirs, not because it fitted the socialist ideals of allied industrial unions, but to process the
61. Select Committee, 'City Abattoirs Bill, 1902' ,25. Morton, Adelaide I29. 62. Select Committee Reports: 'City Abattoirs Bill, 1902',6-8,22-3,27,29,56-7 and 'Metropolitan Abattoirs Bill, 1907', 23. Lewis, Enfield 134. Donovan, Wesî Torens72.
63. Select Committee, 'Report on the City Abattoirs Bill, 1902', 9-10, 13, 27,29, 56-7 . 64. Ibid., 6-10, 13, 18 and 'Report on Metropolitan Abattoirs Bill, 1907', iii-iv, 3, 5-6,9, Il-12, 14, 19,22-3,25,28-30,36,39,42, 48, 50-2, 82-3. Morton, Adelaide 129. Thornton, 'Greater Adelaide Abattoirs', 162. 65. Select Committee Reports: 'City Abattoirs Bill, 1902', l, 5,25,27-31,33,36-7,39, 4l-3, 59- 60, 61-3 and'Metropolitan Abattoirs Bill, 1907',1-2,6-7,13-14, 16-17,19-20,23,25-7,29, 39 , 43-4, 46-9 , 52, 54. Parsons, Hindmarsh 2\6-'7 . Chapter Four By Law and Zone 55
cause of sickening stench at slaughterhouses, offal, into exportable goods as the
Melbourne abattoirs had since 1895.66 The drive for exports motivated the Price
Government, which allowed one private slaughterer, L. Conrad, to continue killing cattle on the Adelaide plains because he exported bacon and pork, while compensating the remaining 117 slaughterhouses, despite objections from the
Adelaide council and state authorities that slaughterers had knowingly polluted and sold bad meat for years.67 The Price Government then imposed standard regulations to preserve the purity of food and water supplies by preventing pollution from processors, particularly the dairies owned by councillors who excluded amalgamated local regulation, through the Food and Drugs Act of 1908 and the Metropolitan
County Dairies Board.68
These two reforms dramatically improved the health of Adelaide plains dwellers, particularly children. The incidence of tuberculosis on the Adelaide plains fell following the opening of the abattoirs in 1913, with councils recycling wastes as tallow and fertilizer so well that the retail price of meat was maintained until 1933 when the state government took over the works.óe The standardized regulation of milk purity reduced the number of infant deaths.7O The Adelaide council further curtailed air pollution by using the increased ability to raise loans granted by parliament to establish the abattoirs to also replace the incomplete burning of wastes at the germ-infested dump with a high-temperature incinerator in 1910, as already
66. Hirst, Adelaide and the Country 194, 198-9. Select Committee, 'Report on Metropolitan
Abattoirs Bill, 1907', iii-iv, 17, 25, 66-7 , 72-3, 75, 77 . 67. Ibid., iii-iv, 5,32,37,42-3,51 and 'Metropolitan Abattoirs Act Further Amendment Bill, I9l2', 4. 94 Butchers, 'Petition Re Metropolitan Abattoirs Bill', Paper No. 54 in SAPP 1908. Morton, Adelaide I4l. 68, 'Regulations Under 'The Food and Drugs Act, 1908', Paper No. 48 in SAPP 1910 3,6. Donovan, West Torrens 72. Lewis, Enfield I34. 69. Thornton, 'Greater Adelaide Abattoirs', 159,170-3. Morton, Adelaide 109. 70. Ibid., 135. Chapter Four By Law and Zone 56
employed at Melbourne, Sydney and many European cities.7l The incinerator was erected amongst housing in the city, with thirty-two influential North Adelaide residents threatening litigation if the park lands were used.72 There it operated without much complaint, unlike the council's abutting bitumen plant which, while helping to eliminate road dust, killed vegetation and corroded iron roofs from 1922, until cleaner works were installed in 1928.73 Adelaide council inspectors began prosecuting private rubbish recyclers as the incinerator subsumed their role as well as generating electricity, disinfecting hospital wastes and producingtar.Ta
Unifying local government control over dairying from 1900 and monopolizing cattle slaughter from 1907 attended to some of the more lethal forms of industrial pollution which individual council efforts failed to stop. The Price
Labor Government found such measures an acceptable intrusion on 117 private slaughterhouses because of the potential for exports. Despite the vast improvements for the health of children and control of tuberculosis, councils refused further co- operation and municipal socialism. Except for the Upper Mallee councils, which shared the services of qualified inspectors from 1934, South Australian councils preferred to protect local industries and refused calls from Adelaide Town Clerk,
T.G. Ellery and the Commonwealth, to unite to eradicate epidemics.T5 Liberal
71. Sanitation Commission, 'Report, 1876',95. Select Committee, 'Report on City Abattoirs Bill, 1902' ,2, 12, 15-16,22,24,37 , 40, 47 , 55,64. Morton, Adelaide 99. 72. They included the ex-Premier J.W. Downer, the brewer, J.R, Cooper, industrialist E.S, Wigg and King's Counsel B. Grundy. Select Committee, 'Report on City Abattoirs Bill, 1902', iii,31, 33, 36, 37 , 39, 64. Morton, Adelaide 99, l0l, 222. 73. Ibid. , l0l , 210, 222. 74. By-laws: 'Adelaide, 1881', Paper No. 174, l, 'Glenelg, 1882',28, 'Port Augusta, 1882',31-2, 'Semaphore, 1883-4', 18-19, 'Quorn, 1883-4', 5 and'Kensington and Norwood, 1892'.
Factories Commission, 'Report, 1892' ,231. Statistical Registers: '1909' , Part V, 18, 'I9I9120' , Part II, 12 and'1939140', Part I, 16. Morton, Adelaide 100-1. 75. Select Committee, 'Report on City Abattoirs Bill, 1902', 12. F.F. Langley, 'Sanitary Conditions of the River Murray Communities , 1924' , 25-8 . Central Board of Health Reports: ' 1934' , 5 , '1935" 12,',1946" 5, ',1948" 9, '1950" rl,',1953" 19,',1954'' 12 and',195'7" 4. Morton, Adelaide 67 ,70, 109. Charlton, Kapunda 97-8, Chapter Four By Law and Zone 57
governments, while insisting that councils employ qualified personnel, refused repeated advice to redraw council boundaries to provide councils with sufficient rates to pay for effective health services, such as pollution controls.T6 Public abattoirs were limited to the Adelaide plains until 1949, when Port Pirie became the sole regional council to build one.11 Ineffective local regulation of other noxious and polluting industries persisted.
Zoning: 1918-1960
Though all state governments pushed town planning as the answer to industrial pollution from 1918, it merely formalized the ad hoc zoning that regulation for the wealthy and public works inspired and separated middle-class residential areas from polluting industries. Only after the boom in manufacturing secured economic development in the 1950s could councils of industrial districts both exclude noxious trades and, against the wishes of the Playford Liberal Government, curtail pollution from the factories encroaching on residential areas.
The wealthy used councils, litigation and migration to keep noxious trades from their suburbs, making other areas more dependent upon industrialization.
Throughout South Australia, towns initially used park lands to site slaughterhouses and dump garbage and liquid wastes, while residential areas backed against the processing industries of the town centres.Ts As in Melbourne, the wealthy created councils to exclude noxious industries from their residential suburbs at Kensington
76. Central Board of Health Reports: '1933', Il , '1946', 5, '1947', 7 and'1955', 5, 13. Local Government Commission Progress Reports: 'First, 1932' ,3-5,9, ll , 12-27 and 'Second, 1932', 3. Committee of Inquiry, 'Consolidating the Health Services of the State, 1946',21. Robbins, 'Local Government', 401. 77. Central Board of Health, 'Report, 1949' , II. 78. Williams, Landscape 347,364. Chapter Four By Law and Zone 58
and Norwood in 1853, Walkerville in 1855, Woodville in 1874 and summer retreats at Glenelg and Brighton in 1876, leaving the city and Woodville to manufacturing from 1930.7e Just as noxious trades concentrated in the western and northern suburbs of Adelaide to avoid local regulations by the 1870s, so slaughterers resettled in district councils when banned from towns in the 1900s.80 The wealthy used litigation to discourage industrialists who polluted from one council district into another from the 1870s and threatened to sue the South Australian Government if the sewage farm proved a nuisance from the 1870s.81 Similarly, thirty-two influential residents created another noxious trades area at Dry Creek by threatening to sue the
Adelaide council if it established its abattoirs at Adelaide.s2 Fertilizer, soap and candle makers moved into Dry Creek to make use of wastes from the abattoirs, while a nearby smelter may have polluted the Adelaide meat supply with lead and, when processing radium from 1924 to 1926, radioactive wastes.83 Unlike the wealthy, industrial workers were forced to live amongst industrial pollution due to poor public transport. 8a
As elsewhere in Australia,ss government decisions on the siting of industry and public works concentrated industries into manufacturing districts. Parliament
79. Sanitation Commission, 'Report, 1876',73. K. Buckley and T. Wheelwright, No Paradisefor Workers: Capitalism and the Common People in Australia 1788-1914 (Melbourne, 1988), 159. Williams, Landscape 402, 409, Lewis, Enfield 37 , 53, 106. Marsden , Woodville 28, 38, 40, 48, 79-81, 104, 109, 111, 115-6, 155-6, 158-60. Morton, Adelaide xiii, 181. Donovan, I{'esf Toruens 40. 80. Select Committee, 'Report on the Metropolitan Abattoirs Bill, 1907', 5, ll-12,28, Donovan, West Torrens 61, 100. 81. Commission Reports: 'Sanitation, 1876',62 and'Sewage Farm Site, 1879',28. Parsons, Hindmarsh 17, 106. 82. Select Committee Reports: 'City Abattoirs Bill, 1902', 64 and 'Metropolitan Abattoirs Bill, 1907" l, 49, 81. 83. Select Committee Reports: 'City Abattoirs Bill, 1902', 45, 47, 64 and 'Metropolitan Abattoirs Bill, 1907', 29, 33, 35, 40, 47, 49, 60, 81, Lewis, Enfield20l, 210, 216. 84. Morton, Adelaide l8l. 85. Buckley and Wheelwright, No Paradise for Workers 159. Select Committee, 'Report on Gas Company Bill, 1861', 3. Chapter Four By Law and Zone 59
aided the creation of industrial suburbs by locating the gas works from 'the lungs of the city', the park lands, to its'bowels' at Hindmarsh and thereafter not only ignored objections over unbearable stenches and an explosion, but permitted gas works to be set up at the centre of regional towns.86 Parliament further concentrated industries by removing a source of noise pollution, the railway workshop, from
North Terrace to abut the sewage farm in 1880 and encouraging whitegoods, car and dairy factories into the West Torrens districts by locating the railway goods yard there in 1910.87 Councils could only defer some impacts of industrial concentration, with the Woodville council relocating dairies to avoid pollution from the rapidly expanding brickworks and foundries from the 1880s, while the Hindmarsh council could only delay the enlarging of the Bowden gas works from 1911to 1917.88 Such industrial concentration was normal for the age, with visiting municipal leaders from overseas claiming the abattoirs as the healthiest in Australia for both the public and environment.se
The middle class benefitted from governments and councils formalizing such ad hoc zoning into town planning to create 'rural' suburban settings, as in Britain and America from the 1890s,e0 that were initially intended to cultivate healthy soldiers and productive workers. State governments favoured zoning industry from residential suburbs to make garden suburbs'fit for heroes', aiming to improve the poor urban air quality which doctors blamed for the numerous rejections of
86.94 Adelaide residents, 'Petition Against Proposed Erection of Gas Works, 1861'. Select Committee Reports: 'Gas Company Bill, 1861', iii,3-4, ll-12, 14-16,'Provisional Gas Company Bill, 1868-9', 3,9-10, 'Moonta Gas Company's Bill, 1873',3,8, 'South Australian Gas Company's Amendment Bill, 18'74',2,6, 'Gas Act Amendment Bill, 1950', I and 'Gas Act Amendment Bill, 1955', 1. Parsons, Hindmarsh 77,79, 129, I3L Council Minute Book cited, ibid.,77. M. Richardson, cited Gemmell, Strathalbyn 55. 87. Lewis, Enfield 31. Donovan,WestTorrens66-8, 109-10, 120,134. 88. Parsons, Hindm.srsh 224-5. Marsden, Woodville 11 1, 115, 130. 89. Thornton, 'Greater Adelaide Abattoirs', 17O. Select Committee Reports: 'Metropolitan Abattoirs Bill, 1910', iii-vi and 'Metropolitan Abattoirs Act Further Amendment Bill, l9l2' ,3-4. 90. Morton, Adelqide 186-8. Chapter Four By Law and Zone 60
volunteers to the Great'War.el The Liberals preferred and attained an advisory town planner and domestic backyards to the state-wide controls and public parks favoured by Labor.e' By 1921, state governments and the forty-seven councils with planning committees viewed improving the urban environment as the means to ensure a healthier and more productive workforce.e3 The Government Town Planner, W.S.
Griffiths, advised councils to prevent slum construction, provide 10 per cent of urban land for parks and playgrounds, cease tree felling and, to absorb poisonous carbon dioxide and provide warnings of leaking gas mains, to plant street trees.ea
However, the middle class was the main beneficiary of the garden suburbs, with few industrial workers able to afford to buy or rent a house in these suburbs.es Concerns over traffic congestion in 1925 led Griffiths to advise the state government to encourage employees to live near work, reversing his previous counsel to cheapen public transport fares to enable workers to reside up to forty-five minutes travelling distance from their work.e6
Town planning, coupled with the expansion of light manufacturing, led councils to enforce pollution controls until the onset of the Great Depression. At industrial suburbs, councils allowed light manufacturing to supplant the noxious trades which had moved to Pooraka, previously Dry Creek, and the homes of those who left for less polluted suburbs.eT The Woodville council was so enamoured of manufacturing that it declared a forty-acre manufacturing district in 1925 for the
Holden's car body-building works which employed 5,500 workers and permitted
91. Ibid., 176,I9I, 193,203. 92. Select Committee, 'Report on Town Planning Bill, 1920' , iii. Town Planner, 'Report, t920n" 5. Marsden, Woodville 177. 93. Town Planner Reports, '1920121' , 6-7 and'1922/23' ,8. 94. Ibid.,' l920l2l', 9-10,' 1922123', 8-9 and' 1926127', 5-7 . 95. Parsons, Hindmarsh 237. 96. Town Planner Reports: '1922/23' , 5, '1923124' , 6 and'1924/25' ,7 . 97. Parsons, Hindmnrsh 237 . Cockbnrn, Nomenclature 63. Chapter Four þ Law and Zone 6t
associated manufacturers to encroach on residential areas.es While air pollution doubled at the brickworks in the western suburbs to supply the building of the garden suburbs,ee councils resumed fining the transgressors of by-laws:
Table 4.3: Fines under council pollution-controlling by-laws and Acts, 1909- 1929 I 30 (ten-yearly intervals) .
Number of Fines under Fines Municipal District Per Council Act Council Act Council
1909 130 49 1 t9t9l20 156 79 1 t929t30 355 58 2
Source: Statistical Registers: '1909', Part V, 18,'1979120', Part II, 12 and '1929130', Part III, 9
Town council enforcement grew from being eight times more likely to fine transgressors than district councils by 1920 to twenty-five times by 1930.100 By the
Great Depression council inspectors controlled pollution from the remnants of noxious trades and monitored the purity of food and drink, despite needing two instances of food contamination within two months to indict food processors.l0l Council regulation plunged during the Great Depression, with the Yatala district
council ban on re-building Mehrten's bone mill in 1932 the sole instance and joy to the long-polluted Yatala residents. 102
From 1934 councils and Liberal governments further tightened controls and
expelled noxious trades as manufacturing increasingly dominated the industrial
sector. Having opted for manufacturing to bring the economy out of depression in
1934, the Butler Liberal Government (1933-1938) permitted councils to zone
98. Marsden, Woodville 155-6, 158-60, 99. rbid., 175. 100. Robbins, 'Local Government', 401. 101. Morton,AdelaideI42. CentralBoardof HealthReports: '1936',10and'1937',7 102. Lewis, Enfield34. Chapter Four By Law and Zone 62
noxious trades into manufacturing districts away from residential areas and ensure that battery producers polluted neither the workplace nor the environment with lead.103 The Playford Liberal Government (1938-1965) allowed councils to ban noxious trades from 1948 and offered these trades incentives to move into noxious trades areas by applying the pollution controls required of battery makers to noxious trades outside these areas from 1949 and abrogating local regulation of pollution in these areas in 1953.104 But, only when manufacturing assured employment at industrial suburbs did the Hindmarsh and Woodville councils order five firms running noxious trades to move in 1955,t0s The Playford Government also dumped the 757 tons of garbage collected weekly on the Adelaide plains into the Wingfield noxious trades zone in 1954 (replacing the dumping of 31 per cent at odourous, smoke producing and rat infested council tips, 12 per cent in pug holes and 57 per cent recycled at the Adelaide and Hindmarsh incinerators), where it drained into the sea, in line with current practice in the United States.l06 V/ith the Adelaide plains filling up, the Playford Government repeated the exercise further afield, creating the town of Elizabeth for General Motors Holden and the Noarlunga council began lobbying for industrial developments such as an oil refinery in 1958.r07
However, both councils and the Playford Government subverted zoning, by building housing estates for workers near industrial districts and allowing new industries to border some garden suburbs. From 1936 Liberal governments, aping early industrialists, provided cheap housing for workers in estates built by the
103. Central Board of Health Reports: '1934',7, 10,'1935','7 and '1950', 5. Marsden, 'Formation of Country Towns', 51. Williams, Landscape 56. 104. Central Board of Health Reports: '1943',3,'1948',4,'1953',5 a¡rd '1956', 4. 105. Marsden, Woodville 231. Central Board of Health Reports: '1954',4 and'1955',4-5. 106. Ibid., '1943',6,'1948',I0,'1949',13,'1953',19 and '1954',12. H.J.W. Hodgson, 'City Refuse Disposal Report, 1956-7',3,3l-33. Parsons, Hindmarsh 254-5. Lewis, EnfíeId208. Morton, Adelaide 101. Donovan, West Torrens 178. 107. Marsden, Woodville 234. Select Committee, 'Report on the Oil Refinery Bill, 1958', 3. Chapter Four By Law and Zone 63
Housing Trust near polluting works to keep wages low in order to attract industry to
South Australia.l08 The Trust added to the 960 homes already within 50 feet of a factory on the Adelaide plains, 38 per cent of which were seriously polluted, by building housing estates next to the munitions factories at Woodville, Clare,
Kapunda and Peterborough during World War Two and at major industrial centres such as Enfield, which had the two noxious trades zones of Pooraka and Wingfield and much post-war manufacturing.lOe The Woodville council sacrificed park lands to munitions works during the war, as had the Kapunda council, and to car and whitegoods factories after the war until the lands of Woodville were entirely builrup in 1958, regardless of the need to expel dairying in 1948 and local opposition.rl0
Instead of providing councils with the stricter pollution controls requested by the
Port Adelaide council and member of state parliament, the Playford Government permitted noxious trades to continue operating when appealing against a council order to cease pollution and the Sulphuric Acid Pty. Ltd. to release poisonous concentrations of nitrogen and sulphur dioxide and trioxide from 1955.1r1 When communities, such as West Torrens, replaced the councillors who allowed pollution from works such as Di-Mat sandblasting with a Labor majority in local elections in
1957 and 1959, the Playford Government barred the council from impeding industrial expansion. I 12
108. These housing practices were carried out by the founding industrialists of Hindmarsh, the copper mine owners, F. Dutton, C. Bagot and G.S. Kingston in 1846, and Burford & Sons in 1919. Cockburn, Nomenclature 35. Parsons, Hindmarsh 38-9. Drew, 'Copper Mining Effects on Town Development', 111, 114-6. Marsden, Woodville204. 109. Committee of Inquiry, 'Report on Sub-Standard Housing Conditions, 1940' , 67. Central Board of Health, 'Report, 1948', 4. Williams, Landscape 428. Noye, Clare 83. Donovan, 'Transport', 69. Charlton, Kapunda 56-7. Marsden, Woodville 173,206-8,213-4,245-8. Lewis, Enfield 107, 120,238. 110. Marsden, Woodville 130,213-4,218,228,233-4,240,285, Charlton, Kapunda 56. 111. Commonwealth Senate Select Committee, 'Report on Air Pollution, 1969',719-20,724,741, 743-4. Central Board of Health, 'Report, 1955', 5. 112. Donovan, West Torrens 216-8,220-2. Chapter Four By Law and Zone 64
Faced with encroaching polluting industries and manufacturing assuring employment, council prosecutions for transgressing by-laws increased during the
1950s, regardless of the wishes of the Playford Government:
Table 4.4: Fines under council pollution-controlling by-laws and Acts, 1939140- 1959 I 60 (ten-yearly intervals).
Town By-laws Local Government Act Fines per Council
1939140 r54 1 1949t50 2t7 332 4 t959t60 30 t657 12
Source: Statistical Registers: '1939140', Part I, 16, '1949150', Part I, 13 and '1959160', Part I, 8 Robbin,'Local Govemment', 401.
The growth in the number of these fines show that councils rejected the advice of the
Playford Government in 1956 that it would be better for local authorities to educate, rather than prosecute offenders.ll3 The Port Adelaide council regulated industrial polluters, after thirteen years of lobbying by residents, making the power station curb soot in 1950 and the Adelaide Cement Company also reduce odours in 1953 and, after monitoring air pollution from 1958, found the Port subjected to 75 tons of dust per square mile per month which caused disease and corroded roofs.ll4 Such control of industrial polluters was limited to protecting urban dwellers, with neither local nor state governments offended by pollution beyond towns, despite winery wastes killing livestock in 1950, dairy factories polluting waterways and industries in the south east proven to have contaminated artesian water in 1958.115 With only
113 Central Board of Health, 'Report, 1956', 13. t14 Commonwealth Senate Select Committee, 'Air Pollution Report, 1969' ,719-24,757 ' 115 Central Board of Health Reports: '1943',6, '1950', ll,'1952', 12, 17,'1958', 11 and '1959', 6. A. Auekens, 'The German Towns - The Role of Industry and Commerce', in A.F. Denholm, S. Marsden and K. Round, (eds.), Terowie Workshop: Exploring the History of South Australian Country Towns (Adelaide, 1991), 133. Chapter Four By Law and Zone 65
two councils asking the Central Board of Health to prevent pollution beyond towns, the government did not grant councils the option to do so until 1959.116
Zoning industrial and middle-class residential suburbs through local town planning from the 1920s constituted an acceptance of industrial pollution and formalized the failure of councils of industrial suburbs and towns to control it. The manufacturing boom of the 1950s finally afforded industrial communities the means to exclude or control polluting industries through their councils that ad hoc and state-supported zoning afforded the wealthy and middle class, respectively.
However, the Playford Government and V/oodville council still proved willing to ignore or override the desire of industrial communities for unpolluted air to maintain industrialization, regardless of the toxicity of the byproducts. As industry and residences filled the Adelaide plains, isolating industries into noxious trade zones and industrial districts was shown to be but a deferral of the need to curb hazardous industrial emissions. The most telling instance of this tblly was locating the abattoirs in a manufacturing district where the meat supply for Adelaide could be exposed to uncontrolled industrial pollution, such as from radium processing in the mid-1920s.
ooOoo
The hopes of the Political Association in 1861 that South Australians would not be treated according to their wealth was not met by the ensuing voluntary local regulation of industrial pollution. Being least likely to occur in the industrial districts most likely to need it, local inspection alone could not protect public health.
Council inspectors of affluent and non-industrial communities were able to prevent
1 16. Central Board of Health Reports: ' 1952' , 12 and ' 1959' , 6 . Chapter Four By Law and Zone 66
diseases such as typhoid and tuberculosis, on learning these could be prevented by pollution control from 1871. But, across the Adelaide plains such diseases were only constrained locally by councils unifying the regulation of dairies from 1900 and running abattoirs from 1913. The exports derived from recycling waste offal made the abattoirs an acceptable balance for the intrusion on private enterprise for the
Price Labor Government. Although the abattoirs treated the wastes with which 117 slaughterhouses had polluted the Adelaide plains, locating this works in a manufacturing district put the meat supply of the Adelaide plains at risk from abutting, unbridled industrial pollution. Despite the effectiveness of Adelaide plains councils unifying to ensure the purity of dairy goods, councils preferred to protect local industries rather than attempt to so control all forms of industrial pollution.
The zoning of industrial and middle-class residential areas from the 1920s merely formalized the failure of councils of industrial suburbs and towns to curb industrial pollution and deferred dealing with hazardous industrial pollution. As with the early pastoral and mining towns, industrial communities could only limit emissions from noxious trades when manufacturing provided sufficient employment for councils to be selective. As with the councillors who sought to protect their dairies at the expense of children's health, in the 1950s the Playford Government and Woodville council disregarded the desire of industrial communities for a healthier environment to perpetuate industrialization. Chapter Five
Central Board of Health
1874-1960
Parliamentary Papers show that the Blyth Government established the British- inspired Central Board of Health in 1874 to control noxious industrial pollution, and thereby to curb disease, avoid the cost of sewerage and protect industrialists from enterprise-threatening law suits. Once polluting industrialists were protected from law suits by the sewering of Adelaide and the immunity offered in manufacturing districts from 1882, South Australian governments limited the Board to controlling small-scale environmental industrial pollution, the purity of food and poison usage by 1892. Up to 1960, only when it suited industrialists, or the State needed healthy soldiers for the Great Vy'ar or wished to suppress tuberculosis could the Board gain any sway over such large-scale pollution as produced in the manufacturing districts which sheltered the Port Pirie lead smelters from 1889, the Whyalla pig-iron mill from 1937 and steel works from 1958, paper mills and an oil refinery. This made the Board seek out non-proscriptive means to control pollution-related diseases to the point of advocating poisoning the food-chain from 1939, accepting industrial pollution and making no comment over nuclear weapons testing at Maralinga. The
Playford Government was prepared to expand the role of the Board to include an advisory service to curtail occupational pollution in the hope of assisting industrialization and curbing both the cost of strikes and the compensation claims of government employees from 1946 to 1960. Chapter Five Central Board of Health 68
Too Committed: 1874-L892
The Blyth Government formed the Central Board of Health in 1874 to avoid funding the sewering of Adelaide and to remove the threat litigation posed to polluting industrialists. With Adelaide sewered in 1881, successive governments protected industrialists from the Board by creating manufacturing districts from 1882, making the Board work through councils from 1884 and restricting the Board to non-mining industry on mineral lands from 1891. This limited the Board to the control of pollution produced by small-scale industrialists and poison usage or contaminating food supplies. The British governance transplanted to South Australia only began controlling industrial pollution to save expenditure on sewers and stop law suits which could close polluting trades. South Australian governments only employed an adviser on industrial pollution tiom 1840 to 1872, when expecting the colonial surgeon to comment on public health and sanitation as well as care for impoverished migrants.l Directly controlling industrial pollution was never considered by the governors, pastoralist-dominated Legislative Council, nor property-biased, unsalaried parliamentarians, ten per cent of whom were industrialists, until the expense of sewering Adelaide led the Blyth Government (1873-1875) to introduce a
Health Bill to follow the British example of forming a Central Board of Health in
1873.2 Odours from the noxious trades in the western suburbs enveloping Adelaide
1. I.L.D. Forbes, 'Aspects of Health Care', in E. Richards, (ed.), The Flinders History of South Australia: Social History (Adelaide, 1986), 260-1 ,267-8. 2. F.M.L. Thompson, English Landed Society In the NineteenÍh Century (London, 1963),45,61. J.B. Hirst, Adelaide and Country 1870-1917 Their Social and Political Relationship (Melbourne, 1973), 132-3. A. Munyard, 'Making a Polity' and P.A. Howell, 'Constitutional and Political Development', in D. Jaensch, (ed.), The Flinders History of South Australia: Political History (Adelaide, 1986),56,58,67,116-18,127. J. Moss, Soznds of Trumpets: Hístoryof theLabour Movement in South Ausîralia (Adelaide, 1985), 62. S. Marsden, A History of Woodville (Adelaide, 1977),38. Chapter Five Central Board of Health 69
ensured that merely the six parliamentarians with vested interests in the trades opposed passing the Bill to create the Board to eradicate such annoyances.3 Within a month of C. V/hite gaining a court injunction to stop the tanner, C. Peacock, from polluting the Torrens with the threat of a f7,000 fine, sufficient to bankrupt the company, not only did the Public Health Act gain assent, but, on 7 January 1874, the Blyth Government formed the Board.a The Act empowered the Central Board of
Health to investigate any premises containing 'matter dangerous to health' or in which someone had died from a contagious disease and ensure that
any manufactory .,. causing effluvia,,. to be a nuisance, or offensive to... inhabitants ... or injurious to their health contain all noxious byproducts in a sealed cesspit, which was to be kept in an inoffensive condition and regularly emptied, and that the contents were adequately treated before being drained into a waterway.s The ability of the Central Board to so control environmental industrial pollution was limited by municipalities being able to determine the level of environmental protection applied by manufacturers in towns and local justices of the peace setting both the stringency of nuisance abatement orders and the level of fines to be paid for failing to comply with these orders.6 The Board comprised medical practitioners A. Campbell and W. Gosse, its
President, H. Rymill, a long-standing campaigner for pollution control and Adelaide Councillor, R.G. Thomas, a prize-winning sewerage designer and architect,
3. SAP Debates, 1871 163. Forbes, 'Aspects of Health Care',274-5. Hirst, Adelaide and Country I33. P. Morton, After Light: A History of the City of Adelaide and its Council, 1878-1928 (Adelaide, 1996), I23. P. Donovan, Between the Ciry and the Sea: A History of West Torrens from Settlement in 1836 to the Present Day (Ãdelaide, 1986), 71. 4. R. Parsons, Hindmarsh Town: A History of the Village, DisÍrict Council and Corporate Town of Hindmarsh South Austrqllø (Adelaide,1974),80. Sanitation Commission, 'Report, 1876',7-8, 24. 'Blue Book, 18'75', 24. 'The Public Health Act', Act No. 22 in Acts of the ParlíamenÍ of South Australia. 1873 (Adelaide, 1873), 153, Central Board of Health, 'Water Supply and Public Health, Yorke Peninsula', Paper No. 160 in SAPP 1874, 5. 'The Public Health Act',164-5,115. 6. Ibid., 156, 164. Chapter Five Central Board of Health 70
Lieutenant-Colonel W. Barker and F. Wright, Justice of the Peace.T It employed one health inspector.s
The Board regulated offensive industrial odours, thick smoke and water pollution according to local standards, the prevalence of disease and its view of sanitation. The first mission of the Board was to preserve mining on the Yorke
Peninsula by eradicating the typhoid epidemic, which it achieved by convincing the
Blyth Government to levy the mining communities in 1875 in order to employ a health officer and prevent the pollution of water supplies.e The Board sought to make noxious trades (boiling down works, bone-crushers, fellmongeries, slaughterhouses, soap and candle works) deodorize or burn offensive gases, prevent breweries, tanneries and fellmongeries from polluting streams and maintain the sanitary operation of slaughterhouses and dairies equal to the most stringent of council regulations from 1877.t0 To force industrialists to prevent pollution, the
Board prosecuted 5 industrialists by 1876, threatened to fine many others, placed a continuous nuisance abatement order on all offensive trades from 1884 and issued
2,274 nuisance suppression notices from the 7,889 inspections of industrial ventures it undertook between 1878 and 1885.11 The Board acted most zealously to curtail industrial pollution repeatedly complained of by councils or the public, if water
7. Central Board of Health, 'Report, 1874175', 4. 'Blue Book, 1875',24. Sanitation Commission, 'Report, 1876',70,72. D.A. Cumming and G. Moxham, They Built South Australia: Engineers, Technicians, Manufadurers, Contrqctors and Their Work (Adelaide, 1896), 184. 8. Its first inspector, B. Holroyd, died in office and was succeeded by G. Ayliffe in 1875. 'Blue Book, 1875' ,24. 9. Central Board of Health Repofs: 'Water Supply' and'1874175' ,2. 10. 'The Puhlic Health Act', 164. Sanitation Commission, 'Report, 1876',25,27,46,68-9. Central Board of Health Reports: '1877178',4,'1878179', 6, '1879/80', 4,9,'1880/81', 4 and '1881/82" 8. 11. The Board made 4,518 inspections of butchers, slaughterhouses and piggeries, 456 inspections of manufacturers, brewers and tanneries and, from 1879, 1,481 inspections for water pollution and 1,189 inspections of general nuisalces and, from 1880, 274 inspections of cowyards and dairies. Ibid., '1877/78"2,',1818179"3,',1819180" 3, '1880/8r"3,12, '1881/82" 3,9,',1882183"3, Sand'1883/84',3,7. N.Gemmel,OldStrathalbynanditsPeoplelS39-1939(Adelaide, l995), 69. Chapter Five Central Board of Health 7t
supplies could be subsequently protected during the droughts of 1879 and 1882, and if epidemics could be contained after the Bray Government (1881-1884) required health officers to notify the Board of the deaths caused by contagious and pollution- related diseases in 1884.12 It was most lenient towards waste processors, such as bone-crushers who refined slaughterhouse wastes which would have created more offence if left untreated, and air pollution from factories, contending that only air thickened with carbon from coal smoke constituted a health hazard.ts The Board only acted against councils which challenged its view of sanitation; thus when the
Hindmarsh council complained over the stench from a sewer the Board denounced the council, issued 100 notices and ordered the council to appoint a health officer,ra
So keen was the Board to control pollution that it gained the assistance of police to inspect slaughterhouses over thirty miles from Adelaide from 1880 and made its new
Secretary, G.H. Ayliffe, inspect half-time, following the deaths of Gosse and
Thomas in 1883, and appointment of H,T. Whittell as its President and T. Farrell as its inspector. 15
After providing the funds to sewer Adelaide in 1881, governments granted industrialists immunity from the Board and being sued for nuisances where most landholders petitioned for manufacturing districts, rather than assist the Board to prevent industrial pollution. Successive governments denied the Board the power to veto the appointment of local inspectors, order councils to fix nuisances, ban noxious trades from towns and approve plans for sewers and factories.16 When
12.Central Boardof HealthReports: '1877178',2,4,'1878179',3,5,'1879/80', 4,7-8, '1881/82', 3-4,8,10-12, '1883184',10,'1884/85', 4-5 and '1885/86', 4. Donovan, West Torcens7l. 13. H.T. Whittell, 'Information Relating to Public Health', Paper No. 110 in SAPP 1886. Central Board of Health Reports: '1881/82' , 4 and'1882183' , 4. 14. Parsons, Hindmarsh 120-1. Central Board of Health, 'Repof, 1883184',4. 15. 'Blue Book, 1883', 31. Central Board of Health Reports: '7879180',4,'1,'1880181', 10-11, '1881182',3,'1882183', 3, 8 and '1883184',4. 16. Ibid., '1874175" 2-3,',1875176" 6,',r876177" 5,',1878179" 3,',1879/80" 3, '1880/81" 3-4, ' 1887/82', 3,' 1882183', 3 and' 1883184', 3-4. Chapter Five Central Board of Health 72
petitioned by residents and the council of Mannum to create a manufacturing district there, the Bray Government granted immunity from the Board for brewers, cattle
renderers, flax works, chemical and preserving factories in manufacturing districts.lT
This ministry protected polluting industrialists from law suits by requiring that at
least three-quarters of the landholders not only agreed with establishing a manufacturing district in an area, but petitioned for one, before such a district could be proclaimed.ls Due to such petitioners, including the creator of Arbor Day,
F.E.H.W. Krichauff, the Board was excluded from regulating polluting trades at the
manufacturing districts created at Mannum, Gawler, Port Adelaide and Wingfield
from 1882 to 1886.le The Playford Government (1887-1839) heeded the wishes of
2,340 petitioners calling for government assistance for manufacturing to resolve the
dearth of employment in 1887 by adding smelting and metal-refining trades to those
which could be carried on in manufacturing districts.20 Despite typhoid and
pollution from the Hoyelton and Wingfield manufacturing districts, both the
Cockburn and Playford governments omitted health regulations from the
manufacturing district granted to the Port Pirie lead smelters in 1889.21 Certainly
the Board thought slaughterhouses, cattle renderers and flaxworks were too polluting
17. 265 Mannum residents, 'Petition for Manufacturing Districts, 1881'. 'Regulations under Manufacturing Districts Act, 1881', l-2. H.J. Lewis, Enfield and the Northern Villages (Adelaide, 1985), 106. 18. 265 Mannum residents, 'Petition for Manufacturing Districts, 1881'. 'Regulations under Manufacturing Districts Act, 1881', 1-2. Lewis, Enfield106. 19. Petitions: 175 Mannum residents, 'Under the Manufacturing Districts Act, 1881', 171 Mannum residents, 'Manufacturing District at Mannum, 1883-4', 534 Gawler residents, 'Manufacturing District at Gawler, 1883-4', J. Welsby, 'Manufacturing District, Hundred of Port Adelaide, 1884' and 54 Yatala residents, 'Manufacturing District, Hundred of Yatala [Wingfield], 1886'. Central Board of Health, 'Report, 1886/87', 8. 20. Petitions: 2,390 residents of South Australia, 'Protection of Local Manufacturers, 1887' and 34 Wingfield residents, 'Extension of Manufacturing District of Wingfield, 1887'. Central Board of Health, 'Report, 1887/88', 8-9. 2l.lbid., '1887i88',9,'1888/89',4,9-lO and'1889/90',8,12. Lewis,ûnfie\d34,109,200. Chapter Five Central Board of Health 73
to operate in towns.22 However, the Board rejected manufacturing districts, as workers would be sure to reside near such centres of employment and negate any public health benefits from isolating industrial polluters who had paid the cost of moving their works to such districts.23
From 1884 successive South Australian governments undermined the regulation of industrial polluters by favouring local over central controls to limit costs during periods of economic depression. The Colton Government (1884-1885) limited the Board to only being able to prosecute polluters situated outside local board districts from 1884, despite twelve local boards refusing to levy the sanitary rate and six to employ health officers.2a Governments ignored calls from the Board to either subsidize local regulation or force local boards to levy the sanitary rate to fund local sewer construction and control industrial pollution.2s Rather, the Board was deprived of its ability to regulate polluting factories outside municipalities and manufacturing districts from 1887 when, to cut expenditure, the Downer
Government (1885-1887) made all councils form local boards of health.26 With only one full-time and one half-time inspector to convince previously uninterested councillors to reduce industrial pollution, the Board became dependent upon the reports from local officials to supervise the effectiveness of local boards.27 Despite these shortcomings, the Board found 39 councils were derelict in pollution control from 1884 to 1892, mainly by not inspecting for nuisances likely to cause typhoid and diphtheria, diverting local inspectors to other duties and allowing unsanitary
22. Central Board of Health Reports: '1.878179" 3-4, 6,8, '1879/80" 7, 1880/81" rc,',1882183" 4 and'1883/84',4. 23. Sanitation Commission, 'Report, 1876', iii, viii, 3, II-12,28. 24. Central Board of Health, 'Regulations, 1885'. Central Board of Health Reports: '1878179',3, '1879180' ,3, '1881182' , 3, '1882183', 3, '1883/84' ,3-4 and '1884/85' , 4,7 . 25. Ibid.,' 1876177', 5,'1880/81', 3-4 and'1883/84', 3. 26. Hirst, Adelaide andthe Country 146. 27.lbid. Central Board of Health Reports: '1889/90', 7 and '1890/91' ,7. Chapter Five Central Board of Health 74
slaughterhouses and dairies, while 15 let industries pollute waterways, 10 had no form of garbage disposal, 8 put up with nuisances from noxious trades, 4 permitted rubbish disposal to cause a nuisance, 2 had no by-laws to control nuisances and 1 accepted workers suffering amidst gross stench at a boot factory.2s By 1891 the
Board called for government to provide grants to councils, blaming the lack of local regulation on insufficient funds, with the 170 councils gaining an average of f734 from rates to protect public health and fulfil all other duties.2e The Playford
Government (1890-1892) refused, contending that, as it was in the interests of communities to prevent disease, it was a local not central responsibility.30
The desire to provide jobs led governments to continually undermine the ability of the Board to prevent disease, leaving the Board to regulate small-scale works from 1891 and to political oblivion by 1892. From 1887 to 1892, outside of mineral lands, the Board could only prevent ammonia pollution of the River
Torrens, gain meagre improvements at Burford's soap factory at Adelaide and a slaughterhouse at Brighton, and get two local boards to act against industrial polluters.3r Controlling pollution inside factories, gained from the Downer
Government in 1885 to prevent further strikes by bootworkers over smoke- and gas- infested workplaces, was subverted by the medical mentality of the time.32 The
Board, considering smoke as a health hazard only when impregnated with coal dust, declared as healthy the stench-ridden Adelaide and Gawler clothing, cigarette and boot factories called into question by the unionist-backed parliamentarian, J.T.
29. Ibid., '1884/85" 3-6, '1885/86" 3-8, 10, '1886/87" 3-6, 13, '1887/gg" 3-7,10, 12-13, '1888/89', 3,5-7,9,13, 15,'1889/90', 3-7,9,15, '1890/91',3-6,9, 13 and '1891192',3-9, 11. 29. Ibid., '1890/91', 4, 6-7 and'1891192' , 186. 'Municipal Corporation Assessments, 1893'. 30. Central Board of Health, 'Report, 1890i91', 4,6-7. 3l,Ibid.,'1886/87',7,'1887/88',7,'1889190',6,8, l0-11,'189019I',6and'1891192',6. 32. Ibid','1884/85', 7 and 'Regulations, 1885'. Factories Commission, 'Report, 1892',159. Moss, Trumpets 134. Chapter Five Central Board of Health 75
Scherck, in the House of Assembly in 1888 and public complaints.33 Despite the success of the Board in improving the public health of miners by preventing typhoid at the Yorke Peninsula copper mines and the Teetulpa goldfield, the Playford and
Cockburn governments limited the Board to regulating the non-mining businesses operating on gold-mining leases from 1891.34 Neither government called health officials to the inquiry to determine the need to regulate the occupational health of mining in 1889 and 1890,3s The Playford cabinet refused requests from the Board for a veterinarian and direct control over slaughterhouses and dairies in 1891 despite fears of tuberculosis-infected meat.36 When the Board criticized this ministry for creating manufacturing districts free of health regulation at Port Augusta and
Davenport in 7892 in order to set up government smelting works, its annual reports were excluded from Parliamentary Papers until 1933.37
South Australian governments only tolerated the regulation of industrial polluters by the Central Board of Health when it was in the interests of the government or industrialists. The Board achieved pollution controls by forcing industrialists to burn noxious emissions, cease polluting waterways and process foodstuffs sanitarily from 1877. It could tailor its limited resources to the greatest risks to public health from 1884 thanks to health officers being required to notify the
Board of the fatal incidence of disease. V/ith sewers and manufacturing districts ending the likelihood of law suits against industrialists, successive governments limited the ability of the Board to intrude upon industrialists. Only when seeking to
33. Central Board of Health Reports: '1887/88', 4, 8, '1889/90', 7-8, '1890/91', 7 and'1891192', 6. Factories Commission, 'Report, 1892' ,227. Moss, Trumpets 126. 34. Central Boa¡d of Health Reports: '1884/85', 7, '1886187', 12 and'1890191',4. R. Cockburn, South Australia What's in a Name? Nomenclature of South Australia Authoritative Derivations of some 4000 Historically Significant Place Names (Adelaide, 1990),214. 'Additional Regulations under "The Gold-Mining Act, 1885", 1891'. 35. Mining Commission, 'Report, 1890', iii. 36. Central Board of Health Reports: '1890191' , I I and '1891192' , 9. 37. Ibid.,'1891192', 9.'Blue Book, 1901', 68. Chapter Five Central Board of Health 76
placate workers on strike over polluted workplaces was this subversion of the Board temporarily halted. That the wealthy returned to the courts to keep their estates pollution-free by expelling \{oodcock's boiling-down works from North Adelaide when fines from the Board and Adelaide council proved ineffective,38 vr'as of little import to the government as manufacturing districts were then available to polluting industrialists. Government seemed unconcerned that the death rate for South
Australian towns averaged 150 per cent of the whole province, with Moonta hitting
250 per cent (35.3:1,000) in 1883 and Port Augusta 26O per cent (39.5:1,000) in
1884, and that, to prevent typhoid epidemics, in 1888 the Victorian Government only accepted South Australian ships with medical clearances in its ports,3e
Outcast: 1892-L932
Once omitted from the Parliamentary Papers, the Board became but a regulator of typhoid, tuberculosis, foodstuffs and poisons. Governments only allowed the Board to control industrial pollution when it suited industrialists and to regulate polluters when healthy recruits were required in the trenches of the Great War.
Both governments and parliament omitted the Board from investigations into industrial pollution. The Board was absent from inquiries determining if the sewage farm caused a nuisance in 1893, if houses were too close to smelters and factories at
Port Pirie and Port Augusta in 1919, the cause of occupational lead poisoning at the
Port Pirie Smelters in 1925 and the need for coal powered electricity in 1895, public abattoirs on the Adelaide plains in 1902, extending the Bowden gas works in 1912,
38, Central Board of Health, 'Report, 1887/88', 7. 39. Ibid, , '1881182', 5, 7, '1882183', 4-5, '1883/84' , 5, ' 1884i85', 8 and '1887/88', 12. H.T Whittell, 'Information Relating to Public Health', Paper No. ll0 in SAPP 1886. Chapter Five Central Board of Health 77
town planning in 1919, and another coal wharf at Port Adelaide in 1920.40 Such was the demise of expertise on sanitation in the Board that by 1920, ignorant of the new British aeration and bacterial treatment of sewage, it recommended that the
Barwell Liberal GovernmerÍ" (1920-1924) discharge untreated domestic and industrial wastes into the Port River.al Instead of the Board, the Gunn Labor and
Butler Liberal governments turned to the sanitation engineers in the Commonwealth
Department of Health to determine how to prevent typhoid and pollution from the
Islington sewage farm, along the River Murray and at Glenelg.a2 Rather than heed their advice to prevent threats to public health from industrialists draining into the
River Murray and provide the Board with more inspectors, the Gunn Labor
Government (1924-1926) removed an inspector from the Board in 1925.43 This government knowingly kept the Board and itself ignorant of the real condition of public health by rejecting Commonwealth and medical advice to require doctors to inform the Board of cases of notifiable diseases, not just deaths, and to make occupational lead and carbon monoxide poisoning notifiable diseases.aa Only when industrialists preferred regulation by the Board would governments involve it further. The Board gave evidence before the Factories
Commission in 7892 because industrialists feared regulation by factory inspectors
40. C.A. Bayer, 'Report on the Sewerage Farm, 1893', 1-2. Select Committee Reports: 'Electric Company's Bill, 1895', 'City Abattoirs Bill, 1902', 'South Australian Gas Company's Bill, 1912' and 'Town Planning and Development Bill, 1920'. C, Reade, 'Planning and Development of Towns a¡rd Cities in South Australia, l9I9' , 16, 21. Royal Commission Reports: 'Port Adelaide Coal Wharf, 1920' and 'Plumbism, 1925', ii-iv, vi-vii. 41. Select Committee, 'Report on the Adelaide Sewerage System, 1920',5,11-12, 18. 42. W .J. Denny, 'Joint Committee on Consolidation Bills, 1924' , 3. F.F. Langley, 'Sanitary Conditions of the River Murray, 1924' , 5. Parliamentary Standing Committee on Public Works, 'Sewerage of Adelaide and Suburbs,1928', Paper No. 33, iii-iv. H.E. Bellamy, 'Sewerage of Adelaide and Suburbs, 1928' , Paper No, 60, 3. 43. Langley, 'Sanitary Conditions of River Murray, 1924',22-3,31. 'Public Service List, 1925', t2. 44. Langley, 'Sanitary Conditions of River Murray, 1924' ,23-4,30. Royal Commission, 'Report on Plumbism, 1925', nO-Ll, 113. Director of Mines,'Report, 1925', 3. Chapter Five Central Board of Health 78
who, unlike the Board, would inform workers that owners were obliged to make their factories healthy and might not be circumvented by manufacturing districts, sympathetic local boards and magistrates who lowered the fines the Board imposed for pollution.as To appease both unionists and industrialists, the Kingston Liberal-
Labor Government (1893-1899) employed Agnes Zadow as the first South
Australian factory inspector to regulate the occupational health of Adelaide factories under the control of the Board from 1895.46 When Labor gained one quarter of the
South Australian vote in 1896, the Kingston ministry removed the factory inspectors from the Board on passing regulations to control factory ventilation and overcrowding in 1898.47 This empowered the Board to stop the commencement or expansion of noxious trades, including lead smelters, and factories from polluting neighbourhoods with dust, gases and 'impurities' throughout South Australia under the Health Act, 1898.48 However, this Act limited the effectiveness of the Board to fulfil these tasks by having representatives of town and district councils fill two of the five positions on the Board, enshrining the exemption of industrialists operating in manufacturing districts from interference by the Board and maintaining the ability of local boards to ignore directives from the Central Board and local courts to set the level of fines meted out to industrial polluters.ae At the request of BHAS, the Board drafted safety rules and suggested protective clothing for smelter workers at Port
Pirie to end their strike over occupational pollution in 1909 which, on
45. J.J. Green, Chair of the24 July 1891 meeting of manufacturers, 'Petition Against Factories and Shops Bill, 1891'. Factories Commission, 'Report, 1892' , ä, 36-7, 134, 227, 230, 297, 298- 300,302-3. 46. 'Blue Book, 1895',83-4. Factories Inspector, 'Report, 1895', 1. 47. 'Model Regulations under the Health Act, 1898', Paper No 48, 2. 'Regulations under the Health Act, 1898', Paper No. 89, 3. 'Blue Book, 1898', 35. 48, 'The Health Act, 1898', Act No. 711 in Acts of the Parliament of South Australia. 1898-9 (Adelaide, 1899), 3,21. 'Model Regulations under the Health Act, 1898', Paper No 48,2. 'Regulations under the Health Act, 1898', Paper No. 89, 3. 49. 'The Health Act, 1898', 4, l2-I5,28. Chapter Five Central Board of Health 79
implementation, reduced the incidence of lead poisoning at the smelters from 150-
200 per annum for 1907 to 1909 to a few each year ftom l9l2 to 1917.50
Governments only provided more staff for the Board to prevent epidemics at remote developments, to curtail tuberculosis and to control the purity of food and use of poisons. To ensure the epidemics experienced at the Copper Triangle and
Teetulpa were not repeated by burgeoning industries on the frontier of settlement,
Liberal and Labor governments employed sanitary inspectors, health inspectors and health officers at 3 mines from 1904, 10 railway towns supplying mining and pastoral industries from 1908 and 2 whaling towns from 1912.51 These were part- time positions, as salaries ranged between f10 to f45 per annum in contrast to the f2l0 of an inspector of the Board.52 The Kingston Government expanded the power of the Board to inspect commercial food processors to prevent the contamination of meat, milk or other food from 'offensive matter' and withhold contaminated food from sale from 1898.s3 The Liberal and Labor governments only provided more permanent staff to the Board to regulate tuberculosis, food purity and poison usage, providing veterinarian J. Desmond on October 1, 1899 as Chief Inspector of Cattle
(when \il. Ramsay Smith took over as Chair of the Board), a keeper of livestock on
50. W. Ramsay Smith, Report into Causes and Occurrence of Lead Poisoning at Port Pirie (1910) cited Royal Commission, 'Report on Plumbism, 1925' , vi-viii, 35-6. 51, Such personnel were employed at the goldfields of Tarcoola from 1904, the Blinman copper mines and smelter from 1905, and the mines at Iron Knob from 1914. The railway towns included Hergott Springs and Oodnadata from 1908, Farina from 1910, Cockburn, Beltana, Burat Bay and Denial Bay from 1912, Hammock Hill and Yunta from 1914 and Mannahill from 1917. The whaling towns of Penong and Fowler's Bay were so served from 1912 and 1916, respectively. Blue Books: '1904',36, '1905', 52, '1908',36, '1910', 41, 'l9ll', 42,'1912', 44, '1913', 44, '1914' , 45 utd'1916' ,50. 'Public Service List, 1918', 16. J.F. Drexel, Mining in South Australia: A Pictorial History (Adelaide, 1982), 85, 129, Cockburn, Nomenclature22, 136, 165, 172,249. P. Donovan, 'The Influence of Transport on the Development of South Australian Country Towns', in A.F. Denholm, S.Marsden and K. Round, (eds.), Terowie Workshop: Exploring the History of South Australian Country Towns (Adelaide, l99l), 65. R.M. Gibbs, History of South Australia from Colonial Days to the PresenÍ (Adelaide, 1984), 92. 52. 'Blue Book, I9ll',42. 53. 'The Health Act, 1898', 16-19. Chapter Five Central Board of Health 80
the quarantine station on Torrens Island in 1910 and two more inspectors by 1911, now titled food and drugs inspectors.s4 The additional personnel were all to prevent the sale of polluted food by isolating diseased cattle from 1899, ensuring that dairies were supplied with pure water and were adequately drained and ventilated from
1910, restricting the sale of arsenic and strychnine to doctors, pharmacists and farmers from 1912, and by eradicating poisons, insecticides and unhygienic methods from commercial food processing from l915.ss The opinion of the Board was only sought by one parliamentary inquiry from 1893 to 1920, to determine whether the purity of meat could be best attained by creating a public abattoirs in 1907, at which the Board argued for a state-run monopoly of slaughter on the Adelaide plains.56
The effect of these government policies on the Board was to temper its control of polluters until the need for healthy men to fight for the British Empire and work became paramount to the state. The fines levied by the Board from 1894 to
1930 show it was increasingly preoccupied with preventing the pollution of food processing and restricting poisons through the Food and Drugs Act, rather than the industrial pollution proscribed by its founding legislation, the Public Health Act and subsequent Health Act, 1898:
54. Blue Books:'1900', 36,'1910', 41 and'1911', 42. Morton, Adelaide 136-7. 55. Regulations: 'Under Stock Diseases Act and the Public Health Act, 1896', 1,3, 'Model Regulations under Health Act, 1898', l-2,'Under "Food and Drugs Act, 1908", 1910', 3, 8, 'Under "Food and Drugs Act, 1908", l9l2',1-2, 'Under "The Food and Drugs Act, 1908", l9l5' , l-3, 17. 56. Select Committee, 'Report on Metropolitan Abattoirs Bill, 1907', 48-9. Chapter Five Central Board of Health 81
Table 5. 1: Fines levied by the Central Board of Health, 1879-1930 (five-yearly intervals).
Number of Convictions under the Health Act Food and Drugs Act t879 33 1884 32 1889 29 1 1894 3 10 1899 7 2 r904 7 3 1909 6 5 t9t4 35 52 r9t9t20 t4 66 t924t25 t3 30 1929t30 23
Source: Statistical Registers: '1879', Part V, 11, '1884', Pan V, 12, '1889', Part V, 21,'1894', Part V, 16,'1899', Part V, 25,'1904', Part V, 16, '1909', Part V, 18,'1914/15', Part V,20, '1919120', Part II, 12,'1924125', Part III, ll and '1929130', Part III, 9.
The Board reacted to the high level of volunteers being rejected on the grounds of poor health during the Great War and the desire for a healthy workforce in its aftermath by increasingly prosecuting those breaking either the Health or Foods and
Drugs Acts up to the mid-1920s, just as councils had in regard to by-laws and zoning.sT Most of the fines issued under these Acts were levied against men, with only 13 per cent of the 599 fines issued during the years I sampled being against women.58
The ostracizing of the Board by successive governments left it a shell of its origins, only acting to curtail typhoid and tuberculosis, to uphold the purity of food and to control the use of poisons. Aside from BHAS using the Board to end the strike of lead-poisoned workers in 1909, its brief involvement with the regulation of occupational pollution ended with Labor striving to install a more effective control
57. Morton, Adelaide l7 6, l9l , 193 , 203 . 58. Statistical Registers: 'l9l4ll5', Part V, 20, '1919/20', Part Il, 12, '1924/25', Part III, 11, 'L929/30', Part III, 9, '1933/34', Part I, 16, '1934135', Part I, 16,'1939140', Part I, 16, '1944/45', Part I, 10, '1949150', Part I, 13, 't954155', Part I, 10 and '1959/60', Part I, 8. Chapter Five Central Board of Health 82
over industrialists. If governments had not ostracized the Board, maybe less South
Australian babies would have died from preventable diseases than South Australian soldiers were killed in battle in 1916,5e and the Board could have tailored its control of industrial pollution according to cases of related diseases in the mid-1920s.60 The
Board seemed destined to be excluded from state pollution control.
Recalled: t933-I946
The Hill Labor Government reintroduced the annual reports of the Board to parliament to avert fears of epidemics during the high unemployment of the Great
Depression in 1933. Determined to industrialize the state, Liberal govemments provided immunity from the Board to large-scale industrial polluters such as the
BHP pig-iron mill at Whyalla fïom 1937. tseing so denied a role in controlling industrial pollution made the Board attempt non-proscriptive means to both encourage industrialists to curb pollution and to control pollution-related diseases by advocating the poisoning of flies and insects that subsequently poisoned the food- chain.
State governments merely wanted the Board to prevent disease by regulating poison usage and the purity of food and excluded it from regulating the pollution created by the industrialization programme that Liberal governments launched to recover from the Great Depression. The fear that high unemployment would produce epidemics motivated the Hill Labor Government (1930-1933) to present the annual reports of the Board to parliament and require doctors to report cases of
59. Moreton, Adelaide 49 60. Morton, Adelaide 49. Chapter Five Central Board of Health 83
notifiable diseases, rather than just deaths, to the Board from 1932.6r The Butler
Liberal Government (1933-1938) sent A.R. Southward, the new Chair of the Board, to investigate the means of curbing tuberculosis and regulating food purity employed in the USA, Canada and Europe in 1934.62 Liberal governments would only increase the power of the Board to control food processing and poison usage by banning those with infectious diseases from handling food for sale, registering drug manufacturers from 1934 and requiring fumigators to prevent pollution from1944.63 After a battery worker was poisoned with lead in 1933, the Butler Liberal
Government allowed the Board to prevent environmental pollution from small-scale battery-makers from 1934, but not to conduct medical checks of workers at risk from such toxins nor ban women and children from working in such professions.6a
Rather than provide more inspectors and power to the Board to curb all industrial water pollution, Liberal governments set caretakers against the unemployed who contaminated reservoirs when prospecting for gold in 1933 and ordered the E&WS to regularly test reservoir water quality from 1938, while leaving the control of the industrial pollution of private streams to the proven inadequacy of local boards in
1943.6s Liberal governments omitted the Board and consideration of the pollution entailed when setting up such major sources of employment and pollution as paper manufacture in the south east in 1936, the BHP pig-iron mill at Whyalla in 1937 and, to burn Leigh Creek coal, the Electricity Trust of South Australia in 1945.66
The Butler Government passed legislation for BHP to run its pig-iron mill at
61. Central Board of Health, 'Report, 1933' , 4,6, 8-9. 62. Ibid., 't934" 3. 63. Ibid., '1934' , 4 and'1944' , 4, 8. 64. Ibid., '1933',8,'1934', I0-ll,'1943', 11 and '1950', 5. 65. At least one cheese factory was knowingly allowed to pollute a private stream by a local board in
1 943. Ibid.,' 1933" 7,', 1938" 8,', t942" 3 and', 1943" 6, 66. Royal Commission Reports: 'Afforestation, 1936',3,33 and 'Adelaide Electric Supply Company, 1945',31. Select Committee, 'Report on the Broken Hill Proprietary Company's Indenture Bill, 1937', iii. Chapter Five Central Board of Health 84
V/hyalla free from government regulation until 1987 and, throughout the state, limited claims against industrial polluters operating in manufacturing districts to those owning land within these areas prior to the proclaiming of the districts from
1937.67 The Playford Government (1938-1965) ignored calls from the Board for the medical supervision of employees at large-scale works (to determine fitness for work on beginning employment or after contracting either occupational or contagious diseases), for miners and quarry workers to be vetted for silicosis, munitions workers for kidney and liver damage and for machinery to be quietened from
7943.68
That these policies made the Board less proscriptive is demonstrated by the action of the Board over food, poisons and general wastes, on the one hand, and industrial wastes and poisoning the food-chain to kill agricultural pests on the other.
While the Board conducted an annual average of 1,694 inspections of food processors, 1,487 of business premises and 683 of poison vendors between 1933 and
1940 and a few special investigations of bitumen plants in 1933 and noxious trades in 1939,6e it only prosecuted industrialists over food purity and poison usage:
Table 5.2: Fines levied by the Central Board of Health, 1933-1945 (five-yearly intervals).
Number of Convictions under the Health Act Food and Drugs Act t933t34 74 t934t35 55 1939140 94 1944t45 25
Source: Statistical Registers: '1933134', Part I, 16, '1934135', Part I, 16,'1939140', Part I, 16 and '1944145', Pan I, 10.
67. Ibid. Department of Labour, 'Report, 1960' , 4. 68. Central Board of Health, 'Report, 1943' , ll-12. 69. The Board made an annual average of 131 inspections of slaughterhouses, 97 of butchers, 139 of bakeries, 251 of milk vendors and 1,076 of food premises. Ibid., '1933',3,'1934',3,'1935',3, ' 1936" 3,', 1937 3,' 1938" 3,', 1939" 3,', 1940" 3 and' 1944" 3. " Chapter Five Central Board of Health 85
To prevent disease the Board had controlled hazardous water pollution from waste disposal at Murray Bridge in 1933, the Torrens River and Port Pirie in 1934 and
Naracoorte, Clare, Blackwood and the western suburbs of Adelaide in 1936,70 It took the closure of a dairy, infested with typhoid from stock feed grown at the
Islington sewage farm in 1936, for the Board to begin to champion aerated sewage treatment.Tr Aside from closing this dairy, the Board had only forced a citrus factory and winery to install settling tanks to prevent industrial water pollution in
1944.12 The Board sought to limit the exposure of South Australians to hazardous chemicals by controlling the type of client who poison vendors could supply according to the poison register of the United Kingdom.T3 Because no connection had been made between cancer and carcinogens, such as lead tetra-ethyl and para- dichlor-benzeÍre, the Board unknowingly sanctioned the sale of poisons which contributed to cancer displacing tuberculosis as the leading cause of death in South
Australia in 1935, with a death rate of 10.4:1,000.74 However, the Board could not claim ignorance when permitting wide-spread environmental poisoning by allowing poison vendors to supply farmers with long-lasting toxins (such as strychnine from
1939, arsenic and cyanide from 1940) to kill agricultural pests, rodents and unprotected birds.Ts By 1945 the Board was actively promoting the use of the organo-chlorine, DDT, to South Australians to kill flies and mosquitoes.T6
Being excluded from controlling industrial pollution, the Board sought alternatives to proscription to effect a healthier environment and workplace and, to gain additional staff, applied work bans. The Board kept local boards abreast of
70. Ibid., '1933',3, 8-9, '1934',3, 6 and '1936',3, Il-I2 71. Ibid., '1934',6 and'1936', IL-12. 72 . lbid. , ' 1944" 8-9 . 73. Ibid., '1937" 8, '1938" 8,',1939" 11 and ',1940" 5. 74.lbid., '1934' , 6, '1935' ,5-6 and '1943' ,8. 75. Ibid., 't939" 4,',1940" 3,',1942" 5 añ',1943',, 5. 76. Ibid., '1945" 8. Chapter Five Central Board of Health 86
current needs in public health through its newsletter, Public Health Noles from
1932.77 With Liberal governments ignoring its calls for the medical supervision of workers in hazardous trades, the Board began lobbying employers to curb the risks faced by those workers from 1936.78 V/hile holding that workers should 'take no risks' when handling dangerous substances from 1934, the Board only directly informed fumigation workers of the hazardous chemicals they used when applying for licences to operate from the Board from I944.1e The Board's threat to name large-scale food processors who caused disease and polluted water supplies encouraged councils and the Metropolitan Dairies Board to obtain seventy-one convictions in 1939 to maintain public confidence in commercial foodstuffs.8O As the Parliamentary Standing Committee on Public'Works only sought evidence from the E&V/S over the need for sewerage systems, the Board began working with the
E&WS from 1939 to develop sewage schemes for small towns, leading to the model plant set up at the Army camp at Woodside in 1940.81 The Board, complaining of a lack of inspectors from 1933, the inadequacy of another inspector in1-937 and a temporary inspector in 1944, took the extraordinary step of not vetting food processors and poisons vendors, when it resumed making 1,538 inspections of business premises and 126 of offensive trades in t944.82 The Board had ceased inspecting industry from 1941 to 1943 to facilitate the end of the greater health risk,
World V/ar Two.83 The Playford Government subsequently acceded to requests for
77.lbid.,'1933' ,3-4 md'1936' , 4. 78. Ibid,,'t936"9. 79. Ibid., '1934' , l1 and '1944' , 8. 80. Ibid., '1938', 5, 15,'1939', 10, '1948', 18 and'1954',6. Lewis, Enfield222. R.J. Noye, Clare a District History (Adelaide, 1986),43,147. 81. Parliamentary Standing Committee on Public Works Reports: 'Glenelg Sewage Treatment Works, 1939' and 'Port Adelaide Sewerage Treatment Works, 1944'. Central Board of Health Reports:'1939', 8, 10 and'1940', 4. 82. Ibid.,' 1933" 3,', 1934" 9,', 1937 3,', 1939" 3,', 1943" 3 and' 1944" 3. 83. Ibid., '1940',3, 6 and '1944',3. " Chapter Five Central Board of Health 87
more regulators by the Board in 1945 by adding a medical officer and two food and drug inspectors to the two permanent and one temporary food and drug inspectors and a pharmaceutical inspector employed by the Board.sa
While state governments wanted the Board to control disease by requiring doctors to inform it of cases of notifiable diseases ftom 1932, to find jobs for the unemployed and win V/orld War Two, Liberal governments were prepared to forego all controls over industrial pollution exercised by the Central Board of Health. Such ministries offered industrialists like BHP immunity from regulation and protection from common-law suits over pollution, and permitted the Board to cease inspecting industries from 1941 to 1944, when victory over the axis powers seemed uncertain.
These policies led the Board to view productivity as more important than public health, to poison the food-chain with long-lasting toxins to kill agricultural pests and annoying insects and to seek non-proscriptive means to encourage industrialists to be less polluting. 'l'he tsoard could only prod others to enforce sanitary practices on the dairy industry in 1939 in its publicity efforts to control industrial pollution.
However, the Board could claim its regulation of disease, poisons, food and water helped South Australia achieve the world's lowest infant mortality rate of 31:1,000 in 1936 and 30.5:1,000 in 1938 and no deaths from typhoid in 1939.8s These statistics also meant that the Board had to appeal to the sense of public pride of the
Playford Government to create 'a health-inducing environment' by sewering regional centres, such as Port Pirie, and allowing the Board to prevent industrial disease after the war.86
84. 'Public Service Lists: '1921', ll and '1925', 12. Central Board of Health Reports: '1937',3, '1944',3 and'1945',3. 85. Ibid.,'1936', 5,'1938', 5 and,'1939', 7. 86. Ibid,,' 1936', 5,' 1938', 5,' 1939', 7,' 1944', 4 and' 1945', 10-1 1. Chapter Five Central Board of Health 88
Expansion: 1946-1960
The Playford Government, while reforming the Board to build a healthy workforce to further develop the economy and limit the government's worker's compensation liabilities, would only provide extra staff and public health duties to calm industrial unrest from 1946. Meanwhile, the Board accepted industrial pollutants, kept its silence on the testing of nuclear weapons at Maralinga and more large-scale industrial polluters being provided immunity from its regulation in 1958 and 1960 until councils began to act, and only censured DDT after agricultural pests grew resistant.
The Playford Government would only introduce inexpensive health reforms to further economic development until strikes took longer to settle from 1955 to 1960. Amidst a wave of strikes over atrocious conditions in 1946, the Playford
Government formed an inquiry into health services and provided the Board with an industrial health officer, Dr. D.G. McQueen.sT The inquiry advised the Playford
Government to give the Board more staff and powers to control pollution, local boards and research disease prevention and to incorporate the Board into the Health
Department which, by administering hospitals, was best placed to determine what constituted the most immediate public health risks.88 These reforms, the inquiry argued, would ensure that the workforce was healthy enough to revive the peacetime economy:
We have to rebuild our economic position ... by hard labour. To do hard labour you have to be physically fit .., [Wje cannot afford ill-health . '.8e
87. Moss, Trumpets 354-6. Committee of Inquiry, 'Report for Consolidating Health Services, 1946'. Central Board of Health, 'Report 1946' ,3. 88. Committee of Inquiry, 'Report for Consolidating Health Services, 1946' , l3-I5, 17 , 22-3. 89. Ibid., 10 and the address of Lord Woolton to the Royal Sanitary Institute Congress in 1946, cited ibid., 17. Chapter Five Central Board of Health 89
Of the inquiry's recommendations, the Playford Government was only prepared to divide the state into six regions so that the Board could better control local boards in
1946.e0 While the Playford cabinet formed an Advisory Council on Health and
Medical Services with the powers of a royal commission to prevent and investigate disease in 1949, no further mention was made of it.el V/ith the costliness of strikes diminishing from 1950 to 1955, the Playford Government only merged the Board with the hospital administration in the Department of Health in 1951 and provided an inspector of health, food and drugs in 1953.e2 This changed as strikes surpassed the duration of the communist-led strikes of 1946 to 1950:
Table 5.3: Industrial disputes of more than ten days in South Australia, I946-L960
Strikes Strikers Days Lost per per as % of per per per annum annum workforce annum striker strike
1946-t950 2I 7,853 nla 50,758 6.5 24t7 1951-1955 30 17,376 5.5 50,472 2.9 r682 1955-1960 24 12,820 3.7 78,700 6.1 3279
Source: D.L.J. Aitchison: South Australian Year Book No. 1: 1966 (Adelaide, 1966), 216,228 and South Australian Year Book No. 5: 1970 (Adelaide, 1970),274.
The Playford Government provided two inspectors of health, food and drugs in
1955, another in 1956, created a public health section (with 3 full-time and 3 part- time medical officers for the 6 health regions of the state, 3 inspectors of health, food and drugs, 16 part-time inspectors and 1 biophysicist added to the staff) and an industrial health section (adding 2 scientists and 2 inspectors) in 1958, 2 inspectors of health, food and drugs in 1959, and another inspector of health, food and drugs in 1960.e3 The employment of these regulators were attempts to curb strikes for,
90, Central Board of Health, 'Report, 1946' ,2. 91. Ibid,, '1949" 3-4. 92. lbid.,' l95l', 4 and' 1953', 3. 93. Ibid., '1955" 3,',1956" 3, '1958" 4,',1959" 4 and '1960" 6 Chapter Five Central Board of Health 90 although timed around elections, the chances of the Labor Party winning government diminished during the 1950s.e4 These reforms and staff increases brought South Australia in line with public health practices in New South Wales from 1938 and Victoria and Queensland from 1943, although the Board still viewed the staff levels as insufficient to protect public health.e5
The Playford Government would only act on calls for greater pollution controls from the Board to improve industrialization or ease strikes. This government ignored calls from the Board to improve local regulation by amalgamating the 143 local boards into eight and instances of public criticism of local boards failing to protect public health, employing unqualified local inspectors or diverting them from regulatory duties.e6 This government left the control of the local regulations of industrial pollution to the Board, which did so by informing councils of new industrial hazards and poisons and by checking the working of between fifty-six to 105 local boards per annum.eT To stem rising outbreaks of skin rashes and gastro-enteritis, the Board advocated that the Playford ministry make all industry process trade wastes until innocuous from 1952, prevent all waste disposal in bores in the south east in 1955 and fund local sewerage systems for forty councils from 1957.e8 However, as stated in chapter three above, pp. 33-5, the Playford Government would only fund seven sewerage schemes which bolstered industrialization.ee It never required industrialists to treat their wastes, only that
94. D. Jaensch, (ed,.), The Flinders History of South Austalia: Political History (Adelaide, 1986), 496-7. 95. Committee of Inquiry, 'Report for Consolidating Health Services, 1946', I0. Central Board of Health Reports: '1950', 3, '1958', 2l and'7959' ,24. 96. Ibid., '1947' ,7 and'1954' , 12. 97. Ibid.,'1946"5-6,',1947" 8,'1950" 13-14,',1953"19,',1957"4,',1959"3-4,10 and'19ó0" 3. 98. Ibid., '1952" 16-17,',1955" 13,',1956" 5-6,',1957" 3, '1958" 10 and '1959" 10. 99. Parliamentary Standing Committee on Public Works Reports: 'New Town Sewage Scheme, 1955', 3-6, 8, 'Gumeracha Sewerage Scheme, 1956-57' ,3-4, 'Mount Gambier Sewerage Scheme, 1957' ,3-4,6 and 'Naracoorte Sewerage Scheme, 1957' , 5, I0. Chapter Five Central Board of Health 9L
those polluting artesian water in the south east gain the approval of the Board, the
E&V/S and the Mines Department to continue dumping wastes into bores from 1957 and that the Board determine the level of such pollution in 1953.t00 These belated acts should be seen in the light of Adelaideans suffering water restrictions since 1950 to the point that P.S. Woodruff, Chair of the Board from 1959, stressed the need for water conservation. lo1
The Board continued to campaign to curtail industrial pollution which threatened public health by contaminating food. To stop outbreaks of staphylococcal, typhoid, diphtheria and salmonella infections, it traced their cause to food processors throughout South Australial0z and prosecuted commercial food processors for contravening food safety regulations:
Table 5.4 Fines levied by the Central Board of Health, 1949-1960 (five-yearly intervals).
Number of Convictions under the Health Act Food and Drugs Act t949ts0 73 r954t55 56 t959t60 47
Source: Statistical Registers: '1949150', Part I, 13, '1954155', Part I, 10 and '1959/60', Part I, 8
While forty-eight per cent of the convictions the Board cited in its annual reports involved polluted food premises and slaughterhouses, it also prevented environmental pollution by food processors, such as slaughterhouses and a cheese and small goods factory in the Adelaide Hills throwing untreated wastes onto the land in 1954.t0t The Board only relaxed its enforcement of food and drugs
100. Central Board of Health Reports: '195J' , 5 and ' 1958' , 1 1 . 101. Ibid., '1960"25. 102. Ibid., '1947" 9,',1953" 6,8,',1954" 6,',1959" 10 and ',1960" 10 and 12. 103. Ibid., '1952" 5,',1953" 6,',1954" 5,12,',1955" 6 and ',1960" 10,12. Chapter Five Central Board of Health 92
regulations when a shortage of building materials after the war made their observance impossible. 1oa
As with authorities in the United States, the Board abetted the poisoning of the food-chain and humans by advocating the use of highly toxic poisons and radiation. From 1945 onwards, the Board encouraged all local boards to dust rubbish tips, dairies, restaurants and wet lands with DDT, the 'wonder insecticide', in order to prevent the spread of disease from flies and the annoyance of mosquitoes.l05 The Board maintained this view, though requiring poison vendors and manufacturers to warn customers against skin absorption from DDT and berzene compounds from 1948 and that the toxic nerve gases of World War Two, organic phosphates, endangered life from 1951.106 The Board claimed aerial crop- dusting with such toxic insecticides was strictly controlled by the Department of
Civil Aviation, which merely required crop-dusting pilots to pass a test and spray at least 500 f'eet away fiom buildings, regardless of wind conditions.r0T The Board only ceased advocating the use of these poisons on finding they endangered the predators of agricultural pests more than the pests in 1959, as publicized by Rachel
Carson in 1962.108 A similar situation developed over radioactive pollution, with the Board approving the use of x-ray units at Adelaide shoe stores to help fit shoes from 1947.10e Only when beryllium killed several people in Britain and it was found to have no safe exposure level, did the Board warn against exposure and advised consumers to dispose of expired fluorescent light tubes by burial from
104. Ibid.,'1947"9. 105. Ibid., '1945',8,'1947',4, 8 and '1948', 10, 12-13. 106. Ibid., '1948',13 and '1951',6,12-13. 107. Ibid., '1954',13-14. Commonwealth Senate Select Committee, 'Air Pollution, 1969',773, 775-6. 108. Central Board of Health, 'Report, 1959',9. R. Carson, Silent Spring (New York, 1962),214- 15. 109. Central Board of Health, 'Report, 1947' , 5. Chapter Five Central Board of Health 93
1949.110 Rather than criticize the atomic testing which began at Maralinga in 1953, the Board warned local authorities against exposure to radiation from 1954, when it formulated a plan to treat the casualties of atomic warfare.1ll In these cases the
Board clearly had not applied its advice to workers to take no risks with any new chemicals.ll2 Little wonder then that the Playford Government only banned organic phosphates from food crops and, amidst growing demonstrations against atomic testing at Maralinga, controlled the use of radioactive materials by the private sector in 1956. rr3
The Board acceded to the industrialization drive of the Playford Government by either declaring noxious and large-scale industrial pollution as safe, or failing to comment until councils acted against industrial polluters. Having been given control over noxious trades by the Playford Government in 1946, it merely reported that all noxious trades would be compensated for being forced into designated areas, removing battery manufacture as a noxious trade in 1950 and including hide processing in 1960.rr4 The Board declared Peterborough to be safe, despite finding lead dust strewn about the town and some railway workers poisoned by it.115 The
Board ignored the 'problems' of the Leigh Creek coal miners, using the town to experiment with DDT in 1947, and asserted the huge amounts of coal ash deposited on Port Augusta and Port Adelaide from generating electricity by Leigh Creek coal to be innocuous in 1958.116 It made no comment over the Playford Government building a uranium treatment plant at Port Pirie in 1953, the BHAS lead smelters at
110. Ibid., '1949" 13-14. 111. Ibid., ',794',7" 5,',1954" 4,',1957" 4 and '1960" 3. 112. Ibid., ',1934" 1r. 113. Ibid.,'1956',4, 12. Moss, Trumpets 3Sl. 114. Central Board of Health Reports: '1943',3-4,'1946',3,'1947',5,'1948',4,'1950',5, '1951', 5,'1954',5, '1955', 4-5 and '1960', 8. 115. Ibid,, '1956" 1l. 116. Ibid., '1947',8, '1950', ll and'1958', 11. Chapter Five Central Board of Health 94
Port Pirie draining into Spencer Gulf, BHP running Whyalla and getting its steel mill excluded from health regulations and protected from litigation over pollution from 1958, no pollution controls imposed on the Port Stanvac oil refinery, Apcel permitted to pollute Lake Bonney with toxic paper mill wastes from 1958, reducing the Enfield noxious trades area and declaring a manufacturing district at Elizabeth
V/est in 1960.111 Only after the Port Adelaide and'West Torrens councils began curbing industrial pollution did the Board stop viewing the vast extent of industrial air and noise pollution in South Australia as mere irritants, begin surveying air pollution from the Adelaide and Port Augusta power stations and aid the V/est
Torrens residents suing sand blasters for pollution.118
The optimism of the Board that its new industrial health officer and section could prevent industrial disease proved misplaced as the Playford Government limited it to merely curbing compensation claims against the government. The
Board hoped its industrial health officer, Dr. D.G. McQueen, could prevent industrial disease rather than react to it after new chemicals were found to cause
'unusual' illnesses, as had been the case with aeroplane dope during the Great War, luminous dial painting during the 1920s and tetra-ethyl lead petrol and organic solvents.lle However, McQueen could only respond to the calamities presented to him by other departments, local boards and industrial organizations.r20 Certainly the
Playford Government enabled McQueen to gain the knowledge to prevent industrial
117. Parliamentary Standing Committee on Public Works Reports: 'Port Pirie Uranium Treatment Plant Water Supply, 1953' ,3-4,6 and 'Port Pirie Sewerage Scheme, 1957' , 5. Select Committee Reports: 'Whyalla Town Commission Act Amendment Blll, 1949',1, 'Broken Hill Proprietary Company's Steel Works Indenture Bill, 1958' , 17-18, 'Pulp and Paper Mills Agreement Bill, 1958', 3, 6-9 and 'Oil Refinery (Hundred of Noarlunga) Indenture Bill, 1958'. Central Board of Health,'Report, 1960', 8. Department of Labour,'Report, 1960', 4. 118. Central Board of Health Reports: '1952' , 16 and '1960' ,3, 10. Donovan, Wesî Torrens 216-8, 220-2. Commonwealth Senate Select Committee, 'Air Pollution Report, 1969', v. 5,719-20, 724,74t,743-4. 119. Central Board of Health, 'Report, 1946' , 6-7 . 120. Ibid., '1959" ll-I2. Chapter Five Central Board of Health 9s
disease by sending him to investigate British and European approaches from 1947 to
February 1949, the International Labor Organization (ILO) meeting on silicosis in
1950 and meetings of the National Health and Medical Research Council (NHMRC) industrial hygiene committee in the 1950s.121 However, the application of this knowledge was limited to government employees to curb worker's compensation claims by medically examining up to 425 public servants and up to 357 radiation workers per annum from 1952, the latter employed at Radium Hill, the Port Pirie uranium processing plant and Adelaide.l22 This testing failed to prevent Radium
Hill miners from contracting lung cancer at double the rate of South Australians for every 26 months spent underground.l23
To protect the other 99,000 workers employed in South Australian factories from industrial disease,l2a Mcqueen had to rely on less effective, non-proscriptive means until 1959, Denied the ability to make industrialists medically examine workers at risk by the Playford Government, McQueen could only convince the operators of two lead-working factories to curb occupational exposure and to join the few industrialists who monitored the health of their workers, but not a car manufacturer.r2' McQueen merely succeeded in medically examining a few Port
Adelaide asbestos workers in 1950, after a case of fibrosis was discovered, and an undisclosed number of workers at risk from silicosis were referred to him by the
Mines Departmeît.126 With the Playford Government refusing to make
121. Ibid.,', 1947" 3,', 1948" 2,', 1949" 3,' 1950" 13,', 1953" 5 and' 1960" 4. 122. lbid.,'1952" 12-13,',1953" 2r,',1954" 14,',1955" 15, '1958" 13,',1959" 12 and'1960" 13. 123. B. O'Neil, '"National Heroes not National Villains": South Australia and the atomic age', in B. O'Neil, J. Raftery and K. Round, (eds.), Playford's South Australia: Essays on the History of South Australia 1933-1968 (Adelaide, 1996), Il2. 124. 'Statistical Register, 1959160' , Part V(b), 5, 125. Central Board of Health Reports: '1948',22-3,'1949',14-15,'1950', 12,'1951',12 and '1955" 15. 126. Ibid,,' 1950" 12,', 1952" 12,', 1955" 15,' 1958" 13,', 1959" 12 and,', 1960" 13. Chapter Five Central Board of Health 96
compensatable diseases notifiable, McQueen could only cite 14 deaths and 14 cases of industrial disease, the poisoning of the entire workforce of 2 factories with lead and the deafening of the workforces of a foundry and timber yard from 1948 to
1960.121 McQueen's attempts to prevent industrial disease in the private sector covered organizing a conference on DDT in 1946 and informing employers of preventative measures and hazardous chemicals directly and through the 1949 and
1960 issues of Good Health which replaced Health Notes.r28 Non-English speaking migrant workers lay beyond McQueen's publications, which were only printed in
English, unlike the Board's literature on immunization which was translated into six languages.r2e These publicity campaigns only bore fruit in 1957 when, following several deaths from cyanide poisoning, handlers requested and received advice from
McQueen on safety procedures.l30 While McQueen had convinced the Playford
Government to set occupational health precautions to be taken with organic phosphates, solvents and nuclear equipment from 1951, he was denied the staff to police the regulations until 1959.131 Only then did industrialists begin calling on the industrial health section to detect and correct hazardous conditions and only then could the section appeal directly to workers to wear protective clothing to prevent industrial disease. 132
If not for the pollution-induced disease and warnings of the dangers of industrial toxins reported by McQueen and water shortages, the Playford
Government could be excused for permitting industrial pollution and denying the
127.lbid.,'1948"21-2,'1949" 13-15, 1950" 12,',1953"21,',1955" 15,',1957" 3,'1958" 13, '1959',6 and '1960', 12-13. 128. Ibid., ',1946" 5-6,',1949" 15, '1953" 21,',1955" 15, '1958" 3 and '1960" 3. 129.lbid.,'1958" 14. 130. Ibid., 'L957"3. 131. The Playford Government also refused to set precautions for asbestos, lead and silica. Ibid., ' r946',, 7,', 1948" 2r-2,', 1949" 13-14,' 195 1 6, 12-13,' 1958" 13 and', 1959" 12. 132. Ibid., '1959', 12 and'1960', 12-13. " Chapter Five Central Board of Health 97
Board access to information on the prevalence of industrial disease. After all, the state held the world's lowest rates of infant mortality at24.5:1,000 in1947 and
19.9:1,000 in 1956,r33 and the Board acted as though industrial pollution was merely an irritant. The Board's lauding of the use of long-lasting poisons, such as DDT, in agriculture until pests developed resistance demonstrates that either the Board accepted industrial pollutants which provided a short-term economic advantage, did not realize the dangers, or recognized that the Playford Government would only act to curb pollutants which failed to produce an economic benefit. The silence of the
Board on the testing of nuclear weapons at Maralinga shows it conditioned its warnings according to the political direction of government, with the Menzies
Commonwealth Government (1949-1966), which allowed the tests, viewing the communist bloc as more of a threat than nuclear fall-out. Compelling industrialists to curtail industrial pollution fails when the enforcers ignore the ill-health of those experiencing the pollution, as the Board did at Leigh Creek, Peterborough, Port
Adelaide, Port Augusta and'West Torrens. Only the communities which could convince their councils to prevent industrial pollution gained support from the
Board. The inability of McQueen to convince industrialists to medically monitor workers in hazardous trades from 1948 until gaining the power and the staff to enforce precautionary standards in 1959, shows that publicity alone fails to curb much industrial pollution.
oo0oo
133. Ibid., '1947' ,5 ard '1956', 5 Chapter Five Central Board of Health 98
South Australian governments always conditioned attempts by the Board to control industrial pollution to improve public health according to the survival of industry.
To ensure industry was not sued to closure, in 1874 the Blyth Government formed the Central Board of Health which forced industrialists to burn noxious odours, cease polluting waterways and process food sanitarily from 1877. To protect industry from the Board, South Australian governments provided sewers and immunity from regulation and litigation in manufacturing districts from 1882 and when seeking further industrialization in 1937 and 1958. It took disruptions to production by workers striking over atrociously polluted workplaces before South
Australian governments would provide the Board with either the power or staff to prevent occupational industrial pollution in 1885, 1909, 1946 and 1959. The only other time South Australian governments let the Board control industrial polluters was during the Great War to fulfil the need for healthy soldiers.
Marginalizing the Board into curbing pollution from small-scale industry, food processing and poison usage according to the prevalence of pollution-related deaths stopped it from warning governments of the threats industrial pollution posed to South Australians from 1892. Only gaining the ability to determine immediate dangers to public health from cases of contagious diseases from 1932, when the Hill
Labor Government feared the unemployed would spread contagion, the Board was denied the ability to determine the impact of industrial pollution on workers' health deducible from cases and deaths from industrial disease. By the 1950s the Board accepted industrial pollution, ignored the ill health of those being polluted at Leigh
Creek, Peterborough, Port Adelaide, Port Augusta and West Torrens and advocated the use of highly toxic insecticides according to the dictates of economic gains, not public health. All of the Board's attempts to prevent industrial pollution by non- proscriptive, publicity campaigns produced little effect. At best, such publicity Chapter Five Central Board of Health 99
convinced other regulators to act against the contamination of dairy food production in 1939. It took the death of cyanide handlers in 1957 and McQueen gaining the staff to enforce precautionary occupational health standards in 1959 before industrialists employing workers in hazardous trades would heed his eleven years of public relations.
The cost of these policies on the health of South Australians from 1874 to
1960 cannot be determined, as governments refused to record the incidence and deaths from known industrial disease. However, the instances of industrial pollution provided throughout this chapter show that it could be as lethal as war in killing
South Australian townsfolk and workers, poisoning the entire workforce of factories, contaminating the food-chain and remaining in the environment for the lifetime of plutonium. Chapter Six
Department of Mines
1886-1960
South Australian governments only acted to control mining pollution to assure the development of the mining sector, regardless of the processing of toxic metals.
Governments employed a mining inspector from 1886 and formed a Department of
Mines in 1896 to prevent mining pollution in order to make gold-mining on private land more attractive to landowners. Governments began controlling occupational pollution from quarries from 1918 to curb strikes by anarcho-syndicalist and bolshevik inspired mining unions and at large-scale mining works from 1925 to curb worker's compensation bills for employers. Such controls were dropped by South
Australian governments in favour of non-proscriptive technical solutions to stimulate a depressed sector until 1916 and from 1934, to win rWorld War Two, promote economic growth from 1945 and keep the Soviets in check from 1951. Chapter Six Department of Mines r01
Unenforced Regulation: 1845-1886
Prior to 1886, South Australian governments, while passing regulations to control mining pollution to protect water supplies and mining claims, left pollution prevention to those affected by it. Rather than be concerned over the processing of lead from 1861, governments would only employ a mining inspector to aid the capitalization of South Australian mining, would only act against miners who defaulted on rents and fees, and would only protect crown lands from mining to prepare land for sale.
Mining played a vital role in the South Australian economy, bringing the province out of recession in 1845, providing much trade, employment and government revenue. For example, newspapers such as the South Australian and
Adelaide Observer lauded mining, after the Kapunda copper mine raised f3,000 of ore in one week in mid-1845 amidst a destitute colony, and asserted that hazards such as pollution were best dealt with by the miners.l The subsequent boom in mining in South Australia was temporarily checked by the gold-rushes in Victoria and New South Wales in 1855, when only one-third of the twenty-one mineral leases were worked.2 The discovery of a goldfield at Echunga in 1852 provided the government with f2,8I4 from 5,628 gold-mining licences by 1854.3 By 1861 mining provided f3,351,800 in exports, employment in 44 copper mines, 4 silver and lead mines, 92 quarries and 12 smelters, which refined most South Australian ores and paid at least f5,000 to the government in rent on mineral leases per annum.4 While the drought of the mid-1860s reduced the sector to 35 working
l.SouthAustalian 17June 1845,2 and20June 1845,3. AdelaideObserver 5July 1845,5. 2. 'Leasing Mineral lands, 1853', 2. 'Statistical Register, 1854', 15. 3. W.L. O'Halloran, 'Echunga Goldfield, 1853', Paper No. 34. 'Statistical Register, 1854', 17. 4. 'Statistical Register, 1861', xii, xv, 69. Select Committee, 'Mineral Regulations, 1866-'7',22 Chapter Six Department of Mines r02
mines, 16 gold-miners in 1865 and one-fifth the ores raised in 1861, it still provided
3,5I9 jobs in 1866.5 By 1876, copper mining and smelting at Kadina, Moonta and
Wallaroo directly supported ten per cent of the population of the colony and provided much of its wealth.6 By 1880, 37 mines, 4 goldfields and 148 mineral leases were being worked providing the government with f925 in rent per annum plus royalties and I27 gold licence fees.7 The sector provided work in times of high unemployment at such ventures as the cement works at Gawler from 1882 and mining at the Barrier Ranges and Broken Hill from 1883.8
Aside from banning destructive industries from the Adelaide park lands from
1838,e the governors and Legislative Council only promulgated laws to set the fees miners paid to the government, disregarding public agitation and leaving miners to fend for themselves. Hindmarsh residents sought to reduce the danger mining posed to the public in July 1847 following the demise of Daniel Schnaers from falling down a well.l0 Governor Young ignored the advice of the coroner by not requiring all wells and brickwork claypits to be fenced.lr Any outrage from workers at
Hindmarsh was diverted into the fight for democratic government as the Legislative
Council redrafted the Masters and Servants Act to oppress workers.l2 Some owners sought to alleviate the occupational hazards of mining, such as the owners of the
Kapunda mine who provided miners with a medical officer and the South Australian
5. 'Statistical Register, 1865',57. 'Census, 1866', 3, 6. Sanitation Commission, 'Report, 1876', vii-viii. 7. The four goldfields were located at Jupiter Creek, Echunga, Hahndorf and Parra Wirra and six gold-mines were worked at Woodside, Hahndorf, Humbug Scrub, Barossa, Vy'anbaringa and Ontalpa. 'Statistical Register, 1880', Part III, 59. 8. J. Moss, Sounds of Trumpets: History of the Labour Movement in South Australia (Adelaide, 1985), 131. D.A. Cumming and G. Moxham, They Built South Ausftalia: Engineers, Technicians, Manuføcturers, Contractors and Their Work (Adelaide, 1986), 217 . 9. R. Parsons, Hindmarsh Town: A History of the Village, Disftict Council and Corporate Town of Hindmnrsh South Australia (Adelaide, 1974), 4. 10. rbid., 33. 11. Ibid., 33-4. 'Leasing Mineral lands, 1853', 1-2. 12. Moss, Trumpets 65-9. Chapter Six Department of Mines 103
Mining Association which deducted 1s. 6d. from the pay of Burra miners for sickness and unemployment relief.13 Miners also formed friendly societies to insure themselves against the occupational hazards of mining, as did the 343 Burra miners 14 in 1848 . The Legislative Council first passed mining regulations in 1853 to fix the fees for gold licences and mineral leases.ls So keen was the Legislative Council to establish gold-mining in South Australia that it offered a reward of fl,000 to anyone discovering a goldfield.l6 However, by leasing crown lands to miners, rather than selling them as Victorian and Western Australian governments did, future South
Australian governments could act to protect resources if contemporary governments would not.17
Parliament, while seeking to encourage mining, did act to protect the resources of crown lands, such as pastoral water supplies during drought, according to what the community would bear. Parliamentary government encouraged mining immediately by funding town surveys for mining communities and gold prospecting expeditions.18 Parliamentarians used proprietorial rights over mineral leases to oblige miners to provide pastoralists access to any naturally occurring spring for the duration of droughts from 1859.re To aid the saleability of crown lands, the Hanson
Government (1857-1860) employed eight rangers in 1859 to prevent timber cutters
13. R. Charlton, The History of Kapunda (Melbourne, l97l),9, 15. Moss, Trumpets 23-4. 14. lbid., 25. 15. 'Leasing Mineral Lands, 1853', 1. 16. Petition: 55 miners, 'Echunga Goldfield, 1853', Paper No. 26. 17. Select Committee, 'Report on Mineral Regulations, 1866-7' ,25-6. M. Williams, The Making of the South Australian Landscape: A Study in the Historical Geography of Ausftalia ([nndon, 1974),131-2. 18. J.F. Crawford, 'Search for Gold at Barrier Ranges, 1858', 1-2. A.R.C. Salwyn, 'Geology of South Australia, 1859', Colonel Freeling, 'Mineral Lease Claims near Wallaroo, 1860', 1-2. 19. Regulations: 'Granting Mineral Leases, 1859','Gold-Mining, 1861','Mineral Lease, 1861', 1- 2, 'Gold-Mining, 1866-7', 3, 'Mineral Lease, 1866-7', Paper No. 15, 2 and'Crown Lands, 1877',7-8. Commission, 'State of Northern Runs, 1865-6', 3-4. Mining Commission, 'Report, 1890', 149-50. Moss, TrumpetsT9. Chapter Six Department of Mines t04
stripping these lands of trees.2O The Reynolds Government (1860-1861) waived its attempt to prevent wide-scale tree felling by reducing the number of licensed timber cutters in 1860 in the face of opposition from hundreds of cutters, drivers and farmers who supplied timber to the mines and agreed with mine owners that mineral lands would return to normal if mining ceased for six months.2l Parliamentarians were yet to consider making mineral lessees compensate the government for destroying crown lands, even when informed that copper miners were polluting crown lands on the Yorke Peninsula with underground water.22 Faced with outrage from the Commissioner of Crown Lands over the deaths of a father and daughter from falling down a shaft in 1862, mine owners agreed to the proposal of the
Waterhouse Government (1861-1863) to employ a mining inspector to check the operational safety of mines rather than be required to fence all adits in a sparsely populated country.23
V/ith the Commissioner alone in demanding government control over mining pollution, the Boucaut Government (1866-1867) would only evict lease defaulters and employ a mining inspector to stimulate mining. Copper miners had struck to end the beating of child miners in 1864 and pay cuts and increased workloads in
1865, not against mining pollution.2a Only two communities had acted against any damage created by mining, with the Payneham council applying for government funds to maintain a river crossing destroyed by traffic to the Adelaide Mine and quarries and the Strathalbyn council protecting boulders in the picturesque Angas
20. Williams, Landscape l3l-2. 21.591South Australians, 'Petition Against Timber Licence Regulations, 1860', Select Committee Reports: 'Mineral Development, 18ó0', 14 and'Present Mineral Laws, 1862', 40-1, 56. Charlton, Kapunda lI7. R. Wiltshire, Copper to GoId: A History of Wallaroo 1860-1923 (Wallaroo, undated), 51. 22. Select Committee, 'Report on Drainage from Wallaroo Mines, 1863', iii-vii, 37. 23, Select Committee, 'Report on Present Mineral Laws, 1862', iv,2, 4, 10. 24. Moss, Trumpets 85, 87-9. Vy'iltshire, Copper to Gold 55-6. Chapter Six Department of Mines 105
River from 1867.2s Thus, when the Boucaut Government made the Surveyor-
General, G.W. Goyder, a mining inspector in 1867, it did so to help mining companies raise capital in London to assure overseas investors that leases were being worked.26 Goyder, without the power of Chilean mining inspectors to close a mine posing even an imminent danger or prevent miners from damaging crown lands, was only called on to evaluate the worth of mines and advised gold-miners to pollute
'waterways rather than wash ores on the fields in 1867 .21 Successive South Australian governments were keen to stimulate mining by gold prospecting expeditions, rewards for finds and reducing mining fees for 'practical diggers to test our wealth'.28 The government only acted against mineral lessees who failed to pay fees.2e Despite South Australian gold-mining producing huge amounts of waste, successive governments followed the Victorian practices of letting gold-mining communities determine the level of pollution controls to protect water supplies from ore washing and sludge and the need to fence shafts by electing mining boards from
1969.30
As the environmental impact of mining became more apparent, governments reacted non-proscriptively by replacing trees, improving the marketability of crown
25. l2l signatories, 'Petition from District Council of Payneham, 1865-6'. District Council Minute Book cited N. Gemmell, Old Strathalbyn and its People i/839 - 1939 (Adelaide, 1995), 49. 26, Select Committee Reports: 'Present Mineral Laws, 1862', 25 and'Mineral Regulations, 1866- 7"23. 27. Select Committee, 'Report on Mineral Regulations, 1866-7',5. 'Mineral Lease Regulations, 1866-7', Paper No. 91, 2. G.W. Goyder, 'Report on Echunga Goldfield, 1867' and 'Reports on Northern Mineral Lands, 1876',1. 28. E.H. Hargraves, 'Report, 1864', 1,20. 'Dispatches from the Northem Territory, 1865-6', 12, 14. Select Committee, 'Report on Mineral Regulations, 1866-7' , üi,22. 29. The number of mines not being worked roughly equalled the number of petitioners who complained that their leases were terminated by the Hart Government. 'Mineral Lease Regulations, 1866-7', Paper No. 75,1-2. 89 Lessees, 'Petition from Mineral Lessees, 1868-9'. Statistical Registers: '1869', 59 and '1872',54. 30. Gold represented only 0.16 per cent of the4,020 tons of ore raised at four Woodside mines by 1883. Select Committee, 'Report on Mineral Regulations, 1866-7', 1,23,28. Regulations: 'Gold-Mining, 1866-7',3, 'Gold Licence, 1867', 3-4,'Gold-Mining, 1868', 2, 'Gold-Mining, 1869',2-3 and'Gold-Mining, 1870',2. H.Y.L. Brown,'WoodsideGold-Mines, 1883-4',1-2. Chapter Six Department of Mines 106
lands and the productiveness of miners. While the Kapunda council planted trees to eradicate the dust bowls created from the use of local wood in smelters and the public decried the obliteration of native forests, successive South Australian governments planted forest reserves for the use of local industry in the 1870s.31 The
Hart Government (1870-1871) banned the removal of timber and stone from crown lands in order to sell a swathe of these lands and prevented pollution from impeding goldfield production by requiring businesses on the fields to operate sanitarily and for miners to keep tailings and sludge from other claims and respect prior water rights.32 While miners formed unions fuom 1872 and unionists a Labour League to improve occupational environments from 1873, South Australian governments showed no interest in applying the Hart Government's regulations, leaving Ulooloo and Barossa gold-miners to continue washing ores in creeks from 1872 and deserted mines unrehabilitated.33 The mining company doubled the height of the chimney stack at the Wallaroo smelters to halve fuel consumption in 1876, not because it had polluted surrounding lands with so much sulphuric acid that the Boucaut
Government (1875-1876) could not locate a reservoir there.3a This government removed pastoral and public rights to water on mineral leases from 1878 and set aside 21,034 acres for gold prospecting when copper mining began to fail at
31, Charlton, Kapunda36, 160. 83 South Australians, 'Petition for Forest Reserve, 1871'. Goyder and R. Schomburgk, 'Suggested Forest Reserves, 1870-1', 1, Schomburgk, 'Rural Industries and Preservation of Forests, 1873' , 2. 'Notices Under Northern Townships Act, 1872' . Goyder, 'Report on Forest Reserves, 1873', 1-3 and 'Planting Trees on Reserves, 1875', 'Dispatches on Colonial Timber, 1875', 1. Forest Board, 'Report, 1878-79', 3, 8, 32. Moss, Trumpets 90. 'Timber Regulations, l87l',1-2. Gold-Mining Regulations: '1871', Paper No. 17, 4-6 md Paper No, 21, 3. 33. G.H.F. Ulrich, 'Mineral Resources North of Port Augusta,1872',3,7,10, I3-4, 17,19,22. Goyder, 'Reports on Northern Mineral Lands, 1876',1. Brown, 'Report on the Ulooloo Goldfield, 1886' , I-2. Moss, Trumpets 97 , 104-5, 111. 34. Sanitation Commission, 'Report, 18'76' ,78,80. Wiltshire, Copper to Gold 5'7 . Chapter Six Department of Mines 107
Kapunda, Moonta and Burra.35 To improve the lot of European miners, the Bray
Government (1881-1884) banned Chinese immigrants, chided for polluting the
British race, and employed H.Y.L. Brown as government geologist to make new finds and check the working of leases in the Barrier Ranges.36 The Colton
Government (1884-1885), while introducing regulations to protect commuters and roads from mining subsidence, initiated no pollution controls on learning that an ore lode at Mount Lyndhurst contained arsenic.3T
The non-proscriptive policies of South Australian governments prior to 1886 permitted the mining sector to kill South Australians and destroy the environment.
Rather than employ regulators to enforce mining regulations which protected water supplies and occupational safety, governments adopted self-regulation, leaving the level of pollution to be prevented to be set by miners, mine owners and managers.
Only one company introduced safety rules, and then merely for the use of explosives and boilers at the Moonta Mine in 1876.38 The results were the destruction of forests, pollution of mining towns with sulphur dioxide and dust, an undetermined level of water pollution and, from 1869 to 1884, 14 South Australians dying from falls down mine shafts or quarries, 15 from falls of earth or stone and 5 from explosions.3e
35. 1,135 acres were set aside for gold prospecting at Mount Crawford, 5,090 around Parra \ilirra, 1,385 around Talunga, 299 at Barossa West,242 at Tea Tree Gully, 372 at Orkapatínga, 675 at East Torrens , 459 at Onkaparinga to Crafers, 1,311 at Clarendon, 8,288 at Echunga, and 1,778 at Kondoparinga. 'Crown Lands Regulations, 1877',7-8. 'Land Reserved for Search for Gold, 1878' , l-2. Charlton, Kapunda 40. 36. E.T. Smith, 'Petition Against Chinese Immigration, 1880'. Brown, 'Report, 1884', 13 and 'Report, 1885', 3-4. F.J. Sanderson, 'Number of Chinamen Landed, 1884'. 37. Brown, 'Report, 1884', 12. 'Regulations Under Crown Lands Acts, 1884', 8. 38. Mining Commission, 'Report, 1890',197-9. 39. Statistical Registers: '1871', 51, '1872' , 5I, '1873' , 52, '18'74' , 52,'1875' ,54, '1880', Part V, 20, '1881', Part V, 21,'1882', Part V, 2I,'1883', Part V, 2l ,'1884', Part V, 2I and '1885', Part V, 21. Chapter Six Department of Mines 108
Employing Regulators: 1886-1916
Governments drafted regulations, employed personnel and created a Department of
Mines to control environmental and occupational mining pollution in order to remove the reluctance of landholders to permit mining on their lands and to assure continued production by miners and ore processors from 1886 to 1896. However, subsequent Liberal and Labor governments softened these controls to bring the sector out of recession despite the use or mining of toxic ores such as cyanide from
1898 and arsenic and radium ftom 1912.
Governments employed wardens and a mining inspector to reduce pollution from small-scale gold-mining to prevent typhoid and encourage gold-mining on private property from 1886. The mining sector began recovering from its collapse in the early 1880s with a goldfield supporting 5,000 prospectors at Teetulpa in 1886 and silver finds at Broken Hill leading the government to build a railway in 1888 and BHP to build the Port Pirie lead smelters in 1889.40 The Downer Government
(1885-1887) reacted to the typhoid epidemic on the Teetulpa goldfield by charging its three goldfield wardens (police officers employed to evict unlicensed gold-miners and settle disputed claims from 1869) to protect miners and the public from water pollution from ore washing sludge from 1886 and nuisances from 1887.41 The
Playford Government (1887-1889) sought to accommodate petitions from miners for
40. In 1880, the four goldfields were located at Jupiter Creek, Echunga, Hahndorf and Parra Wirra, and the six quartz reefs at Vy'oodside, Hahndorf, Humbug Scrub, Barossa, Wanbaringa and Ontalpa. The mines registered in 1890 included 21 of copper , 26 of gold, 17 of silver, 2 of cobalt and 3 of bismuth and973 gold licences. Statistical Registers: '1880', Part III, 59 and'1890', PanIII,67,69. J.F. Drexel, MininginSouthAustalia: APictorialHistory (Adelaide, 1982), 120. Moss, Trumpets I3l . 41. Central Board of Health, 'Report, 1886/87', 12, Gold-Mining Regulations, '1869', 1, '1886',3, 5 and'1887', 3. 'Blue Book, 1887',52. 'Boundaries of Goldfields, 1869-70', 1-2. Mining Commission, 'Report, 1890',26,29. H.J. Lewis, Enfield and the Northern Villages (Adelaide, 1985),267. Chapter Six Department of Mines 109
access to more lands by requiring wardens to control unsafe mines, the dumping of tailings, the inundation of claims and to report the causes of mining accidents to the
Minister for Goldfields from 1888, thereby making mining more attractive to landowners.a2 To further ease any apprehension that landowners might hold about mining on their property, the Playford Government employed the first full-time
South Australian mining inspector, D.D. Rosewarne, to regulate and report on mining on private property in 1889.43 While the Playford and Cockburn governments forced individual gold-miners either to work to the regulations or forfeit their mining licences, these governments gave thirty-two mining companies f.l5,4ll to apply the regulations on mineral leases and private property by 1890.44
No onus to control pollution was placed on the more substantial mining companies, holding 407 mineral leases on 35,033 acres, 43 mines and 4 silver smelters, which provided f.I67,334 to government coffers by 1889 compared to the f 18,703 from gold-mining and f690 from publican's licences on goldfields.a5 Meanwhile, two
South Australians died from falling down mine shafts or quarries.a6
Regulators made the Cockburn Government (1889-1890) investigation into the means of promoting mining in South Australia examine the need to prevent occupational and environmental pollution. V/ith only one goldfield declared on private property, the government set up a Mining Commission on 11 September
1889 to determine if a Department of Mines would have better success.aT While agreeing that a department might, Rosewarne, Brown and the wardens stressed the
42.72 miners,'PetitionRe Mineral Lands, 1890'. Mining Commission,'Report, 1890', iii.'Gold- Mining Regulations, 1888', 2, 5. 43. 'Blue Book, 1889', 53. Mining Commission, 'Report, 1890', L9,25. 44. 'Gold-Mining Regulations, 1886', 5. Mining Commission, 'Report, 1890', 189. 45. These mines included 21 copper mines, 17 silver mines, 2 cobalt mines and 3 bismuth mines in 1890. 'Statistical Register, 1890', Part III, 67,69. Mining Commission, 'Report, 1890', 191. 46. Statistical Registers: '1886', PartV,2l and '1888', PartY,2l. 47. Mining Commission, 'Report, 1890', iii, ix-xviii, 7,35,41. G.S. Wright, 'Declared a Goldfield under "Mining on Private Property Act", 1890'. Chapter Six Department of Mines 110
need to protect the environment from the silting of rivers and depletion of resources and safeguard the health of miners from lead poisoning in inadequately ventilated silver mines, unsafe mining equipment and techniques.as They wanted the same powers as Victorian mining inspectors who, by being able to change unsafe practices, reduced deaths from mining by 26 pet cent and mining accidents by 43 per cent from 1874 to 1888.4e Representatives of mining communities called for the government to employ mining inspectors to provide independent evidence of the causes of mining accidents and prevent unspecified dangerous conditions, of which the Commissioners preferred to remain ignorant.50 Aside from M.C. Donnelly, other mine managers and owners agreed that mining inspectors should be able to fine operators or stop mining, as in New South Wales, after an accident of which owners had been forewarned.5l
The Commission found shortcomings in occupational safety could be overcome by regulating mine owners through a Department of Mines and offsetting the costs to owners by government research and public works. The Bill, drafted by mining inspector D.D. Rosewarne, gave the new department control over the mining of all minerals, not merely gold.52 It sought to curb the dangers of mining by requiring all shafts to be fenced and ventilated, confining underground shifts to eight hours per day and only permitting the use of inspector-certified machinery.s3 The
Bill encouraged the application of these measures by making mine owners prove their innocence in the event of mining accidents, compensate injured miners up to f250 and pay fines of f50 for transgressing safety standards.54 The Commission
48. Mining Commission, 'Report, 1890" 7, 10, 12, 15,33, 48,51, 54, 153 49. Ibid., L9, tt2. 50. Ibid., t43, t46-8,168. 5 I . Ibid. , 7l , 84, 86, 137 , 196-7 . 52, Ibid., vi-vii. 53. Ibid., 201-3. 54. Ibid.,200,204-5. Chapter Six Depanment of Mines 111
urged owners to employ only professionally qualified mine managers to obviate the contemporary disregard of regulations and the need for an army of inspectors.5s It contended that the cost of improving pollution and safety standards could be offset by government-subsidized research to enable miners to win 60 per cent of the ores raised rather than the current 45 per cent, instead of direct subsidies or declaring more goldfields as sought by owners.56 It also advocated that the government run a gold refinery, as in Germany, but would not recommend whether to extract gold by chlorination, which polluted the refinery with chlorine gas and dust, or calcination, which recovered more gold, all silver and recycled mercury.sT
The reformist Kingston Liberal-Labor Government (1893-1899) promulgated most of the pollution-controlling regulations proposed by the Commission to prevent mining pollution under the aegis of the Department of Mines. In the wake of the
Commission, the Playford Liberal Government (1890-1892) merely transferred five chemists and analysts from the Crown Lands Office to the School of Mines to develop improved extraction methods on 1 October 1891 and provided f22,724 in grants to forty-two mining companies.ss Though failing to limit underground shifts, provide worker's compensation or empower inspectors to halt unsafe mines, the Kingston Liberal-Labor ministry brought mineral leases, coal, gypsum, mineral springs and salt mining under regulation, assumed owners were negligent in accidents, required owners to ventilate mines, spray water to curb dust, fence shafts and not pollute water supplies, subject to fines of f 10, and gave local communities a voice in determining the location of tailings dumps in 1894.5e The Kingston
55. Ibid., vi,l-2. 56. Ibid., v, 19, 67, 70, 8O-1, 177-2. 57. Ibid., v\-vi\,194, 196-7. 58. Those transferred were G.A. Goyder, R.W. Roberts, W,S. Chapman, A.E. Fowler and G.C. Klug. Blue Books: '1889', 53 and '1891', 58. 'Subsidies to Mining Companies, 1892'. 59. 'Mining Regulations, 1894' , 6,8, I0, 12, l5-I7. Chapter Six Department of Mines lt2
Government also enforced perpetual ventilation and fire-safety procedures during the brief working of the forty-two square mile coal field at Leigh Creek to prevent its ignition and granted leases on five acres to smelters to contain lead pollution at Port
Pirie, Port Adelaide and Dry Creek in 1894.60 To enforce these regulations, the
Kingston ministry finally established the Department of Mines in 1896, employing two mining inspectors, D.D. Rosewarne to control mining in general and L.C.E.
Gee to control mining on private property.6l The Department enforced the regulations, prosecuting offending miners on sixty-one occasions between 1896 and
1903.62
However, once recessions affected the mining sector, these prosecutions stopped, with successive Liberal and Labor governments overwhelmingly gearing the Department towards stimulating mining, not controlling pollution. The mining sector contracted from 1897 to I9I4, with the number of working mines falling by
24 per cent to 143, mineral leases by 76 per cent to 52, gold licences by 13 per cent to 1,190 and employment fluctuating between 7,780 and 5,755.63 To prevent the collapse of South Australian gold-mining, these governments heeded the advice of gold-mining communities to refine gold from arsenic pyrites at state-run refineries using cyanide at Port Augusta by 1898, Tarcoola by 1901, Petersburg by 1902 and
Mount Torrens and Glenloth by 1905, and took over the Yelta arsenic mine and smelter in l9l2.6a Up to 1916, the public was offered meagre protection from such
60. Factories Commission, 'Report 1892',306. 'Mining Regulations, 1894', 15, 17-19. R.W' Chapman, 'Utilization Summary Report On, 1918', 1. Drexel, Mining in South Australia 206. 61, 'Blue Book, 1896', 56. 62. It made 6 prosecutions in 1896, 28 in 1898, 1 in 1900, 23 in 1902 and 3 in 1903. Statistical Registers: '1896', PartV, 17,'1898', PartV, 16-l'7,'1900', PartV,16-17,'1902', PartV, 16 and '1903', Part V, 16. 63. Ibid., '1897', Part III, 79-80,'1913', Part III, 160,162 and'1915/16',PartIII, t74. 64. J.V. Parkes stood in for Rosewarne who attended the 1891 London Mining Exhibition. 'Blue Book, 1891', 58. J.V. Parkes, 'Report on Mount Pleasant Goldfield, L893',1-2 and'Report Re Cyanide Plant, 1893', L,7-8. 'Government Battery at Petersburg, 1902'. Statistical Registers: '1898', Part III, 78 and'1905', Part III, 97. L.K. Ward, 'Summary of the Yelta Mine, I9l3',2. Chapter Six Department of Mines 113
poisonous processes: smelters had to be surrounded by ten acres of land from 1901, and councils were granted the right to stop mining under roads and reserves, while the Department only gained additional staff to run refineries and find more ores.6s
From 1897 to I9I4, governments never sought assurances from the Department over the safety of poisons used at government and private refineries and smelters, or the precautions employed in mining for radium (at Radium Hill) from l9l2 and arsenic from 1913.66 Indeed, the Central Board of Health was sent to Port Pirie to end the smelter strike from 'the furnaces of hell' in 1909 by preventing occupational lead poisoning and the inspector of boilers reported on a lethal explosion at the Wallaroo
Mines in 1916.67 BHAS finally curtailed its occupational pollution to reduce its liability to worker's compensation claims fuom 1912, not as a result of any regulation from the Department.6s Governments only sought reports from the
Department on the income from mining, the f.4,577 paid in subsidies to nineteen mining companies from 1902 to 1907, mineral lessees ceasing mining to build two copper smelters in 1911 and the Adelaide Cement Company works in 1913, and the royalties paid by BHP for mining iron ore at Iron Knob and smelting at Port Pirie.6e
South Australian governments never intended for mining inspectors and the
Department of Mines to do more than stimulate mining. Governments initiated the control of mining pollution from small-scale gold-miners from 1886 to prevent
65. Mining Regulations: '1894',15 and '1901', 2. Blue Books: '1901', 68 and'1915', 98. 66. Parkes, 'Report on Mount Pleasant Goldfield, 1893', l-2 and 'Report Re Cyanide Plant, 1893', l-8. 'Government Battery at Petersburg, 1902' . Ward, 'Summary of the Yelta Mine, 1913', 1-3. Director of Mines Reports: '1917' , 8 and '1920', 8. Statistical Registers: '1896', Pafi.lll,77,
'1912' , Part III, 155 and '1913' , Part III, 162. Royal Commission, 'Report on Plumbism, 1925' , vi-viii. 67. W. Ramsay Smith, Report inÍo Causes and Occurrence of Lead Poisoning at Port Pirie (1910) cited Royal Commission, 'Report on Plumbism, 1925', vi-viii, 35-6. Moss, Trumpets 219. F.D. Taylor, 'Boiler Accident at Wallaroo Mines, 1916', l. 68. Royal Commission, 'Report on Plumbism,1925', vi-vii, 35-6. 69. 'Subsidies to Mining Companies, 1907'. 'Special Suspensions of Working Conditions, l91l'. 'Special Remissions from \Vorking, 7914'. 'Agreement with Broken Hill Proprietary, re Iron Knob Ore, l9l5', l-2. Chapter Six Department of Mines tr4 typhoid halting production. To open private land to mining, the Kingston
Government drafted regulations for all forms of mining other than quarrying in
1894. Governments employed wardens and inspectors from 1886 to curb mining pollution by applying penalties and incentives according to the scale of operation.
Small-scale individual miners were threatened with expulsion from goldfields for non-compliance, whereas mining companies were offered grants from 1886, the training of staff and research on extraction and processing methods from 1891. Mining inspectors could control occupational pollution by investigating accidents from 1888 and certifying machinery from 1894, on the one hand, and environmental pollution by preventing water pollution from 1886 and granting smelters five to ten acres of land from 1894, on the other. The effect of these regulations cannot be determined as the Department of Mines failed to report mining accidents to parliament and coronial inquests into mining accidents ceased with the creation of the Department in 1896. Aside from the fines levied by the inspectors up to 1903, the Parliamentary Papers only detail activities the Department took to promote the mining sector, not to regulate it, and that BHAS reduced occupational pollution to prevent claims for worker's compensation in 1912, not as a result of pressure from mining inspectors. Meanwhile, in the as yet unregulated quarrying, seventeen South
Australians died in explosions from 1886 to 1916.70
70. Statistical Registers: '1886" Part V, 21,',1887" Part V, 21, '1888" Part V, 21,',1889" Part V, 2I,'IgOl', PartV,25,'1904', PartV,25,'1905', PartV,25,'1906', PartV,25,'1907',Part V, 27,' I9l5 I 16', Part V, 25 and' 1916', Part II, 21. Chapter Six Department of Mines 115
Reforms z 1916-1934
While the control of environmental mining pollution languished, both Labor and
Liberal governments revamped the regulation of occupational mining pollution to undermine revolutionary unionism in the mining sector from 1916. Their desire to reduce the cost of worker's compensation claims to large-scale mining works from
1925 ensured that regulatory efforts to control occupational pollution continued through the Great Depression.
As the mining sector recovered from 1914, the Vaughan Labor Government sought to curb revolutionary unionism by publicizing the work of the mining inspectors in controlling occupational pollution. The mining sector began reviving from its slump at the onset of the Great War and when BHP began to mine and smelt iron ore in 1916, with the sector having raised a total of f.42,723,211 worth of ores by 1924.7r With miners of the Industrial Workers of the V/orld on strike at
Broken Hill in 1916 and Port Pirie smelter workers threatening to strike in 1917, under the Vaughan Government (1915-1,917) the Department of Mines lodged annual reports to demonstrate the occupational pollution controls instituted by L.J.
Winton, the new chief mining inspector, and H. Jones, who succeeded Gee as mining inspector in 1907.12 These inspectors managed but an average of 28 checks of mines and smelters per annum including investigations into 4 deaths of miners and 4 mining accidents and the rehabilitation of the Leigh Creek coal field in 1917, after 12,000 tons of coal were raised for smelting as a wartime necessity.T3 No
71. Ibid.,'1919120', Part V, 101. Director of Mines,'Report, 1924', 7. 72. V. Burgmann, Revolutionary Industial Unionism: The Industial Workers of the World in AusÍralia (Melboume, 1995),167-8. Moss, Trumpets246-8. Director of Mines, 'Report, 1916', Blue Books: '1907' ,54 and '1916', 100. 73. Director of Mines Reports: '1916', 6-7 and'1917', 6-7. 'Treasurers Report on Leigh Creek Coal Field, 1944' ,2. Chapter Six Department of Mines 116
mention was made by the inspectors of any precautions being taken in the use of
Leigh Creek coal which, since 1894, was known to produce more than twice the ash of the Newcastle coal usually used in smelting.Ta The Department began advising quarry operators on how to reduce dust when investigating an accident at the
Stoneyfell quarry in l9I7.7s
The Peake Liberal Government (1917 -1920) also introduced regulations to control occupational mining and quarrying pollution to curb industrial unrest by revolutionary unionists in the sector, without improving the ability of the
Department to implement these controls. The Peake Government initially ignored the call of the Treaty of Versailles to curb industrial unrest by improving occupational health.76 However, in 1919 and 1920, the Peake ministry introduced the self-proclaimed world's best regulations of occupational pollution, not only for mining, but quarrying as well.77 What had changed? In 1919 and 1920, miners in the anarcho-syndicalist and bolshevik-inspired Workers Industrial Union of
Australia, went on strike at Broken Hill, Kadina and two South Australian quarries over dust and lung diseases, with Broken Hill miners only returning to work when
BHP agreed to pay compensation as did Kadina miners when a shaft was closed.78
Liberal governments encouraged the mining inspectors to curb dust pollution at quarries to prevent industrial unrest by responding to any complaints and keeping the source of the complaint confidential.Te V/ith the Liberal governments only providing more staff to find bore water, mining inspectors had to reduce regular inspections of
74. Chapman: 'Utilization Summary Report On, 1918', 1, 3 and'IIse at British Broken Hill Mine, 1918" 75. Director of Mines, 'Report, I9L7' ,7 . 76. 'Treaty of Peace, Versailles, 1919', in APP 1917-18-19 v. 4, 1018-19. 77 . Director of Mines Reports: '1919' , 1 and '1920', 1. 78. B. Kennedy, Silver, Sin and Sixpenny Ale: A Social History of Broken Hill 1883-1921 (Melbourne, 1978), 158-9, 162-3, 165, 169, 173. K. Bailey, Men of Íhe Mines (Kadina and Moonta, 1988), 30. Moss, Trumpets 258-62. 79. Directorof MinesReports: '1918',6-7,'1919',1,6,'1920',5-6,'1922',5-6and'1924',3. Chapter Six Department of Mines tt7
mines and smelters to 16 per annum to focus their efforts on investigating the deaths of 6 miners and 5 accidents, curbing the dust produced at quarries using old crushing and milling plants, complaints of occupational pollution and raising water from 2 arsenic mines from 1918 to 1924.80 Chief Inspector Winton justified concentrating inspections in this manner by claiming that mining and smelting occupational standards were'fair'.81 Port Pirie unions smashed this complacency before the Gunn Labor Government's Royal Commission which found that BHAS knowingly polluted smelter workers. The Port Pirie unions gained this Royal Commission to determine why more than half of the 429 cases reported since 1917 occurred in 1924, costing
BHAS f2,352 in compensation in 1924125 alone.82 For the first time mine workers gained a representative on the investigative panel, with W. Robinette, Secretary of the Combined Unions' Council of Port Pirie, along with the more traditional background of Commissioners H.W. Gepp, representing BHAS, J.L. Pearson, who succeeded Jones as inspector of mines in 1924, and K.R. Moore from the
Commonwealth Department of Health.83 The BHAS management blamed southern
European workers, comprising half the workers on compensation, as being too susceptible to lead poisoning, claiming the smelters to be the most advanced in the world and to have inhibited pollution by employing an industrial hygiene officer from 1907, capturing arsenic and sulphur dioxide and doing all that mining inspectors requested.sa However, BHAS management, rather than reduce fumes, carbon monoxide and lead dust, as advised by its compensation claims examiner,
g0. Ibid., '1918" 6-8, '1919" 6,',1920" 5-6,',1927" 4,',1922" 5,',1923" 5 and',1924" 5-6 'Public Service List, 1919', 56. 81. Director of Mines, 'Report, 1924' , 5, 82. Royal Commission, 'Report on Plumbism, 1925' , ä-ä1, vä,22. 83. Ibid., iii-iv. Director of Mines, 'Report, 1924' , 3. 84.RoyalCommission,'ReportonPlumbism,1925',vä, l-2,4,6-'l ,13,23-5,31-2,41 ,53,57' Chapter Six Department of Mines 118
Dr. O.M. Moulden, who found all refinery workers were poisoned to some degree, paid ls. per day in dirt money to workers from 1919 and discouraged workers from washing off lead dust to keep them in constant attendance on the blast furnaces.85
The company was shown to prevent only pollution which increased productivity and to know how to prevent occupational lead poisoning from the operations of its white lead plant and, for the duration of the Royal Commission, by providing workers with respirators.s6 Doctors employed by BHAS, the unions and the Royal
Commission confirmed that the BHAS smelters exposed its workforce to 100 times the safe level of lead dust and carbon monoxide and that the level of debilitation suffered by workers was determined by their length of service at BHAS.87
While the Commission advocated that the government oblige BHAS to conform to safe exposure standards, it limited the need to control industrial disease to the smelters. The Commission found that compensation claims escalated from
1917 when BHAS workers discovered lead poisoning was a compensatable disease.ss
The Commission endorsed preventing occupational lead poisoning by reducing air- borne lead, supplying respirators to lead workers, getting workers to wash off lead dust and reporting poisonings to mining authorities, as practised in New South
\{ales and Austria from 1901, Germany from 1905, the United Kingdom from
1911, France and Missouri from 1913 and Tasmania from 1915.8e It called for mining inspectors to enforce minimum occupational exposure standards, as set by the Commonwealth Department of Health, investigate all cases of lead poisoning, and for smelter workers to nominate their own inspector to vet pollution reducing
85. Ibid., 15-16,26,42,51,103, 105-6, 108, 115. 86, Ibid., 16-20,27-8,31, 40-1, 102. 87. Ibid., xiv, 27, 5l-2, 59, 82, 94-6, 99- 100, 1 10-1 1 88, Ibid., viii, 82-3, 86, 88. 89. Ibid., xvii-xix, 69,74-5. Chapter Six Department of Mines t19
measures.eO It urged BHAS to compensate inflicted workers, sack those particularly
susceptible to carbon monoxide and lead poisoning, reduce exposure by cutting the
work week from seven to six shifts and inform workers of the hazards of their
employment.el Without measuring the level of lead in the atmosphere, it deemed
the smelters were not a health risk to the Port Pirie townsfolk.e2 Though
acknowledging the risk of lead poisoning in battery and car making, painting,
potting, printing, soldering and masonry trades and carbon monoxide poisoning at
any factory burning coal, it would only recommend that the government make these
compensatable industrial diseases at the smelters.e3 The majority of Commissioners
ignored the plea from doctors to make carbon monoxide poisoning and all industrial
diseases notifiable to avoid further misdiagnoses and deaths.ea
The Gunn Labor Government (1924-1926) and its successors acted to control
lead poisoning at BHAS, BHP and fertilizer plants to prevent compensation claims
against these firms. The Gunn cabinet introduced regulations over smelting to
reduce occupational lead and carbon monoxide poisoning and implement all the
recommendations of the Royal Commission, on 19 November 1925.e5 Inspector
Pearson devoted the remainder of 1925 to introduce these regulations not only at
BHAS, but also at susceptible fertilizer plants at Birkenhead and Whyalla and the
BHP iron mills at rühyalla.e6 That the mining inspectors were devoted to preventing
compensation claims rather than occupational pollution is apparent from their
concentration on lead poisoning while neglecting the uncompensatable carbon monoxide poisoning which hurt so many of the BAHS workers. From 1926, the
90. Ibid., xii-xiv, xxi, xxvii. 91. Ibid., xiv, xvii-xviii, xx-xxiii. 92.lbid., vä, x,97. 93. Ibid,, ix, xx, xxvi, 64, 66,77-8,82-4,97, 100-1 94. Ibid., 51, 110-11, 113. 95, Director of Mines, 'Report, 1925' ,3, 5. 96. tbíd., 6-7 . Chapter Six Department of Mines t20 mining inspectors omitted any reference to controlling carbon monoxide, concentrating their efforts to prevent lead poisoning, which BHAS reduced to a few cases by 1934 through continuous lead smelting technology, which eradicated the need for 70 per cent of the workforce, under the scrutiny of the workers' inspector and monthly visits from inspector Pearson.eT Similarly, the mining inspectors only controlled lead poisoning at fertilizer plants and BHP from 1927 by investigating cases and alterations to processes, finding only one case in 1929, and applying this technique to BHAS from 1930.e8 The Department lauded these companies for co- operating to safeguard their employees from industrial disease from l932.ee
The inquiry into BHAS impacted throughout the mining sector, with Labor governments introducing the regulations and technology to prevent occupational pollution and Liberal governments sustaining the effort. Inspectors checked such dangerous mining ventures as the arsenic mine at Callington, the radium mines at
Mount Painter and Olary in 1925 and 1927 and asbestos mining at Robertstown from 1928 and Lyndoch from 1936.t00 The Gunn ministry provided the Department with another inspector, H.S. Cornelius, ex-superintendent at the Moonta Mines, in
1926 to regulate the rapid growth in quarrying and brickworks driven by a building boom.l0l Regular inspections encouraged indifferent quarry operators and stone crushers to reduce dust pollution by water sprays and dust saving devices, which improved both the health of quarry workers and productivity.r02 Quarry operators were finally able to work to occupational dust standards when mining inspectors
97. Ibid.,'1926" 4,',1927" 5,',1929" 5, '1930" 5,',1934" 6,',1935" 5 and'1936" 5. F.A. Green, The Port Pirie Smelters (Melbourne, 197'7), 52. 98. Director of Mines Reports: '1926' , 4, '1927' , 5-6, '1928', 5-6, '1929' ,5, '1930', 4, '1932' , 5, '1935',5 and '1936', 5. 99. Ibid., '1932" 5,'1933" 5-6,',1934" 6 and',1937" 5. 100. Ibid., '!925' , 6, '1926' ,3, '1927' , 5, '7928' , 5, '1936' , 5 and'1937' , 4. 'Statistical Register, 1929130' , Part V, 103. 101. Directorof Mines Reports: '1926',2,'1927',3 and'1930',5. Bailey, Menof theMines34. 102. Director of Mines Reports: '1926' , 4-5, '192'7' ,5 and '1928' , 4-5' Chapter Six Department of Mines L2l
began promoting the use of respirators under the Hill Labor Government (1930-
1933) from 1931.103 The Department advised new mining ventures on conforming
to regulations, as at the gypsum mines and plaster factories on Lake MacDonnell
and the opal field at Coober Pedy in 1925, the miners' co-operative raising copper at
Moonta from 1929 to 1938 and many of the unemployed who prospected for gold
during the Great Depression.l0a The Hill ministry, while giving wardens the power
to override council rejections of mining under roads, made miners respect the rights
of landowners to wood and water, to fence shafts on private property and fill these
in on the completion of mining.lo5
Not only were both Labor and Liberal governments committed to regulating
occupational mining pollution by mining inspectors, they also used the expertise of
the Department to find solutions to pollution. Employing Cornelius tripled the
number of visits to mines, mineral processors, quarries and brickworks carried out
by mining inspectors to 81 sites by 7927 , while ending the need for monthly
inspections at BHAS enabled the inspectors to check half of the 858 mining leases in
1930 and 92 mining sites at the height of the Depression. 106 With most mining
operators complying with pollution prevention regulations by 1928, the mining
inspectors only prosecuted miners for contravening occupational safety standards in
four instances from 1928 to 1934.107 The lot of 4,000 to 5,000 miners and quarry workers was improved by mining inspectors ordering changes to mining practices which halved the number of both fatal accidents (from 60 to 30) and those disabling
103. Ibid.,'1931', 6,'1932', 3 and'1934', 7. 104. Ibid., '1925',6,'1929',,5, '1930" 4,6,',1935',,5,',1936',,5 and '1939" 4. 105. Ibid.,'1931"3. 106. Ibid., '1925', 6, '1926',3-5, '1927', 5-6, 'L930', 4, '1932',4-6 and '1933', 5-6. 'Statistical Register, 1929/30' , Part V, 102-3. I07. Director of Mines Reports: '1925',6,'1926',3-5,'1927',5-6,'1928',7,'1929',5 and '1931" 5. Chapter Six Department of Mines t22
workers for at least a fortnight between 1929 and 1934.108 V/hile the Gunn Labor
Government unsuccessfully sought to make Leigh Creek coal less polluting by forming it into briquets, the Butler Liberal Government (1933-1938) ordered the
Department to determine the potability of artesian water as the quality of water in the Adelaide reservoirs deteriorated due to drought and gold-mining in 1934.10e The protection of water supplies led the Department to cite its first investigation into environmental mining pollution in 1929, a 'small silver-lead occurrence' in the
Onkaparinga River, under the Butler Liberal Government (I927-1930).rr0
When pollution controls were in the interests of employers (by seeking to curb the strikes of militant unions in quarries, mines and ore processing from 1919 and compensation claims from 1925) South Australian governments actively maintained a regulatory effort, regardless of political persuasion. Setting the frequency of visits by mining inspectors according to complaints from quarry workers from 1918, dangerous mining ventures from 1925 and cases of lead poisoning ftom 1927 could have eradicated the industrial diseases suffered by miners. With governments refusing to make more industrial diseases notifiable, mining inspectors sought to cut the well-known disposition of miners to lung diseases,lll by recommending quarry workers use respirators from L932 on seeing the effect of these at BHAS. The Parliamentary Papers also show that the private sector would only introduce pollution controls to increase profits, with BHAS by
108. There were 183 accidents reported in1929, 146 in 1930, 89 in 7932 and 90 in 1934. Ibid., '1925' , 6, ',1926' , 4, ',1928', ,7 , ',1929', , 4-6, ',1930' , 4, ',1932', ,5-6 and ',1934', , 6-7 . 109. The sulphur and ash content of Leigh Creek coal briquets made mallee roots the less-polluting form of fuel for domestic heating as was the 799,650 tons of black coal and 282,000 tons of firewood used by South Australian and Broken Hill industries per annum. The department found a purer supply of water under the western suburbs on the Adelaide plains than in the reservoirs. H. Herman, 'Brown Coals Commercial Utilization, 1925', 3-4, 9-ll, 14. Director of Mines, 'Report, 1934' , 5. Central Board of Health, 'Report, 1933' , 7 . 110. Director of Mines, 'Report, 1929' , 4. 1 1 1 . Bailey, Men of the Mines 5 , I0 , 26. Chapter Six Department of Mines t23
1925 only recycling pollutants which it could sell, regardless of knowingly poisoning its workforce with 100 times the safe limit of non-saleable pollutants, and, in 1934, introducing the less polluting continuous lead smelting, which required 30 per cent of its workforce. That the overwhelming emphasis of the Department lay in controlling occupational rather than environmental pollution was displayed by the
Department first reporting an instance of environmental mining pollution in 1929.
Industrialization: 1934-1960
Liberal governments undermined this drive to control occupational mining pollution after 1934 by exempting toxic and polluting works to provide employment, win lVorld War II, promote economic growth and bolster the defence of the capitalist bloc. To achieve these ends, BHP gained immunity from government regulation, asbestos and uranium were mined from 1941 and the highly polluting Leigh Creek coal was used to generate electricity. Although medical expertise was finally employed to limit the occupational pollution of quarry workers and the miners and processors of uranium from 1950, the Playford Government (1938-1965) preferred to fund research to find non-proscriptive technical solutions to mining pollution rather than control by inspectors.
When the Butler Liberal Government ignored mining inspectors and relaxed regulations to stimulate employment, the inspectors had to enforce compliance and toned down their reports as mining accidents rose. The Butler Liberal Government rescinded all regulations for gold-mining on private property in 1934, considering the rising price for gold sufficient incentive for landowners to permit mining on their property.l12 It ignored warnings from chief inspector Winton in 1935 that
112. Director of Mines, 'Report, 1934' , 3, 5 Chapter Six Department of Mines 124
inadequate occupational safety standards had displaced proprietary or managerial disregard of these regulations as the cause of mining accidents.ll3 Nevertheless, in
1936 the Butler Liberal Government passed legislation to permit BHP to operate a pig-iron mill at Whyalla free from government pollution-controlling regulations until
1987 to secure employment and ensure the company would process 16,805,000 tons of iron ore, without questioning the effects of subsequent pollution in a company town.l14 To stop other mine operators from flouting regulations, the mining inspectors prosecuted two mine operators in 1936 and 1937, and A.T. Armstrong, who took over from Pearson as mining inspector in 1936, revisited sites to check that orders to improve occupational safety were carried out.ll5 The inspectors made extraordinary visits to determine that technological innovations at fertilizer plants did not affect occupational pollution in 1938.116 \ù/hen the Liberal governments kept the regulations which the mining inspectors blamed for permitting mining accidents to rise from 90 in 1934 to 140 in 1935, the Department only reported the fatalities suffered by miners from 1936 to 1939, giving no cause for 11 deaths, laying the fault for 6 on machinery accidents or earth falls, and2 on explosions.llT
The Playford Government only permitted mining inspectors access to mining works initiated to win World War Two where their regulation could aid production.
The mining inspectors operating under Armstrong, who succeeded Winton as chief inspector in 1939, investigated phosphate mining.lls They also examined new dust reducing techniques at BHAS, fertilizer and cement plants, fenced off or filled in old shafts at Wallaroo and Moonta, and inspected cave-ins amongst their regular
113. Ibid., '1929" 4-6,',1930" 4,',1932" 5-6,',1934" 6-7 and'1935" 5, 114. Ibid., '1937', 5,7. Select Committee, 'Report on Broken Hill Proprietary Company's Indenture Bill, 1937', iii-v, 7, 10,24. 115. Director of Mines Reports: '1936' ,2, 6 and'1937' , 5,8. 116, Ibid., ',1938" 4. 117. Ibid., '1934" 6-7,',r935" 5,',1936" 6,'1937" 5 and '1938" 4. 118. Ibid., '1939' , 3. Chapter Six Department of Mines 125
wartime inspections of mining, quarrying and smelting which, by 1940, covered
1,035 mineral leases on 78,516 acres and employed 1,207 miners.lle These
inspections helped reduce accidental deaths in the mining sector during the war, with
only nine miners killed, usually by machine failure or earth falls, one killed by the rWhyalla BHP blast furnace at in 1943 and another dying in an explosion.r2o The
inspectors subsequently prosecuted A.P. and W.J. Pearce for storing explosives
outside an approved magazine.t2r The Playford Government was not about to make
silicosis a notifiable disease during the war, as it had been in New South Wales since
1927, despite the Government Geologist identifying the South Australian rocks most
likely to cause it in I939.r22 The Department made no mention of preventing any
pollution from such toxic mines opened to supply the war effort as the two
manganese, two asbestos, arsenic and uranium mines.l23 Indeed, the only control of
pollution from mining instigated for the war effort occurred in 1942 and, 1943, when
inspector Cornelius organized mining at the Leigh Creek coalfield, where coal dust
was retarded and amenities provided for the miners to ensure continuous energy
supplies for war production.l2a The Playford Government gave mining inspectors
no control over the occupational or environmental pollution created by using this ash
and sulphur ridden coal at BHP blast furnaces and Adelaide factories.l2s
The Playford Government honoured its commitments to improve working conditions for unionists after the war to gain support for the war effortr2ó by
119. Ibid., '1940',2-3, '1941',2-3, '1942',2-3, '1943',2, '1944', 4 and.'1945', 4-5. 'statistical Register, 1939/40' , PartY,76. 120. Director of Mines Reports: '1939' , 5, '1940',3,'1941' ,3, '1943' ,2, '1944', 4 and'1945' , 4. 121. Ibid., ',t943', , 2. 122. Ibid'., '7939', 3. M. Hearn and H. Knowles, One Big Union: A History of the Ausîralian Workers Union 1886-1994 (Melbourne, 1996), 163. 123. Director of Mines Reports: '1940',2-3,'1944',3 and'1945',3,5. 124. lbid,.,'1942' , 1, 3 and '1943',2. 125. Treasurer's Reports on Leigh Creek Coal Field: '1944' , 2-3 and.'1945' , 4. 126. D. Hutton and L. Cormors, A History of the Australian Environment Movemenr (Melbourne, 1999),92-3. Chapter Six Department of Mines 126 controlling mining pollution and industrial disease in small-scale mining and quarrying, which was also subjected to checks on environmental pollution to protect homes. The Playford administration formed an inspection branch in the Department of four inspectors, with the employment of F.W. Betheras and R.A. Love in 1951, adding B.W. Sowry in t955.r21 The mining sector grew from employing 1,737 miners and 1,675 quarry workers and operating 1,186 leases by 1950, with 5 refineries built to process cement, chemicals, sulphuric acid and uranium and production increased by 500 per cent to 1960, when ores worth f26 million were raised per annum, with iron constituting 60 per cent and uranium 8 per cent.128 The mining inspectors regularly increased the number of checks they made on mines, quarries and ore processors from 33I in1947 to 849 in1956157.r2e The Playford
Government allowed mining inspectors to begin regulating the asbestos mine and lead-smelting scrap metal firms from 1947, state-run gold refineries from 1949 and brickworks from 1951.t:o However, most of the pollution controls were directed against quarrying, which was initially regulated by L.L. Mansfield, who replaced
Cornelius in 1945, according to complaints received over flying stones, dust and blasting until 1950, when Armstrong ordered dust reductions according to the level of silicosis in quarry workers, used a konimeter from 1951 to determine quantitative, rather than impressionistic, levels of dust pollution and tested the level of damage to housing caused by air, noise and seismic vibrations from quarry blasts from 1953.131 Beset by a massive increase in complaints of quarry pollution from
127. Director of Mines Reports: '1950', 9,'1952' , 10 and '1955', 19. 128. 'statistieal Register, l949l5}', Part I in SAPP 1952 59-60. Director of Mines Reports: '1954', 3,' 1955" 3-4, 19,', 1956 1 57 3,', 1957 1 58" 3,', 19581 59" 3-4 and', 1959 1 60" 5. l2g.lb\d.,'1947"5,',1948"7,',1949"7,',1950"" 8,'1951" 10,'1952" 10,'1953" 13,',r954" 17,' !955', 19 and' 1956157', 21. 130. Ibid., '1947',4-5,'1949',6 and '1951', 10. 131. Ibid., ',1944"3,',1945"3,',1946"5,',1949"6-7,',1950" 8,'1951" 10,'1951" 10,',1952" lo, '1953" l3-r4,',1954" 17, ',1955" 19,',1956157" 21,',1957158" 24,',1958159" 25 and 't959/60' ,30. Chapter Six Department of Mines t27
quarry workers in hazardous conditions and residents concerned for their homes, the inspectors banned 2 quarries from night-work, imposed 2 restrictions, 4 instructions, multiple closures and 9 prosecutions over blasting, dust, flying stones and unsafe working from 1947 to 1960 and produced a Handbook on Quarrying in 1959160.132
The Playford Government, while granting owners six-months' grace to make alterations, authorized inspectors to curb such 'nuisances' from 1955, by obliging owners to issue safety helmets to workers, modernize machinery and employ competent and qualified managers in 1958 and for the registrar to refuse any claims which placed a 'hardship' on landowners in 1959.133 No similar requirements were placed on large-scale mining works. The mining inspectors investigated complaints of dust from the BHAS smelters, without recording taking any corrective action, and advised the Sulphuric Acid Pty. Ltd. of dust control to aid production at the fertilizer plant at Birkenhead.l3a Indeed, for the remainder of the mining sector, the inspectors merely instituted action to ameliorate environmental pollution over road subsidence at V/illunga, sodium fluoride air pollution from a Port Pirie salt works and the silting of the Port River and Scotts Creek by 1960.135
When seeking to bolster the nuclear arsenal of the capitalist bloc during the cold war, the Playford Government turned to the mining inspectors to avoid compensation claims from working such a dangerous mineral as uranium. With the sale of Radium Hill uranium to the U.K. and U.S. ratified in 1951, the Playford
Government ignored objections from S.B. Dickinson, Director of the Department
132. Complaints over occupational pollution and damage to housing were lodged against the quarries operating in the Adelaide Hills. Alawoona, Angaston, Brighton, Burra, Cadell, Compton, Crafers, Houghton, Linwood, Minlaton, Mount Schank, Mount Torrens, Murray Bridge, Riverview,PortLincoln,SalisburyandTeaTreeGully. Ibid,,'1949',7,'1950',9,'1951', 10, '1952" 10,'1953" 13-14,',1954"17, '1955" 19,',1956157"2r-2,',1957158"24,'1958159"25 and ' 1959/60' , 29-30. 133. Ibid.,' 1955', 6, 19,' 1957 158', 5, 24,' 1958159', 5 and' 19591 60', 30. 134. Ibid., '1955', 19 and '1957/58',25. 135. Ibid,, 't958159' ,26-7 atd'1959/60' ,29. Chapter Six Department of Mines t28
from 1944, of a conflict of interest and ordered the Mines Department to mine and process uranium.l36 The Playford administration spent over f18 million to research uranium milling at Parkside and Thebarton, to mine Radium Hill and Mount Painter ores, and to build an uranium treatment plant at the Port Pirie smelters.r3T The extent of support for the welfare of miners, processors and environment by the inspectors were to apply the same procedures used to curb compensation claims at the Port Pirie smelters from 1925 (medically examining workers and providing protective clothing from 1952, and monitoring occupational pollution at the mines from 1955 and at the Port Pirie treatment plant in 1953, 1955 and 1959160), while also checking containers and transport for leaks from 1952 and L957, respectively.r3s The 779 immigrants mining, milling and processing the uranium ore never received the personal film badges provided to the Parkside scientists to detail their exposure to radioactivity and the inspectors prevented them from winning any special consideration before the Arbitration Court in 1955.r3e The mining inspectors, neither citing instances of pollution nor the fate of the 300,000 gallons of
'water used at the Port Pirie plant per day, only declared the Radium Hill works safe in 7954, 1955 and 1959160, and the Port Pirie plant in 1959160, while citing unspecified 'troubles' at the treatment plant in 1955, an inability to keep the tailings dam at the mine under water and the use of radioactive tailings for ballast by South
Australian Rail from 1957.r+o
136. Ibid.,' 1944', 3 and' 1951', 77 and' 1955', 32-3. 137. Parliamentary Select Committee on Public Works, 'Report on Port Pirie Uranium Treatment Plant Water Supply, 1953',3,6. Director of Mines Reports: '1952',Il-I2,'1954',4-5 and 'r955', ,28. 138. Ibid., ',r946" 4,',I947" 4-5,',1948" 6,',1949" 3, '1950" 8,',1952" 12,',1953" 16,',1955" 19,'1956157' ,2I-2, '1957/58' ,24,'1958/59' ,2'7 and'1959160' ,29. 139. Ibid., '1952" 3,'1953" 3, 16,',1954" 5,28,'1955" 28, ',1956/57" 21,31 and',1957158" 4. Hearn and Knowles, AWU 235. 140. Director of Mines Reports: '1951', 17,'1954',28,'1955', 19,28,'1957/58',36 and '1959160', 15,42. Parliamentary Select Committee on Public Works, 'Report on Port Pirie Uranium Treatment Plant Water Supply, 1953' , 3. Chapter Six Department of Mines 129
Viewing the primary focus of the Department of Mines as developing mining, the Playford Government was swayed by Dickinson to fund research which could profitably curb mining pollution. While unprepared to provide more mining inspectors in 1947, the employment of twenty-seven additional staff to locate more mineral deposits by the Playford Government was noted.lal Subsequently
Dickinson, advocated that the sector, industrialization, self-reliance and employment could all be furthered by curbing mining pollution.ra2 Rather than importing f1.5 million of sulphur per annum to make fertilizer, Dickinson argued for extending the extraction of sulphur from the Port Pirie smelters since 1934 to gypsum processing and banning the export of sulphur in raw zinc.ra3 The Port Pirie smelters alone emitted enough sulphur to supply all South Australian fertilizer needs since l927.raa
Reducing sulphur dioxide and coal smoke to make fertilizer and cut production costs, not only provided 1.25 million tons of sulphuric acid from 1934 to 1949 from five smelters at Port Pirie, Birkenhead, rüallaroo, New South Wales and Tasmania, but improved the air quality for townsfolk around these smelters.las Dickinson also pointed to technological improvements which produced significant reductions in pollution, such as BHP finding the means to cut the coal it needed to make steel at Whyalla by one-third by 1959.t+a The Playford Government was suitably
impressed, increasing the number of research staff in the Department of Mines to
over 50 in 1955, when it became the research and development branch, and to 200 by 1960, when it left the Department to become the Australian Mineral
141. Director of Mines, 'Report, 1947' , 3. 142. Dickenson claimed South Australia had the minerals to supply industries producing ceramics, explosives, fertilizers, glass, paint, paper, petrol, plaster and soap in a similar fashion to the alkali production already begun by Imperial Chemical Industry (Aust,) at Osborne and the BHP proposal for a steel works at Whyalla. Ibid., '1948',21,24-5. 143. Ibid. , ',1949', , 23 , 25-6, 3l . 144. Ibid., '1947" 16. 145. Ibid.,'1949"26. 146. Ibid.,'1950" 18, 29-30. Chapter Six Department of Mines 130
Development Laboratory.r4T Meanwhile, the five mining inspectors constituted the only regulators out of Departmental staff numbering 1,196 by 1958.148
This policy reinforced the preference of the Playford Government to let those mining and processing ores vital to industrial development determine their own level of pollution controls. The inspectors' regulation of coal mining at Leigh Creek ended in 1946 when the Playford Government nationalized the Electric Supply
Company to create the Electricity Trust, which consumed 51,000 tons of the very inefficient and polluting Leigh Creek coal for electrical generation inI947148.14e In a rare disclosure of the level of pollution produced from generating electricity from
Leigh Creek coal, the Trust admitted to having spent f22,382 to dispose of ash residues that year.r50 Political opponents of Playford, such as the Labor and
Communist Parties, approved of the nationalization and use of Leigh Creek coal to furnish industry with urgently needed electricity,15r Even with the Department pushing for increased mining and ore processing to aid industrialization and self- sufficiency, the Playford Government preferred not to solicit its views when deciding to accept proposals for a steel works at V/hyalla and an oil refinery at
Noarlunga without any pollution controls.ls2 Premier Playford accepted that BHP should only be expected to prevent pollution when refurbishing its plant at Whyalla and less polluting steel-making technology was available and that the Standard-
Vacuum Refinery Company would take due care to prevent any pollution of the
l47.Ibid.,'1955', 5-6,32, '1957158' , 4 and'1959160' ,7. 148. Ibid., ',1957158" 4. 149. Committee of Inquiry, 'Report into Electricity Supply, 1943', 16. Royal Commission, 'Report on the Adelaide Electric Supply Company, 1945' , 3, 8-9. T. Playford, 'Valuation of Adelaide Electric Supply Co. Ltd.,1946',1. D. Wakelin, Adelaide Electric Supply Company Limited Fifty Years of Progress (Adelaide, 1946), 96, ll3-7 , 152-3. Electricity Trust, 'Report, 1947148' , 4,7 , 150. Ibid. 151. Moss, Trumpets 351. 152. Director of Mines Reports: '1953',25,'1954',34, '1955',36, 50 and '1958/59', 6. Select Committee Reports: 'Oil Refinery Bill, 1958' and 'BHP Steel Works Bill, 1958'. Chapter Six Department of Mines 131
recreational beaches around Noarlunga.ls3 Only after the Electricity Trust doubled the height of its chimney at Port Augusta to better disperse smoke emissions were the mining inspectors permitted to test the level of pollution from the power plant, despite the deluge of complaints over dust pollution throughout the 1950s.rsa It seemed the scale of pollution entailed with such projects little concerned the
Playford Government which (with the US seeking to pay less for uranium ftom 1962 and all efforts to find more profitable lodes failing) prompted the Electricity Trust to investigate nuclear power to make use of this local energy source.l55
V/hile the lack of reporting of mining pollution makes it difficult to completely assess the benefits of technological innovation and enforced pollution controls, some indicators point the way. Removing regulations from new works and gold-mining in the 1930s not only magnified the difficulty the inspectors had enforcing pollution controls in other areas of mining, but coincided with mining accidents increasing by 155 per cent to 140 in 1935. By allowing economically significant mining ventures to operate without pollution controls from 1936, the
Butler and Playford governments both disregarded known health and environmental dangers and prevented public records being kept on the levels of pollution produced by making pig-iron, steel, petrol and Leigh Creek coal-generated electricity. The preoccupation of mining inspectors with controlling occupational over environmental pollution failed to prevent continued complaints of quarry pollution from nearby residents and left the public record blank on the environmental damage done by the Radium Hill project. Inspectors checking the implementation of pollution-
153. Select Committee Reports: 'BHP Steel Works Bill, 1958', 18 and 'Oil Refinery Bill, 1958', 10. 154. Directorof Mines,'Report, 1959160',30. ElectricityTrust,'Report, 1960',9, 155. Uranium ore was found at the Adelaide Hills, Bimbowrie, Crocker Well, Dead Horse Bay, Kangaroo Island, Port Augusta and Penang. Director of Mines Reports: '1954',3-5, 17-18, '1955', 33, '1956157' , 10,22,'1957158' ,9-10 and '1958/59' , 10,27. Electricity Trust, 'Report, t959160" 12. Chapter Six Department of Mines 132
preventing orders, requiring the use of less polluting machinery and competent managers, apptying work restrictions and closures and using the incidence of silicosis from 1950 and radiation exposure from 1951 to gauge and restrict occupational pollution reduced the risks experienced by quarry workers and uranium miners and processors and returned the deaths and accidents suffered by miners to pre-1935 rates.1s6 Recycling sulphur dioxide and cutting power costs provided for less polluting ore and fertilizer processing at Birkenhead, Port Pirie, Wallaroo and
Whyalla by 1950.
oo0oo
South Australian governments and large-scale industrialists only controlled mining pollution to aid profitable production, as opposed to public health or the 'Wardens environment. and inspectors were employed from 1886 to check typhoid epidemics on the goldfields to maintain production, not to prevent the thirty-four deaths, dust bowls, sulphur dioxide contamination of towns and destruction of forests allowed under self-regulation. Self-regulation had only produced safety rules for explosives at the Moonta Mine by 1876 and BHP cutting coal consumption by one-third by 1950. To stimulate mining on private property, all forms of mining, except quarrying, were brought under regulation from 1894 and the Department of
Mines was created in 1896. The weight of regulation from 1886 was directed against the small-scale operator, who was threatened with expulsion from claims, in contrast to the mining companies which were offered grants from 1886, the training of staff and research on extraction and processing methods from 1891. Pollution
156. Deaths in the mining sector dropped to 4 in 1954 and 3 in 1957158 and accidents to 98 a¡d 112, respectively. Director of Mines Reports: ' 1953 ' , 13 and ' 1957 158' , 24 . Chapter Six Department of Mines t33
controls were dropped when the sector contracted from 1903 to 1916, resumed at the greatest level of consistency to benefit mine, smelter and quarry owners by reducing strikes by militant workers from 1919 and compensation claims from 1925 and, from 1936, immunity was granted to mining ventures central to the needs for industrialization and defence.
Through this ebb and flow, the mining inspectors gained control over occupational pollution and reduced mining accidents and deaths by investigating accidents from 1888, certifying machinery from 1894, setting the frequency of visits according to complaints from quarry workers after 1918, dangerous mining ventures and the incidence of lead poisoning from 7925, silicosis from 1950 and radiation exposure from 1951, advising the use of respirators from 1932, checking the implementation of pollution-preventing orders, requiring the use of competent managers and less polluting machinery, and applying work restrictions and closures.
The easing of regulations and providing immunity to economically significant and defence mining ventures from 1936 not only permitted known unhealthy levels of pollution to be emitted from making pig-iron, Leigh Creek coal-fired electricity, steel and petrol, but increased the difficulty the inspectors experienced in enforcing regulations throughout the sector and corresponded with rises in mining accidents by
155 per cent in the mid-1930s. Only the application of all the above regulations and controls by mining inspectors in the 1950s could return the deaths and accidents suffered by miners to pre-1935 levels.
The preoccupation of governments to prevent occupational pollution limited controls over environmental mining pollution to occasionally thwarting water pollution from 1886, confining smelters to five then ten acres of land from 1894 and to curb the complaints of home owners near quarries in the 1950s. Such actions left the public record devoid of the environmental damage done by all forms of mining. Chapter Six Department of Mines 134
While recycling sulphur dioxide and cutting power costs made for less environmental and occupational pollution at ore and fertilizer processing works at
Birkenhead, Port Pirie, \üallaroo and Whyalla by 1950, such large-scale works only introduced pollution controls to increase profits. For instance, BHAS reduced occupational pollution to prevent claims for worker's compensation in 1912, not as a result of pressure from mining inspectors, only recycled saleable pollutants by 1925, regardless of knowingly poisoning its workforce with 100 times the safe limit of non-saleable pollutants and, in 1934, introduced less polluting processes which only required 30 per cent of its workforce. Chapter Seven
Factory Inspectors
1,895-1960
South Australian governments would only regulate occupational pollution to benefit wealth creation by curbing strikes and aiding production efficiencies. Liberal and
Labor governments, seeking to calm militant industrial unrest in the 1890s, employed factory inspectors to control occupational pollution from 1895. Factory inspectors gained further control over industrial poisons and pollution when governments sought to curb anarcho-syndicalism, communism and protracted strikes by unionists from 1907, in order to reduce the worker's compensation bills payable by industrialists from l9l2 and to further industrialization from 1936.
Acknowledging Occupational Pollution: 1836-1895
As government and friendly societies provided some security from occupational pollution, unionists first strove to check the power of employers. Having made headway by 7874, unionists sought to curb pollution by lobbying parliamentarians, striking from 1885, funding parliamentarians from 1887 and forming the United
Labor Party in 1891. The failure of strikes left unionists with the Kingston Labor-
Liberal coalition as the best hope for curtailing occupational pollutants.
With government and friendly societies providing some support to those injured by occupational pollution, unionists concentrated on ending assisted immigration to erode the control employers exercised over working conditions. Chapter Seven Factory Inspectors 136
From the outset of settlement in South Australia, colonial government was charged with caring for the impoverished sick and using the unemployed to build public works.l Public works, such as waterworks and drains, could lessen the impact of industrial pollution.2 However, governors were keen to ensure that employers controlled the workplace by bonding assisted immigrants, 'the 2 shillings a day slaves', to their bosses and obliging all workers to serve out employment conffacts or risk six months' prison and fines under the Masters and Servants Act.3 Unlike
English unions, those in South Australia did not provide members with sickness insurance, but concentrated on finding members work, improving pay and reducing the hours of employment.a From 1844 some workers insured themselves against such occupational hazards as pollution through sickness and unemployment insurance schemes run by friendly societies like the Druids, which collectively boasted a membership of 15,000 by 1874.s Having cut the work day by 25 per cent to nine hours during the labour shortages of the gold-rushes of the early 1850s, unionists campaigned to end assisted immigration to strengthen their chance to improve employment conditions.6 When the first parliament spent f20,000 to increase the intake of assisted immigrants (those whose passages were paid for by government) amidst high unemployment in 1859, unionists joined the Political
Association which succeeded in prompting governments to set immigration
1. 'Foundation of South Australia', cited T. Worsnop, History of the City of Adelaide Fromthe Foundation of the Province in 1836, to the End of the Municipal Year 1877, with Appendix and Map (Adelaide, 1878), 332-3,407. J.B. Hirst, Adelaide and Country 1870-1917 Their Social andPoliticalRelationship (Melbourne, 1973),126. J. Moss, Soundof Trumpets: Historyof the Labour Movement in South Australia (Adelaide, 1985), 18, 92. 2. Worsnop. Adelaide 151-2. J.H. Lewis, Enfield and the Northern Villages (Adelaide, 1985),222. 3. Governor Grey, 'Dispatch to Lord Stanley',24 Oclober 1842, and 'Foundation of South Australia', cited Vy'orsnop, Adeløide 58, 407. W. Light, Brief Journal and Australian Diaries (Adelaide, 1984), 1 14. Moss, Trumpets 14, 16-20. 4. Moss, Trumpeîs 3, 16-17,96. M. Waters, Strikes in Australia: A Sociological Analysis of Industrial Conflict (Sydney, 1982), 72-3. 5. Moss, Trumpets 94. 6. Waters, Strikes 79. Moss, Trumpeîs36,74-5. Chapter Seven Factory Inspectors t37 according to the level of job vacancies from 1861 and, consequently, to halt immigration from 1867 to 18ß.1
Having secured full employment, the eight hour day and the right to strike, unionists gained a partial worker's compensation scheme and bootmakers won government intervention to control occupational pollution by striking over their increasingly hazardous working environment. Governments were only prepared to concede immigration limits to unionists prior to 1875, ignoring the plight of workers living in the winter-time swamps of the western Adelaide plains and sending sabre- wielding police against unemployed protesters in March 1870.8 Buoyed by winning the eight hour work day at some workshops in 1873, unionists formed a Labour
League in 1874 to lobby parliamentarians for better working conditions.e They also sought to axe the penal clauses and ban on strikes from the Masters and Servants
Act.r0 The Colton Government (1876-1877) so amended the Act in 1876 after a series of strikes spread the eight hour day to more industries.ll However, with coal smoke only viewed as harmful by the medical profession when it thickened the air with particulates, governments preferred leaving occupational environmental standards to employers, despite at least two workers being killed by a gas explosion and charcoal fumes in 1878, factories deluged with noxious and chemical fumes and, from burning coal, gas and wood for power, smoke at 33 to 44 per cent of
South Australian factories from 1880 to 1890.12 The Colton Government (1884-
7. Ibid., 36, 79, 81, 83, 89. 8, Worsnop, Adelaide 333-4. Moss, Trumpets 102. Petitions: 130 residents, 'Sale of Land on Port Road, 1863', 228 residents, 'District of Portland Estate, 1865166', 146 residents, 'Inhabitants of Queenstown and Alberton, 1866167' and220 residents, 'Grant for Filling in Port Road Swamps, 1874',. 9. Moss, Trumpets 96, IO2-3,105, 111. 10, Ibid., 105. 11. Ibid., lo2,105. 12. 'Information Relating to Fbblic Health, 1886', Statistical Registers: '1880', Parts III andV,6l, 20, '1889', Part III, 63 and'1890', Part III, 69, Factories Commission, 'Report, 1892',316. Chapter Seven Factory Inspectors 138
1885) reacted to the public sympathy for the plight of 1,350 working women and lobbying from the newly formed United Trades and Labour Council (UTLC) by requiring some employers to compensate workers for injuries or death suffered at work in 1884.13 The strike of 400 bootworkers over smoke and gas'consuming the air' led the Colton Government to form a conciliation board to set occupational environment standards for the industry and order the Central Board of Health to regulate unventilated factories from 1885.14
To improve the lot of workers in regard to matters such as the occupational environment, the UTLC sponsored parliamentarians from 1887 and, with the strikes of 1890 and 1891 failing, formed the United Labor Party. Funding the campaign of nine liberal candidates in 1887, when parliamentarians would be paid, benefitted the
UTLC when one of the successful candidates, J.T. Scherck, prompted the Adelaide council inspectors to check conditions in clothing, cigarette and boot factories in 1889 and 1890, by questioning the healthiness of factories in parliament.15
Unionists, thinking solidarity could improve working conditions, doubled the numbers of unions affiliated to the UTLC to forty-two and formed the United Labor
Party to contest the 1891 election after the massive strikes of 1890 and 1891 were destroyed by lock-outs and the government setting soldiers and police against strikers.l6 G. Buttery, UTLC President, sought to gain support for the Labor Party and factory regulations beyond the working class by arguing that these could reduce the cost to Adelaide of caring for miners poisoned by lead and the rise of
13. 'statistical Register, 1884', Part III, 61. G.H. Knibbs, fficial Year Book of the Commonwealth of Australia, Containing AuthoritaÍive Statistics for the Period 1901-19 and Corrected Statistics for the Period 1788 to 1900 (Melbourne, 1920), 987. Moss, Trumpets 109-10. 14. 'Central Board of Health Regulations, 1885'. 'Information Relating to Public Health, 1886'. Factories Commission, 'Report, 1892' ,36-7, 159, 356. Moss, Trumpets ll0, 734, l7l. 15.lbid., 126-7. Factories Commission, 'Report, 1892',227. Central Board of Health, 'Report, 1887/88" 8. 16. Moss, Trumpets 145, 150, 152,154-7,168-71. Chapter Seven Factory Inspectors r39
communism in unions.lT Church leaders, Premier Playford and some employers already accepted government arbitration in the workplace as a means to calm industrial relations and secure profitable production.ls V/ith Labor winning three
Legislative Council seats in the 1891 election, Kingston introduced a Factories Bill and Adelaide council and Central Board of Health inspectors checked the working environment of sixteen factories in January l892.Le With the Kingston Liberal-
Labor Government (1893-1899) setting up the Factories Commission to investigate the need for occupational regulations, Adelaide council inspectors checked the factories at Gawler Place, and found only 250 cubic feet of space per worker provided, two-thirds of what the governments of New South'Wales and Queensland regarded as safe.2o
The Commission, comprising representatives of government, unions and industrialists, investigated conditions in Adelaide factories in 1892. It was the first
South Australian parliamentary investigation to include workers' representatives such as J.A. McPherson, UTLC secretary and R.S. Guthrie, Seamen's Union secretary and Labor Legislative Councillor, amongst sympathetic parliamentarians
C.C. Kingston, J.A. Cockburn and T.H. Brooker, and employer advocates A.M.
Simpson, G. Ash and J. Hayne.2l The Commission heard evidence on the working conditions in boiler, boot, cigarette, clothing, carriage and metal-working factories, food processors, printers, tanneries and wood mills from inspectors, managers,
l7 . Advertiser 24 January 1891, 5. Moss, Trumpets 184. 18. rbid., 172-3. 19. Ibid., L6I, L64-5. J.J. Green, ehair of the 24 July 1891 meeting of manufacturers, 'Petition AgainstFactoriesandShopsBill, 1891'. FactoriesCommission,'Report, 1892',227,297. 20. Ibid,, ä,201,358-9. Inspector of Factories, 'Report, 1898', 3. 21. Factories Commission, 'Report, 1892', vii-viii. Moss, Trumpets 125, 146, 164. R. Parsons, Hindmnrsh Town: A History of the Village, District Council and Corporate Town of Hindmnrsh SouÍh Australlø (Adelaide,1974), 140, 152, 185,251. D.A. Cumming and G. Moxham, I/rey Built South Australia: Engineers, Technicians, Manufacturers, Contractors and Their Work (Adelaide, 1986),175. Chapter Seven Factory Inspectors t40
owners and workers, and investigated twenty-three Adelaide factories for itself in l|.lay 1892.22 Unionists argued the need for factory inspectors to frequently check factories to ensure adequate ventilation and sanitation, ban work in cellars (as in
Victoria) and to make owners provide smelter workers with milk to offset lead poisoning, as owners were too geared to reducing production costs and sacking workers who complained over conditions.23 Only the Working Women's and the
Bootmakers Unions had forced factory owners to vent fumes from the workplace in four instances, despite the long-standing efforts of many unions such as the Adelaide
Typographical Society which strove to curb the high rate of consumptive deaths it blamed on its members working in cellars.24 Unionists did not trust local inspectors, as councils knowingly or unknowingly permitted noxious and dangerous pollution, such as lead, by overworking local inspectors, only acting on complaints, or merely checking factory privies and external fumes while ignoring dangerous internal fumes on the Adelaide plains and Port Pirie.25 As a result the ex-President of the UTLC,
Buttery claimed workers in all trades suffered pollution induced illnesses:
It is a constant complaint of workmen that they have to go home and stay home in consequence of fumes of gas and the unhealthy atmosphere in which they have been at work.26
Most industrialists opposed the Bill for undermining the right of employers to determine the level of occupational health standards. A few factory managers and owners informed the Commission that, to curb production costs, they refused to use less polluting processes or vent strong 'chemical' smells, regardless of any subsequent deaths or injuries to their workers, while sawmill owner T.K. Stubbins
22. Factories Commission, 'Report, 1892', 1,4,20,34-5, 67-8,92, 106, 109, 111, 136, 122, 144, 164,206-26,236,244,249-50,253,256,258,267,271,278,297,326,372,334-5,339. 23.lbid., r,2, 4, 6, 8, 66-7, 69,246,248-50,252-3,271,282-3, 291, 349-5r. 24.lb\d., 16, 164, 168-9, 195-6, 198, 200,307,309,312,356. 25. Ibid., 4, 36-7, 42-3,70, 93, 139, 146, l5l, 164,206,209, 211,227,257,261-2,283,298-9, 305-7 , 314, 337 , 346. 26. tbid., 6. Chapter Seven Factory Inspectors t4t
thought that workers should either accept occupational environments or quit.27 A few factory owners supported the Bill, admitting that the health risks from occupational pollution warranted regulation, to compel competitors to apply the standards that unions had forced on them, or believing that factory inspectors would never enforce it.28 But most owners denied that pollution caused industrial disease, blaming a lack of personal hygiene by workers for the high level of tuberculosis in the printing trade, individual constitutions for the nausea suffered by women cigarette makers and hot days causing women to faint at work.2e Most industrialists opposed the Commission for intruding on 'voluntary' employment contracts, claiming unions were strong enough to secure gains from employers and preferring regulation by the Central Board of Health, which could be negated by friendly councils and manufacturing districts, to factory inspectors.30 With council and health inspectors unable to support either unionist or industrialist standpoints, the Commission conducted its own inspection of factories, which proved insufficient to persuade commissioners from their predispositions.
Council and health regulators, unable to cast much light on the level of occupational pollution, favoured the Bill for registering the factories to be inspected, providing more inspectors and curtailing unregulated pollutants such as lead.3l The commissioners seemed unwilling to discover the true nature of occupational pollution, preferring to visit twenty-three Adelaide shirt factories instead of the noxious trades known for pollution or checking the Adelaide Hospital to verify
Buttery's claim of workers recuperating from industrial diseases there.32 Thus, the
27. tbid., 106,262,267 ,337 . 28. Ibid,, 20,34-5, L23-6, 736, 143, 146-7, 152, 168,267,270,334-5,337. 29 . lbid., 35, 92-3, 128, 143, 147, 163, 257 -9, 261-2, 346-7 . 30. J.J. Green, 'Petition Against Factories and Shops Bill, 1891'. Factories Commission, 'Report, t892', , ä,36-7,92-3, 106, 122-3, 129, r43, 160,227,259,299-300,303,339,346. 3 1 . Ibid., 226, 230-r, 234, 236-7, 239, 244-6, 291, 305-7, 326-7, 330. 32. Ibid., 15, 200, 209-26. Chapter Seven Factory Inspectors 742 majority of commissioners sympathetic to Labor endorsed the occupational regulations espoused by the Bill to prevent future, rather than current, poisonings of the workforce of factories employing more than four staff, particularly for women and children.33 The dissenting pro-employer commissioners, J. Hayne, A.M.
Simpson and G. Ash, sought to limit factory regulation to the Health Act, rather than creating a factory inspectorate, with Ash also seeking to limit the regulation to the Adelaide plains, from whence all evidence was gathered.3a All commissioners agreed on the need to control machine and boiler safety, with six boilers having exploded since 1888, and levying a registration fee on factory owners.35 None commented on unionists stressing the need for factory inspectors to keep their intended visits a secret from employers to ensure factories were found in the condition in which these were worked.36
Unionists, able to improve working conditions at only four factories due to industrialists resisting any measure which would increase production costs, finally brought occupational pollution in South Australia to light from 1885 to 1892 by striking and supporting the election campaigns of parliamentarians. But, with pro- industrialist parliamentarians on the Factories Commission opposing any government intervention to control pollution in the workplace, reducing occupational pollution seemed set to be determined by partisan politics.
33. Ibid., v-viii. 34. Ibid., v-viii, x, xix. 35. Ibid., vi-vii, xix, 68,70,72 36. Ibid., 271-2. Chapter Seven Factory Inspectors t43
Employing Regulators: 1895-1918
The Labor Party, having had to threaten to oust the Kingston Liberals from office to introduce effective controls over occupational pollution in 1898, would only introduce safeguards for industrial poisons to ease industrial uffest from anarcho- syndicalists from 1907. Liberal governments, while appearing to provide more controls over occupational pollution, actually undermined the effectiveness of the factory inspectors by providing insufficient staff to enforce these standards.
The Kingston Liberal-Labor Government could only secure the pro- industrialist recommendations of the Factory Commission to regulate occupational pollution on the Adelaide plains. Campaigning on a platform to introduce the recommendations of the Commission and supported by the Advertiser, the Labor
Party won ten seats in the 1893 election, rejoined coalition government with the
Kingston Liberals and introduced the Act.37 However, the Legislative Council would only agree to the form proposed by the pro-industrialist commissioners, placing factory inspector Agnes Zadow under T. Farrell, chief inspector of the
Central Board of Health, to regulate factories in corporate towns and manufacturing districts employing six or more workers from March l, 1895, rather than an independent department regulating the employers of four or more workers throughout South Australia.3s Factory inspector Zadow could control occupational pollution by investigating the structure of factories, the fuel used, hours worked, the safety of machinery and the healthiness of workers, with the aid of police and doctors if required.3e Increasing tariffs to offset the initial costs to industrialists of
37. J.A. McPherson, secretary United Labor Party, cited Moss, Trumpets 160, 180, 205. D. Jaensch, 'Party, Party System and Federation, 1890-1912', ín D. Jaensch, (ed.), The Flinders History of South AusÍralia: Political History (Adelaide, 1986), 183. 38. 'BlueBook, 1895',83-4. Inspectorof FactoriesReports: '1895', 1, '1896', l and'1901',2. 39. 'Regulations Under the Factory Act,1894',l-2. Chapter Seven Factory Inspectors t44
meeting occupational standards did not dispel the resistance of owners who refused to register their premises, threatened and denied entry to Zadow and Farrell, who responded by prosecuting owners.a0
The factory inspectors worked mainly to protect female workers on the
Adelaide plains, leaving dangerous occupational pollutants unregulated. The inspectors only made one inspection beyond the Adelaide plains between 1895 and
1898, checking such factories in Gawler as the May Brothers foundry.ar With unionists highlighting the plight of women workers before the Factories Commission and women having just received the vote, the factories regulated by the inspectors were weighted to those employing women, with inspectors covering all the factories employing women, but merely 44 per cent of the factories employing men.a2 Both
Zadow and Mrs. A.A. Milne, who succeeded her in 1896, were specifically employed to ensure that female workers would confide in factory inspectors and concentrated on vetting the employers of women, though conducting sufficient inspections to check each factory twice per annum between 1895 and 1898.43
Farrell sporadically devoted a day or two to factory inspection whilst J. Bannigan, who replaced him in 1896 as chief inspector, spent one-third of his time at work on factory regulations.aa For all their efforts, the female inspectors only received f65 per annum, one quarter the salary paid to Farrell.as With women working mainly in clothing and food processing factories, dangerous pollutants produced at foundries,
40. Moss, Trumpets 186. Inspectorof FactoriesReports: '1895', 1,'1896', l-2and'1897',2-3. 41. Ibid., '1898', 7. Cumming and Moxham, They Built 2I8. 42. Factories Commission, 'Report, 1892',v-vi,109, 111, L53-4,195-6, 198, 200,205,258-9. H. Jones, 'South Australian Women and Politics', in D. Jaensch, (ed.), The Flinders History of South Australia: Politicql History (Adelaide, 1986), 423. 'Statistical Register, 1896', Part lll,77. Inspector of Factories, 'Report, 1895', 1. Knibbs, Commonwealth Year Book 1901-19 491. 43. Inspector of Factories Reports: '1895', 1, '1896', I,'1897' , 1, 3 and '1898' ,2,7. 44.'BlueBook,1896',34. InspectorofFactoriesReports:'1895',1,'1896',1and'1897',1. 45. 'Blue Book, 1895', 83-4. Chapter Seven Factory Inspectors t45
electroplating plants, electricity generators and four chemical plants operating from
1896 were not even mentioned by inspectors.a6
The inspectors, unable to control poisonous working conditions by themselves, presented the Kingston ministry with a list of regulations to improve occupational health. Needing to convince local boards to condemn factory buildings in order to force factory owners to renovate, the inspectors were only able to modify three factories to prevent occupational pollution, despite all their inspections and investigation of eight industrial accidents.aT In general, the inspectors had only been able to make factory owners display circulars on poisons, following a request from tannery workers in 1897.48 By then the inspectors informed the Kingston Government that the greatest industrial hazards lay in the lack of ventilation provided by small enterprises, tailoring workshops, employers of women and, during the cobbler strike of 1897 , the boot trade.ae Bannigan called for the Kingston ministry to improve occupational health by extending regulation to rural factories and those employing less than six workers, requiring factory owners to provide 400 cubic feet of space and a square foot inlet vent per worker, as in New South Wales and Queensland, to keep factories in a sanitary condition, curb dust, notify factory inspectors of accidents and submit annual reports.so
The Labor Party forced the Kingston Government to tighten occupational pollution controls which successive Liberal governments would only feign to do.
The Labor Party stopped their Liberal partners in the Kingston Government from deferring the reforms proposed by the inspectors until the depression eased by
46. Statistical Registers: '1891', Part III, 67 and '1896', Partlll,TT. 47. InspectorofFactoriesReports: '1895',2,'1896',I-4,'1897',3and'1898',2-4 48. Ibid., '1897" 3. 49. Ibid., '1896', l-4,'1897',3 and '1898', 4, 50. Ibid., '1896', 3,'\897',2 and '1898',1,3-4. Chapter Seven Factory Inspectors t46
threatening to break the coalition in 1898.sl These regulations required factory owners to provide at least 400 cubic feet of air space to each worker while preventing neighbours from being polluted from dusts, gases and 'other impurities'
and employed Bannigan solely on factory inspection from August 20, 1898.s2
Bannigan called for all South Australian factories to be regulated, particularly
factories employing less than 6 workers (where environments were so appalling that poverty alone drove the 279 men, 338 women, 25 boys and 34 girls to work there),
a Kilkenny iron foundry, the Islington Railway V/orkshops and an Edwardstown
cabinet works, the ability to fine owners who did not register their factories and to
deregister unventilated factories.53 The Holder and Jenkins Liberal governments
heeded the petitions from regulated factory owners of the 'intolerable restrictions'
they faced from unregulated competitors by including the factories employing more
than2 workers at Adelaide, 9 suburbs and 11 country towns from 1901 and by
requiring owners to notify factory inspectors of accidents from 1900.54 Collectively,
the amended regulations nearly doubled the proportion of South Australian factories controlled by the factory inspectors to 79 per cent, covering nearly all child
workers, 86 per cent of women workers and 70 per cent of men workers by 1904.55
However, the ability of the inspectors to control occupational pollution was reduced,
51. 'Model Regulations under the Health Act, 1898', Paper No. 48,2 and Paper No, 89, 3. Moss, Trumpets 173-4, 205, 207 -8. 52. 'Model Regulations under the Health Act, 1898', Paper No. 48,2 and Paper No. 89, 3. 'Blue Book, 1898',35. 53, Inspector of Factories Reports: '1899', 1-3, 8 and '1900',I-2. 54. Factory inspectors could control works at Burnside, Mitcham, North Adelaide, Port Adelaide, Sturt, West and East Torrens, and Woodville on the Adelaide plans and at the rural towns of Clare, Gawler, Kadina, Kapunda, Moonta, Mount Gambier, Petersburg, Port Pirie, Port Augusta, Quorn and Wallaroo. Petitions: 49 petitioners, 'In Favour of the Factories Amendment Bill, 1900', 17 factory owners, 'Against Factories Amendment Bill, 1900', Paper No. lI4 and74 factory owners, 'Against the Factories Bill, 1900', Paper No. 120. Factory Regulations: '1900' and '1901', 1. Inspector of Factories Reports: '1900', l-2 and'1901' , l-4. 55. StatisticalRegisters: '1900', PartIII,74,'1901', PartlII, T4and'1904', Pa¡tIII,87. Inspector of Factories Reports: '1900', 2,'1901' ,2 and'1904' , I,3. Chapter Seven Factory Inspectors r47
with the Jenkins Government (1901-1905) only providing another inspector to check machine safety, the visits by inspectors fell from sufficient to check every registered factory seven times in every two years under the Kingston ministry to once per
annum under Liberal governments up to 1905.s6 The lack of inspection of rural
factories remained, with only those in Mount Gambier inspected in 1900 and Gawler
in 1901.57 The inspectors were also diverted from controlling occupational pollution by investigating overworking, 'sweating', in 1899 and between 1903 and 1906, in
response to campaigns by the Advertiser and the select committee on sweating.5s
Despite these drawbacks, the factory inspectors used the owners' fear of
contagious diseases and worker's compensation to reduce occupational pollution
through sanitation, publicity, ventilation and investigating industrial accidents. The
inspectors strove to get wash-basins installed at factories where workers handled
poisons from 1899 as factories using toxic chemicals increased, with nine chemical
and fertilizer plants operating by 1899 and three rubber works by l902.se Bannigan
warned factory owners and staff that coke burning could cause asphyxiation with as
little an atmospheric concentration as 1 per cent of 'carbonic oxide' (most probably
carbon monoxide), with 51 per cent of South Australian factories burning fuel to
power machinery by 1900.60 The inspectors played on the fear of influenza during
the epidemic of 1899 and tuberculosis from 1901 to get factory owners to regularly
clean their dirty factories.6l Inspectors reinforced the need for cleaning factories when investigating industrial accidents in 1904, (a worker died from blood
56. Ibid., '1899',1-2,'1900',2,'1901',2-3 and'1904',2. 'Blue Book, 1902', 65. 57. Inspector of Factories Reports: '1900', 2 utd'190I' ,3-4. 58. Ibid., '1899', 2, '1902', '1904',2,'1905',3 and '1906', 3. Select Committee, 'Report on the Alleged Sweating Evil, 1904', iii. 59. Inspector of Factories, 'Report, 1899', 4. Statistical Registers: '1899', Part III, 78 and '1902', Part.llI,74. 60. Ibid., '1900', Part III, 74. Inspector of Factories, 'Report, 1898', 3. 61. Ibid., '1899', 11 and '1901',6-7. Chapter Seven Factory Inspectors 148
poisoning contracted from stepping on a nail).62 The introduction of a Workmen's
Compensation Bill in parliament in 1901 made employers eager to adopt the changes advocated by inspectors to the point where inspectors no longer needed to enforce regulations by fining owners, as they had on four occasions in 1899 and 1900.63
From 1904 Bannigan gained the compliance of factory owners to occupational pollution standards by issuing 41 notices to improve ventilation, cleanliness and safeguard machinery, with 28 notices over ventilation and 300 'written
communications' in 1905.óa The inspectors were able to introduce the ventilation
standards of 1899 from 1901 to 1904 and some factory owners began checking
renovations with Bannigan, who informed factory builders of pollution control
standards, although governments were content to leave building approvals to
councils.65
Winning most of the seats in the coalition from 1905 to 1909 and ruling its
own right from 1910 to 1912,66 the Labor Party only increased the controls over
occupational pollution to appease industrial unrest fermented by anarcho-syndicalist organizations. Though in office for two years, the Price Labor-Liberal ministry
(1905-1909) made no amendments to factory regulations until radical syndicalists
rallied some unionists, disillusioned with the Labor Party, into the syndicalist United
Labourer's Union of unskilled workers and began a series of strikes in 1907.67 Only
then did the Price Government introduce controls attending to Bannigan's warnings
of asphyxiation and poisons by compelling factory owners to flue 'gases and
exhalations' from appliances producing heat and dust, to use safe power supplies and
62. tbid., 't904' , 3. 63. Ibid., '1901', 5. Statistical Registers: '1899', Part V, 16 and '1900', PartY,16-17 64. Inspector of Factories Reports: '1904' ,2 and'1905' ,3. 65. Ibid., '1899', 3, '1900', 3, '1901', 6-7,'1904' ,2-3 and'1905' ,3-4. 66. Moss, Trumpets 210,220,229. 67. Ibid., 214-5, 217 . Chapter Seven Factory Inspectors 149
install one wash-basin for every twenty employees and sufficient drinking water.68
Similarly, the Verran Labor Government (1910-1912) introduced the Workmen's
Compensation Act in 1911 in the hope of ending the wave of strikes led by the
United Labourer's Union from 1910 and the first Industrial Workers of the World local in Australia being formed in Adelaide in 1911.6e The regulations applied only to factories within twelve miles of Adelaide from 1909, which left the working conditions in rural factories which employed 44 per cent of male workers and 55 per cent of the female workers unregulated.T0 When informed that the control of occupational pollution suffered from factory inspectors being able to check merely
80 per cent of registered factories in 1905 and 1906 (by having to enforce wage decisions from 1905, regulate lifts from 1908, investigate trivial complaints in 1908 and 1911 and re-register factories in 1909), the Price and Verran governments appointed factory inspectors T.G. Ward in 1907, J.T.E. Foote and W.E. Ellis in
1908, W.S. Hamilton in 1911 and, to replace Mrs. Stretton who took over from
Milne in 1906, Misses L. Bosanko and I.O. MacGillivray in 1910.7r The imbalance of pay for women inspectors was redressed in part in 1911, rising from one-third of the salary of a male inspector to five-sixths, at f.125 per annum.72
The factory inspectors controlled occupational pollution by investigating industrial accidents, advising factory builders, approving new forms of ventilation and using prosecutions and worker's compensation. Investigating industrial
68. 'Regulations Under the Factories Act, 1907', 1-2. Inspector of Factories Reports: '1898', 3 and '1899" 4. 69. V. Burgmann, Revolutionary Industrial Unionism: The Industrial Workers of the World ín Australia (Melbourne, 1995), 33-4. Knibbs, Commonwealth Year Book 1901-19 987-8. Moss, Trumpets 221-3. 70. Inspector ofFactories Reports: '1907',1,'1908', 1, '1909', I and'1910', 1. Statistical Registers: '1909', Part III, 156-7 and '1910', Part III, 156-7. 71. Blue Books: '190'7',38, '1908', 37 and '1911', 78. Inspector ofFactories Reports: '1905', 3, ' 1906" 3,', 1907" 1-2,', 1908" 1, 10,' 1909" 4,', 1910" 2,', 19rr" 2 and', 1913" 2. 72.Bltte Books: '1898', 35, 88, '1902',65,'1907',38, '1908', 37 and '1911', 78. Chapter Seven Factory Inspectors 150
accidents led inspectors to report on the second instance where occupational pollution killed a worker, burnt to death in 1909, and their first disclosure of industrial disease, failing eyesight in 50-year-old workers from working in dimly lit factories.T3 However, the inspectors did not seem to be targeting dangerous trades, having failed to mention the establishment of a munitions works in l9I2,let alone the need for any special precautions.Ta Despite this omission, the inspectors convinced some architects, builders and owners to voluntarily submit plans for renovations and new factories to Bannigan from 1906 to prevent costly corrections to conform to standards, which ushered in the era of the saw-tooth roof which provided factories with decent ventilation, light, space, dressing rooms and toileß.75
The inspectors applied a 'steady effort' to make old factories well-ventilated and cleaned by 1910, by banning work from cellars, ordering two bakery owners to remove smoke or vacate their premises and factory owners to separate lunchrooms from polluted environments and remove fumes by electric fans to avoid raising dust by 1909.16 Subsequently, the number of electric motors used in South Australian factories increased by 24I per cent to I,I72 from 1909 to 1914.11 The inspectors also enforced the new standards, launching thirty-nine prosecutions from 1907 to
1913, which factory owners resisted in the Supreme Court and parliament in 1907 and by delaying lodging annual returns to factory inspectors in 1911 and 1913.78 The introduction of worker's compensation facilitated occupational pollution controls, with companies such as BHAS cutting the lead fumes its workforce was
73. Inspector ofFactories Reports: '1908', I and'1909', 5. 74. 'Statistical Register, l9I2' , Part lIl, 162, 166. 75. Inspector of Factories Reports:'1906', 3,'1907', 2 and'l9I4', L 76. Ibid.,' 1907 2,' 1908" 2,', 1909" 2-5,', 1910" 2,', 1913" 1 and' 1914" l. 77. Statistical Registers:" '1909' , Part III, 155-7 and 'l9l4lI5' , Part III, 184-5. 78. Inspector of Factories Reports: '1906', 3, '1907', 1, '1909', 5, '1911', 1, 10 and '1913',2. Statistical Registers: '1907', Part V, 16, '1908', Part V, 18, '1909', Part V, 18, '1910', Part V, 18, '1911', Part V, 18,'1912', Pa¡t V, 16 and '1913', Part V, 20' Chapter Seven Factory Inspectors 151
exposed to by one-third in. 1912, on being made liable for occupational lead poisoning in 1911.7e
The impetus for reducing pollution within factories brought by the Labor 'War. Government dissipated with its fall and the Great \ilhen the Verran Labor ministry set police against strikers from 1910 and attempted to prohibit strikes, support for syndicalism grew in the union movement and Verran lost the l9l2 election.s0 Industrialization on the Adelaide plains by 1914, not reforms by the
Peake Liberal Government (1912-1915), applied factory regulations to 55 per cent of male and female workers employed in South Australia.sl The Vaughan Labor
Government (1915-1917), derided by militant workers as middle class, merely introduced controls over inflammable oils, regulations not administered by factory inspectors.s2 In striving to maintain conditions of industrial employment during the war, the factory inspectors launched 27 prosecutions against factory owners and 3 over steam boilers, while inflammable oil inspectors made 1 prosecution in 1916.83 The factory inspectors could prevent occupational pollution by forcing
Adelaide plains factory owners to make buildings and machinery safer, under the threat of fines, from 1895. Technical requirements were imposed on industrialists to achieve this, with Adelaide factories to provide each worker with at least 400 cubic feet of space, workers handling poisons to be provided with washbasins and poisonous gases flued from 1907 and ventilation to be provided by electric fans from
1909. Inspectors could tailor their regulation of industrial pollution according to the occurrence of industrial accidents, which industrialists were required to report from
79. Royal Commission, 'Report on Plumbism, 1925' , vi-vii, 35-6. 80. Moss, Trumpets 222-7 , 229. 81. 'statistical Register, l9l4ll5' , Part III, 184-5. Inspector of Factories, 'Report, l9l4' , L. 82. 'statistical Register, 1916', Part lI, 12. Factories Department, 'Report, 1933', 5. Moss, Trumpets 235. 83, Inspector of Factories, 'Report, 1915', 1. Statistical Registers: '1914/15', Part V, 20, ' I9l5 I 16', Part V, 13,' 1916', Part II, 12 and' l9l8l 19', Part ll, 12, Chapter Seven Factory Inspectors rs2
1900. However, until 1908 factory inspectors were prevented from regulating occupational pollution by being diverted to protecting women workers and sweating,
inadequate standards or staff levels, and the type of factory which could be
inspected. \Where the tariffs of 1895 and fines from inspectors failed to break the
resistance of factory owners to apply the regulations, the hope of avoiding contagion
in 1899 and 1901, the strikes by anarcho-syndicalists in 1907 and 1911, and the
costs from forced ventilation and worker's compensation succeeded, by convincing
factory owners that controlling occupational pollution was in their own economic interests. Obtaining the ability to require industrialists to ventilate polluting
factories to maximize ventilation from 1901 led some builders to submit plans for
new factories to the inspectors from 1906, resulting in the construction of factories
with saw-tooth roofs and, from 1909, more than doubling the use of electric fans.
Indeed, the introduction of worker's compensation even convinced factory owners
who were immune from control by the inspectors to prevent occupational pollution.
Although improving the healthiness of the factory environment, these reforms had yet to curb industrial accidents which were, in part, caused by occupational
pollution. This killed at least two workers and contributed to 47 industrial accidents
per annum from 1900 to 1904,213 per annum from 1905 to 1913 and 117 per
annum from 1914 to 1919.84 The fluctuations in accidents reported to the inspectors
reflected factory owners resisting inspectors and the doubling the absence from work
qualification to forty-eight hours in 1915.85 The fall of the Verran Government and
the Great War ended any further advance in the regulation of occupational pollution. V/hat would it take to make the control of occupational pollution bipartisan
84. Inspector of Factories Reports: '1900', 2, '1901', 5, '1904', 2-3, '1905', 4, '1905', 4,7, '1906" 5,',1907" 5, '1908" ll,13,'1909" 1, 5, 16, '1910" 3,20,',1911"2-3,12,',1912" 5, ' 1973" 4,', 1914" 7,', 1915" 2,', 1916" 2,', 1917 6,' 1918" 2 and', 1919" 4, 10. 85. Ibid., '1919" 4. " Chapter Seven Factory Inspectors 153
following the horrors of the Great'War?
Seeing Red: 1918-L933
The malaise in occupational pollution controls ended when Liberal governments sought to curtail strikes, revolutionary syndicalism and bolshevism. This shared desire led Liberal and Labor governments to bolster factory pollution regulations and, with industrialists finding it profitable, to maintain controls in all but the most expensive forms during the Great Depression.
Occupational pollution regulations were revamped to undermine the spread of strikes, revolutionary syndicalism and bolshevism. The Peake Liberal Government
(1917-1920) ordered factory inspectors to police arbitration awards and employed another inspector, A.S. Howland, in an effort to halt the strikes by workers in 1918 over working conditions downgraded during the Great War.86 \ilith meat, transport and waterside workers joining the revolutionary Workers Industrial Union of
Australia and the League of Nations advising controlling occupational pollution as a means of curbing industrial tension, the Barwell Liberal Government (1920-1924) introduced the Industrial Code in 1920.87 This provided for factory inspectors to control ventilation, sanitation, water supply and fire safety in all factories in municipalities.ss 'Women workers were the main beneficiaries, gaining nearly 100 per cent coverage, compared to 58 to 70 per cent coverage for male workers.se
86. 'Public Service List, 1920', 45. Inspector of Factories Reports: '1918', 2 and'1919',1-2. Moss, Trumpets 255-7. 87. Ibid., 259-60. 'Treaty of Peace, Versailles, l9l9', APP 1917-18-19 v.4, 1018-19. Inspectorof Factories, 'Report, 1920', L 88. Ibid.,'1920', 1, 6 and'1921', 7. 89. Statistical Registers: '1916' , Part III, xxiv-v, 'l9l8ll9' , Part V, 168-9, '1919120' , Part V, 105 ' 'L921' and 'l92\l2l' , Part V, 1 14- 15. Inspector of Factories Reports: '1919' , 1, 1920' , 6 and , 8. Chapter Seven Factory Inspectors t54
V/ith radical syndicalism contained by the alliances between more moderate unions, which were formalized into the Australian Council of Trade Unions, and the Labor
Party moderating, after a brief shift to the left when pro-conscriptionists were expelled, the Gunn Labor Government (1924-1926) merely extended ventilation requirements to wood factories from 1925, as called for a year earlier by R.W.
Clark, who became chief inspector in 1919.e0 The Gunn Labor Government required factory owners to report accidents causing twenty-four hours absence from work from 1926, rather than notify inspectors of cases of industrial disease, which investigations by the Royal Commission into lead poisoning and the printers union found so useful an indicator of dangerous forms of occupational pollution.el The
Labor and Butler Liberal governments merely reacted to spray painting by applying interstate practices of setting ventilation standards in 1927 and supplying a kata thermometer for inspectors to measure air purity in 1928, while supporting mass sackings across all industries from 1927, gaoling strike leaders and protecting strike- breakers in I928.e2
Both Liberal and Labor govemments sought to provide the Department with the ability to regulate occupational pollution, though Labor governments sought more investigations of industrial accidents. The Barwell Liberal Government created a Department of Factories for the inspectors in I92I and provided four factory inspectors on the request of chief inspector Clark, as well as four inspectors to regulate boilers and scaffolding when giving these responsibilities to the
Department iî l923.ei The Gunn and Hill Labor governments provided four more
90. Moss, TrumpeÍs 245-6, 254, 262. Inspector of Factories Reports: 'I9I9' , I, '1924', 3 and '1925" 4. 91. Ibid., '1926',15. Royal Commission, 'Report on Plumbism,1925',I03. 92. Moss, Trumpets 263-5,268,270,272,274-5,277-8,28I,283, Inspector of Factories Reports: '1927',4and'1928',4. 93. Public Service Lists: '1920',45,'I92I',34 and 1923',36-7. Inspector of Factories Reports: '1919" l-2, '1920" r, '1921" I and'1923" 3. Chapter Seven Factory Inspectors 155
'Ward, inspectors in response to the call for more staff by T.G. who took over from
Clark as chief inspector in 792I, and stationed an inspector at Wallaroo and Moonta to examine rural factories.ea The Butler Liberal Government (1927-1930) employed another factory inspector, stationed three inspectors at Port Adelaide and moved the rural factory inspector to Port Pirie in 1927.e5 These additions to staff enabled the
inspectors to conduct sufficient visits as to check each factory nearly twice per
annum by 1928.e6 Factory inspectors ordered owners to remove dust or increase ventilation at a similar rate under both administrations, particularly in the wood-
working trade from 1927 and spray painting in 1928.e1 While factory inspectors were more likely to issue orders and prosecute factory owners under Liberal
governments, they were more inclined to order factory owners to renovate works
and to investigate industrial accidents under Labor governments from l92I to 1928
(see Table 7.l below).e8 Indeed, J.P. Burnside, who took over from Ward as chief
inspector ftom 1923, began recording the number of non-machinery accidents,
which could have been caused by occupational pollutants, to account for 45.5 per
cent of the 1009 accidents recorded by factory inspectors for 1924 to 1926 and one
death in I925.ee
94. Ibid., '792L',I1,'1922',3,'1924',3,'1926',7 and'192'7',6. Public Service Lists: '1925', 40-l a¡rd '1926',42. 95. Inspector of Factories, 'Report, 1927' ,6-7. 96. Ibid., 3. 97. Ibid.,' 1921" 7,', L924" 14,', 1925" 14,', 1927 4, 16 and', 1928" 16. 98. Labor Governments increased the number of" accidents investigated by factory inspectors by redefining the measure of an industrial accident. Ibid., '1925', 13-14, '1926', 15, '1927', 15, and'1928' , 15-16. 99. Ibid., '1923" 5,',1924" 5, 13, '1925" 13 and',1926" 4-5,15. Chapter Seven Factory Inspectors 156
Table 7.1: Regulatory preferences of Labor and Liberal governments between 1919 and 1928.
Type of Enforcement Labor Liberal
Per cent of orders issued 56 44 Per cent of orders issued to renovate buildings 69 31 Prosecutions per annum 5.3 6.5 Industrial accidents investigated per annum 336 194 Industrial deaths investigated per annum 5.3 3.5
Source: Inspector of Factories Reports: '1920' , 6, 10, '192I' , 7, 13, '1922' , 4, 8, '1923' , 5, 12, '1924', 5, 13-14, '1925', 13-14, '1926', 4-5, 15-16, '1927 ', 15-16, and '1928', 15-16. Statistical Registers: '1919120', Part II, 12, '1920127', Part III, 10, '1922123', Part III, 70, '1923124', Part IIII, 11, '1924125', Part III, Il,'1925/26', Part III, 12,'1926127', Part IIl,12,'1927128', Part III, 9 and'1928129', Part III, 9.
Vy'orkers, architects, insurance companies and industrialists all found cause to
curb occupational pollution until financial credit collapsed in 1927. Unionists called
on inspectors to curb occupational pollution, accounting for 8 per cent of the 154
complaints reported by the Department from 1923 to 1928, complaints which only
declined amidst the mass retrenchments of 1927 and 1928.100 Architects submitted
all plans for new factory buildings in regulated zones for the approval of factory
inspectors from 1921, with the Industrial Code enabling inspectors to directly order owners to renovate factory buildings.10l Insurance companies assisted the Department from l92l to enforce the use of machine guards, which reduced the incidence of industrial accidents.l02 Amidst high levels of employment, factory
owners came to realize ftom l92l that greater productivity could be achieved by
pacifying industrial animosity by providing healthy and safe working conditions and
100. Ibid., '1923" 5,73,',1924" 5,14,',1925" 4, 14,',r926" 16,',1927" 3,5, 16 and ',1928"3, t6. 101. Ibid., '1921' , 7 . 102. Ibid., 13. Chapter Seven Factory Inspectors r57
reasonable working hours.103 In this benevolent industrial atmosphere, Burnside claimed that by 'moral suasion' alone inspectors improved working conditions for female workers from 1924, in general from t926 and introduced purer air from
1927.104 The inspectors only lapsed in their efforts by deferring orders for factory renovations until the credit squeeze of 1927 eased and if wood factory owners made any attempt to ventilate their works from 1928.105
V/hile the Hill Labor Government (1930-1933) confronted communists in the streets, it strove to win over employed workers by maintaining inexpensive controls over occupational pollution. Elected to eradicate unemployment in 1930, the Hill
Government brutally suppressed communist-inspired unemployed protesters and the waterside strike, actions which, together with its austerity measures, lost it the 1933 election. 106 The Hill administration did little to thwart the fledgling Communist
Party which attracted the unemployed, anarcho-syndicalists, transport, gas, power station, waterside, maritime and Port Pirie smelter workers, as even moderate unionists blamed capitalism for the Great Depression, in which the state suffered 5 per cent more unemployment than the national average.lo7 Controlling occupational pollutants remained a concern for workers, accounting for 8 per cent of the complaints the Department of Factories received between 1929 and 1932 and 11 per cent of these made in 1931 alone.108 So, too, the Hill Labor Government continued its regulation with the 15 factory inspectors able to check each registered factory 3 times per annum during the Depression, fining 15 transgressors of the Industrial
Code per annum, while orders to vent fumes or curb dust merely decreased by 46
103. Ibid., 7 and'1922' , 4. 104. Ibid.,' 1924', 3,' 1926', 5 and'192'7', 3. 105. Ibid., '192'7' ,3, 5 and '1928' ,3. 1 06. Moss, Trump ets 293, 297 -301, 302-3, 305-9. 107, Ibid., 293, 296-7, 317, 319. 108, Factories Department Reports: '1929',14,'1931', 14 and '1932', 12 Chapter Seven Factory Inspectors 158
per cent on pre-Depression averages, contrasted with the 79 per cent decline on all orders from factory inspectors.lOe As during the credit squeeze of 7927, inspectors awaited the end of the Depression before ordering factory owners to renovate works and omitted to specify in its reports the causes of industrial accidents, which fell in
line with employment to 201 accidents and 1.5 fatalities per annum.110 Aside from renovations, employers maintained occupational health standards, even for the recent
innovation of spray painting.lll
Linking the control of occupational pollution to the productivity gained from
industrial harmony enhanced the work of the inspectors by eroding the resistance of
factory owners in regulated zones to government controls from I92O. Finding this control to be in the interests of both employers and workers forged bipartisan
support from Liberal and Labor ministries, with the latter enforcing the former's
Industrial Code which granted inspectors direct powers to require factory owners to
renovate works to reduce occupational pollution. This power convinced all factory
builders in regulated zones, now covering all women and 70 per cent of male workers, to submit their plans to the inspectors from 1921. While Labor
governments would employ more inspectors and were keener that they investigate
industrial accidents, neither Liberal nor Labor ministries required owners to repoft
the instances of industrial disease to the inspectors, who could then be able to
concentrate on the most dangerous forms of occupational pollutants. Instead, the
inspectors began recording non-machinery industrial accidents from 1924. So
briefed, the inspectors stabilized the rate of industrial accidents which fluctuated
109. Ibid., '1928', 3,'1929',2, 14,'1930', 4-5, 13,'1931',3, 14 and '1932',2-3, 12' Statistical Registers: '1929130' , Part III, 9, '1930131', Part I, 17,'1931132', Part I, 17 and'1932133' , Part t, 17. 110. Factories Department Reports: '1929',2, l3-I4,'1930', 4-5, 12-13,'1931',3, 13-14 and '1932" rl-r2. 111. Ibid., ',1929"2-3. Chapter Seven Factory Inspectors 159 according to changes in the definition of an accident and fluctuations in employment. However, occupational pollution played a role in causing 45.5 per cent of industrial accidents and unionists found it to be sufficiently sickening as to maintain a consistent level of complaints from 1923 to 1933.
Doing it for Industrialization: 1933-1960
After allowing factory regulations to slide, Liberal governments set the intensity of control factory inspectors exercised over occupational pollution according to the need to maintain industrial harmony to make the state welcoming to industrialists from 1936. Industrial harmony proved more of an incentive to Liberal governments than the dangerous pollutants of wartime production and post-war boom in metals, chemicals and plastics. The Butler and Playford Liberal governments rejuvenated occupational pollution controls to placate workers in order to attract industrialists to South
Australia and hence reduce unemployment. These governments did not consult the inspectors over establishing the new and polluting wood pulp mill proposed in 1936, having excluded them from rural factories which, succumbing to competitors on the
Adelaide plains, now employed a mere24 per cent of South Australian wotkers.ll2
By 1936, with both Labor and Liberal parties seeking industrialization to reduce unemployment, the Butler and Playford Liberal governments kept wages below national levels and, to appease workers, provided cheap housing built by the
Housing Trust from 1936, when it also filled the position of factory inspector left
112. Inspectors were limited to the factories in the electoral districts of Adelaide, North Adelaide, West and East Torrens, Sturt a¡rd Port Adelaide together with the Metropolitan Abattoirs, the sole factory regulated at the Wingfield manufacturing district. Royal Commission, 'Report on Afforestation, 1936'. Factories Department Reports: '1937', 3 and '1938', 3. 'Statistical Register, 1937138' , Part V, 86. Cumming and Moxham, They Built 9 ' Chapter Seven Factory Inspectors 160
vacant since 1933.r13 Previously, the Butler Government (1933-1938) only provided the four inspectors already employed to control inflammable oils when adding this and the control of battery making to the duties of the Department of Factories.rra
The Department increased its control of occupational pollution in line with the desire for industrial harmony sought by the government to encourage industrialization, raising its prosecution of regulated factory owners from 16 per annum from 1933 to
1935 to 53 per annum from 1936 to 1939 and conducting enough inspections to check each factory 14 times in 1937 and 1938.115 The Department began reporting the causes of non-machinery accidents, which accounted for 69 per cent of the 1,883 industrial accidents and 19 fatalities reported to the Department from 1934 to 1938, with 9 per cent caused by foreign matter in the eye, 9 per cent by burns, 3 per cent by septic wounds, 3 from gas and 1 from heat exposure.l16 The inspectors responded by serving 2t2 orders under the Industrial Code on factory owners, 59 per cent of which were issued after 1936, with 15 per cent to vent or remove dust and 16 per cent to renovate factories.llT Workers were satisfied with these controls, with the proportion of complaints over the occupational environment dropping to 6 per cent of the I,136 complaints lodged with the Department from 1933 to 1938.rr8
While dangers increased in the workplace, the Playford Government (1938-
1965) controlled occupational pollution in direct proportion to the militancy of 'War unions during World Two. Between 44,100 and 65,000 South Australian
113. Moss, Trumpets 323,330. S. Marsden, A History of Woodville (Adelaide, 1977),201-4. Factories Department Reports: '1933' , 4-5 and'1937' ,7. 114. Ibid., '1933',4-5 and '1935',6-7. 115. Ibid., '1936',I8,'1937',3,7,18 and'1938', 7, 18. Statistical Registers: '1933134',Pattl, 16,'1934135', Part l, 16,'1935136', Part I, 16, '1936137', Part I, 16,'1937 138', Part I, 16 and '1938/39' , Pa¡t I, 16. 116. Factories Department Reports: '1933',4,'1934',3-4, 14,'1935',4-6, 16,'1936',4-5, 16, '1937',5-6, 16 and '1938', 5-6, 16. 117. Ibid,, ',1933" t4,'1934" 15,',1935" 17,',1936" 17,'1937" 17 and '1938" 17. 11g. Ibid., '1933" 12,'1934" 15, '1935" 16,',1936" 16,',1937" l6 a¡d ',1938" 17. Chapter Seven Factory Inspectors 161
workers toiled in 2,265 factories, polluted by burning 252,066 tons of fuel in 1940 alone, 40 tons of Leigh Creek coal in 1944, and processing metals, wood, paper, textiles, rubber, chemicals, hides and, beyond the jurisdiction of inspectors, making munitions at Commonwealth annexes set up at Finsbury and Salisbury.lle Nearly 62 per cent of the 2,706 industrial accidents and 13 fatalities reported to the Department during the war were not caused by machinery.l2O Gas and chemical leaks killed six workers in l94l and 1942, while foreign matter in the eye, gas, burns, and septic wounds caused 20 per cent of the non-machinery accidents recorded by the
Department in 1940 and 1941, the only war years in which the Department recorded the causes of these forms of accidents.l2l However, J.R. McColl, who replaced
Burnside as chief inspector in 1944, found these statistics presented an optimistic view of industrial health by unearthing in 1945 alone a further 521 accidents which factory owners failed to report to the Department.l22 Unionists, having abandoned attempts to improve working conditions by dropping complaints to the Department from 250 per annum from 1939 to I94l to 100 per annum and foregoing strikes in
1942 and 1943, resumed industrial disputes when Playford announced that installing bathrooms in factories was sufficient to improve the well-being of the workforce in
1944.r2t The Department averaged 50 prosecutions and 56 orders per annum under the Code during the war years marked by industrial strife, compared to 37 prosecutions and 38 orders per annum when industrial harmony reigned in 1942 and
l19.'statisticalRegister, 1939140', PartV,86,89,94-6. Directorof Mines,'Repon, 1944',4. Factories Department, 'Report, 1940',3. Moss, Trumpets 353. Cumming and Moxham, ?'åøy Built 10. 120. Factories Department Reports: '1939',4-5, 16,'1940',5-6,'1941',3,5, 12,'1942',3, ' 1943', 3,' 1944', 3-4 and'1945', 3. 121. Ibid., ',1940' , 5-6, '1941', ,3, 5, 12 and',l942' ,3. L22. lbid.,' 1944', 3-4 and' 1945', 3. 123.6 percentof thesecomplaintswereoverthelndustrialCode. Ibid.,'1939',16,'1940',15, '1941',15,'1942',3,13,'1943',3,15,'1944',2,15and'1945',4,15. Moss,Trumpets340- t,343-5,347 , 349, 351. Chapter Seven Factory Inspectors r62
1943, with 17 per cent of the orders to vent or remove dust and 24 per cent to renovate works.l2a The inspectors conducted sufficient visits to check each metropolitan factory 12 times and conducted a further 2,049 visits to factories in 120 rural towns in 1945.rzs The resumption of strikes and demands for better occupational environments and compensation pay outs, the five day week and communist influence in V/hyalla, led the Playford Government to commit to improve conditions after the war and to include all factories in local government districts under the control of the Department from I945.t26
The nature of post-war industrialization made the workplace more hazardous to workers due to occupational pollution and initially provided impetus to the Communist Party. Industrialization increased the prevalence of occupational pollution thanks to the byproducts produced at 2,151 metal processors, 163 paper mills, 89 chemical plants, 59 rubber mills, and 20 plastic moulding factories, the use of electro-plating and by the doubling of fuels burnt in factories.l27 The number of industrial accidents increased by 233 per cent from 1946 to 1960, while the number of factories only rose by one-third and industrial employment by 60 per cent.r28
Occupational pollution was playing a greater role in harming workers, with non- machinery accidents consistently comprising 78 per cent of the 48,000 accidents reported to the Department between 1946 and 1960, of which 47 werc fatal.tze
124. Factories Department Reports: '1939', 17-18,'1940', 15-16, '1941',3, 14-15, '1942',3, 13- 14,'1943', 15-16,'1944', 15-16 and '1945', 15-16. 125. Ibid. , ',1942" 2, ',1943" 3, ',1944" 2 md ',t945" 2, 4. 126. Ibid., '1945' ,2. Moss, Trumpets 347 , 349, 351, 357 . 127. Statistical Registers: 't949150', Part I, 72 and'1959160', Part V (b), 5, 9-10, 12, 14, Factories Department, 'Report, 1958', 16. 128. Factories and Labour Departments Reports: 'L942',3,'1943',3,'1944',2,'1945',2,'1946', 14,'1947" 3-4,',1948" 3,16,',1949" 16, '1950" 17,',1951" 17,',1952" r7,',1953" 16, '1954', , 17, ',1955', , 17, ',1956' , 4, 17, ',1957' , 4, ll, '1958" 3-4, 15, ',1959', , 6, 16 and '1960" 8-9,23. l29.lbid.,'1946"14,',1947"3-4, 16,',r948"3,16,',1949"16,',1950"1',7, '1951" 1',7,',1952" 17, '1953" 16, ',1954" 17 , ',1955" 17, ',1956" 4, 17 , ',1957" 4, 11, '1958" 3-4, 15, ',1959" 6, 16 and '1960' ,8-9,23. Chapter Seven Factory Inspectors 163
Three workers were killed by cyanic acid gas in 1957 and 52 accidents, or 5 per cent of those reported to the Department in 1960, were caused by 'contact with hazardous material', while a further 145 workers suffered industrial diseases.l30
Amidst this massive industrialization, communist ascendancy in the union movement peaked ftom 1946 to 1949 in the fight for the forty hour week by unions, thwarting
attempts by the Playford Government to outlaw strikes in 1947 and after South
Australian gas, foundry and meat workers settled for pay rises when striking over
dirty working conditions.r3l Plunging communist influence in unions after 1949t32
temporarily curbed the duration of strikes in South Australia from 1950 to 1955, but
the production lost through strikes doubled thereafter:
Table 7.2: Industrial disputes of more than ten days in South Australia, 1946-1960 Strikes Strikers Days Lost per per as % of per per per annum annum workforce annum striker strike
1946-t950 2t 7,853 nla 50,758 6.5 24t7 1951-1955 30 77,376 5.5 50,472 2.9 1682 1955-1960 24 12,820 3.7 78,700 6.t 3279
Source: D.L.J. Aitchison: SouthAustralianYearBookNo. l: 1966 (Adelaide, 1966),2t6,228and South Australian Year Book No. 5: 1970 (Adelaide, 1970),274.
While workers were poisoned, the Playford Government only provided more
regulators to the Department of Factories to reduce the production lost through long- 'Workers lasting strikes, communist-led or otherwise. and unionists expected more
from the Department during the communist ascendancy, lodging thirteen complaints
per annum over the Industrial Code from 1946 to 1949 compared to eight per annum
130. Ibid., '1957' , 4 and'1960' ,23. 131. Communist Party of Australia, The Way Forward: Resolutions of the 15th Congress of the Australian Communist Pa4y (Sydney, 1948), 15. Moss, Trumpets 354-6,358, 363. 132. Ibid., 358-9, 361. Chapter Seven Factory Inspectors 164
from 1950 1o 1953.t:l During these industrial campaigns, the Playford Government employed 2 additional factory inspectors and 2 female inspectors, added 274 rural factories to the control of the Department and finally heeded the calls of chief inspectors since 1920 by requiring all regulated factories to have first-aid kits from
1946.134 During the relative industrial harmony of 1950 to 1955, the Playford ministry left the positions of three inspectors vacant, while expecting the Department to control more factories on the Adelaide plains from 1950 and saw mills in the south east from 7954.135 In the face of costlier strikes from 1955 to 1960, the
Playford Government provided 2 safety officers and 2 assistants to investigate industrial accidents and train factory staff in safer forms of production from 1958, granted the Department access to instances of industrial disease, control over the use of liquid petroleum and more rural factories and filled the 3 vacant inspector positions in 1960. 136 Advice from the Department was not sought by the Playford
Government when considering pay outs for compensatable industrial diseases in
7953, proposals for gas works, the Port Stanvac Refinery, the Apcel paper mill, to exclude the BHP steel works from government regulation and protect GMH from litigation from Elizabeth residents over its pollution.r3T Granting immunity to economically significant industries in 1958 reduced the proportion of the industrial workforce regulated by the factory inspectors from 82 per cent in 1954 to 70 per
133. Factories Department Reports: '1946',15,'194'7',1'7,'1948',17,'1949',17, '1950', 18, '1951" 18,'1952" 18, '1953" r7,',1954" 18, '1955" 18, '1956" L8,'1957" 12and '1958" 16. 134. Inspector of Factories Reports: '1920', 4, '1921', 6 and'1922', 3. Factories Department Reports: '1933' , 4, '1945' , 4, '1946' ,2, 4, 15 and'1947' ,2. 135. Moss, Trumpets 358-9, 361. Factories Department Reports: '1950', 3,'1952',4,'1954',4 and'1960', 3-4. 136. Factories and Labour Departments Reports: '1958', 4,'1959' ,6 and '1960' ,3-4,23. 137. E.L. Bean, 'Report of the Advisory Committee on Workmen's Compensation, 1953' , 3-4. Select Committee Reports: 'Gas Act Amendment Bill, 1950', 1, 'Gas Amendment Bill, 1955', l, 'Oil Refinery (Hundred of Noarlunga) Indenture Bill, 1958', 3-4, 'Broken Hill Proprietary Company's Steel Works Indenture Bill, 1958', 18 and'Pulp and Paper Mills Agreement Bill, 1958', 3. Labour Department, 'Report, 1960',4. Chapter Seven Factory Inspectors 165
cent in 1969.trs Renamed the Department of Labour and Industry in 1959, the inspection branch consisted of a chief inspector, senior inspector, 10 factory and boiler inspectors, 2 female inspectors, 2 safety officers and 2 assistants and, to control inflammable oils and shopping hours, a senior industrial inspector and 10 inspectors by 1960.13e
Factory inspectors were more proscriptive during the communist ascendancy
in the union movement and, to a lesser extent, during the years of long-lasting
industrial disputes of 1955 to 1960, than the comparatively harmonious period of
1950 to 1955:
Table 7.3: Use of proscription by factory inspectors, 1946-1958
Orders Industrial Code per Convictions annum per annum
t946-49 t22 T7 1950-55 42 15 1956-58 47 16
Source: Factories Department Reports: '1946',15-16,'1947',17-I8,'1948',17-I8,'1949',17-18, '1950" 18-19, '1951" 18-19, ',1952" 18-19, '1953" 17-18,',1954" 18-19, '1955" 18-19, ',1956" 18-19, '1957',12-13 and'1958', 16. The annual reports of the Department omitted these statistics for 1959 and 1960.
At least 32 per cent of the above orders were to curb occupational pollution by
controlling dust and renovating factories and declaring two sites unfit for factories in
1956.t+o The Department finally confirmed that many of these convictions were for
factory owners failing to protect workers from occupational pollution in 1958.rar
138. Factories and Labour Departments Reports: '1942' ,3, '1943' ,3, '1944' ,2, '1945' ,2, '1946' , 2, '1947' , 2, '1954' , 3-4, '1955', 3, '1958', 3 and '1960', 8. Statistical Registers: '1953154' , Part V, 68 and '1959/60' , Part V (b), 5, 139. Factories and Labour Departments Reports: '1959' ,3-5 ald '1960' , 4. 140. Factories Department Reports: '1946',15,'1947',17,'1948',17,'1949',17, '1950', 18, '1951" 18,',1952" 18,'1953" 17,',1954" 18,'1955" 18,'1956" 18,',l957"12and '1958" 16. 141. Ibid., '1958" 16. Chapter Seven Factory Inspectors 166
Although the Department conducted sufficient inspections to check each regulated factory thirteen times per annum, the control of rural factories undertaken by the
Department were omitted from its annual reports after the loss of three inspectors in
1952.r+z Unfortunately, the Department also ceased reporting the number of orders
and convictions it made in 1959 and 1960, when it reported on the educational work
conducted by the safety officers who tried to convince 4,810 industrial personnel to
institute safe working methods and set up safety committees at a safety convention in
1959 and by visiting 443 factories, running courses for supervisors and showing
safety films in 1960.143
Enforcement of controls of occupational pollution by factory inspectors from
1936 to 1939, when the Liberal governments strove to prevent strikes to bolster
industrialization, cut the complaints workers made over factory conditions to below
8 per cent of the total complaints received by the Department. \ühen workers struck
to force employers to improve working conditions from 1944 to 1949, it fell to the
Playford Government to ease industrial uffest by providing factory inspectors with
greater controls over occupational pollution, with industrialists only prepared to
grant additional payments. When workers ceased striking and put their lives and
health at risk to produce for the war effort and to industrialize the state thereafter,
the Playford Government offered bathrooms and reduced the regulatory effort of the
factory inspectors. When workers conducted protracted strikes from 1955 to 1960,
the Playford Government re-instigated the regulatory effort and sought to educate
industrial personnel on safety. The decline in the proscriptiveness of the Department
from 1950 to 1955 and increasingly poisonous industrialization helped make the
workplace four times more accident-prone than could be accounted for by the rise in
142.lbid.,'1946" 2, 15,',1947" 2,4, 17,',1948" 2,4, r7,',1949" 4,',1950" 3-4,',1951" 3,5, 18,'1952" 3-4,',1953" 4,',1954" 4,',1955" 5,'1956" 5. 143. Factories and Labour Department Reports: '1959' ,5-6 a¡rd '1960' ,7-8. Chapter Seven Factory Inspectors t67
employment. Occupational pollution was a contributing factor to these dangers which accounted for 69 per cent of industrial accidents in the 1930s and 78 per cent of these from 1946 to 1960. Educating industrial management from 1958 and using the prevalence of industrial disease to control occupational pollution from 1960 had yet to make an impact.
oo0oo
Unionists needed the government to employ factory inspectors to curb occupational
pollution because employers would only negotiate over the working environment at
four factories prior to 1892. While unionists convinced governments that massive
and protracted strikes could be avoided by regulating boot factories from 1885 and employing factory inspectors from 1895, as championed by the union-backed
parliamentarians and Labor Party, the hoped-for control over occupational pollution
could not be guaranteed. Unionists could only gain sustained bipartisan government
control over occupational pollution when governments found it to be in the interests of employers or economic development. Regardless of political inclination,
governments considered these interests materialized through the anarcho-syndicalist
and communist-led strikes of 1907, l9ll, 1918 to 1920, 1939 to I94l and 1944 to
1949, when seeking to curb strikes to encourage industrialists to establish large-scale works in South Australia from 1936 and to revive the productivity lost from
protracted strikes from 1955 to 1960.
Factory inspectors were able to improve occupational health by enforcing
pollution-preventing standards, as seen in changing factory architecture, when
industrialists came to view such controls as in their interests. The tariff protection
granted employers to offset the costs of reducing occupational pollution in 1895 did Chapter Seven Factory Inspectors 168
not work as well as their fear of contagion in 1899 and 1901, and the costs of forced renovations and worker's compensation from 1911. The factory inspectors were able to effect a healthier workplace by investigating industrial accidents from 1900, quantifying non-machinery accidents from L924 and, subject to fines, making industrialists ventilate works from 1900, provide 400 cubic feet of space for each worker, washbasins for poison handlers and flues for dangerous gases from 1907 and electric fan driven ventilation from 1909. These led factory builders in regulated zones to construct saw-tooth roofs from 1906, as well as encouraging the use of pollution-removing technologies, such as electric fans from 1909 and, on gaining the direct authority to require industrialists to renovate their works in 1920, to all submit plans for new factories to the factory inspectors from 1921. Coupled with the introduction of worker's compensation (which even convinced BHAS, which was immune from the control of the inspectors, to cut occupational pollution by one-third in l9l2), the inspectors were able to stabilize industrial accidents according to fluctuations in employment and the definition of an accident from 1911 to 1947. Educating industrial management from 1958 and using the prevalence of industrial disease to control occupational pollution from 1960 were yet to reduce industrial disease or accidents. When the government sought to curb strikes to promote the state to industrialists from 1936, factory inspectors were even able to reduce complaints from workers over factory conditions below 8 per cent of the complaints received until 1940.
When industrial harmony ruled, as in 1900 to 1906, 1933 to 1936, 1942,
1943 and 1950 to 1955, workers could expect governments to subvert regulation by diverting inspectors from controlling occupational pollution, make the same number of inspectors fulfil more duties or inspect more factories, and reduce the number of inspectors and the proportion of workers protected. rJ/ithout industrial unrest, Chapter Seven Factory Inspectors 169
workers could also expect accident rates to increase and for occupational pollution to be an increasingly contributing factor in non-machinery accidents which accounted
for 46 per cent of industrial accidents in the 192Os,69 per cent in the 1930s and 78 per cent from 1946 to 1960. For workers it truly seems that, if you do not fight,
you will lose by poisoning. Chapter Eight
Commonwealth Intervention
190l,-1960
Confined by the states retaining the constitutional powers to control industrial pollution, the Commonwealth Government could only act non-proscriptively, despite
South Australians supporting its creation to protect the River Murray from being polluted by factories in New South Wales and Victoria. The Commonwealth parliaments only successfully controlled industrial pollution in order to free inter- state trade from 1912, minimize its invalid pension, replace imports and improve production from 1916, and contain anarcho-syndicalism and bolshevism from 1919.
It protected significant South Australian toxic polluters at international forums to control pollution from 1921 and let Britain pollute the state with fall-out from atomic testing at Maralinga to consolidate defence against the communist bloc from
1953 to 1963.
Finding a Role: L90l-1914
Though created in part to prevent interstate pollution, the Commonwealth
Government was thwarted in this task by the constitution and state governments. It was thereby limited to setting an example to the states in the operation of its own industries, paying the invalid pension and being a conduit for the states to negotiate uniform regulations. Chapter Eight Commonw ealth Int erv ention t7t
The hopes some South Australians pinned on creating a Commonwealth
Government to prevent industrial pollution of the River Murray were dashed by the governments of Victoria and New South Wales. Many South Australians voted to create the Commonwealth Government in order to restrict interstate irrigation schemes and the pollution of the River Murray by at least six woolscourers and fellmongeries in eight towns in New South Wales and Victoria, so as to maintain water flows and enable irrigation in South Australia.r South Australians pressed the
Barton Commonwealth Government (1901-1903) to establish the River Murray
Commission to regulate the flow and purity of the water in the Darling and Murray rivers after the governments of Victoria and New South Wales refused to negotiate over the use of Murray water from 1886, even when the South Australian
Government threatened to have the British Home Office ban interstate irrigation.2
The Royal Commission set up by Barton chastised miners and industrialists for polluting the river:
The pollution of rivers by mine debris, and by the sludge from batteries and puddling mills, and, following the example of the miners, by the waste products of factories, is .... as old as gold-mining in the Australian States .... It cannot reasonably be contended that any body of men can acquire . ,. [this] ... right ... however profitable, at the expense of the health and well-being of the entire community.3
However, a 1903 Commonwealth-brokered deal to control both industrial pollution of the Murray and irrigation from its waters was never enforced, with the governments of New South Wales and Victoria only agreeing to ensure water flows,
1. 66 South Australians,4 September 1901, 'Petition. Inter-State Commission. Rivers Murray and Darling', in APP 1901-2 v. 1, 1117. River Murray lrrigation, 'Report, 1885', l-2. Correspondence between Premiers: '1886', Paper No, 59,3-4, Paper No. 59y'., l-2 and Paper No. 598 and'1889', 3, 18, 24, 33. 2. Correspondence between Premiers: '1886', Paper No. 59,3-4 and '1889', 33-4. J. Howe, 'Progress Report, 1890', vi-xiii, 'Second Report, 1890', v-vi and 'Repon, 1894',3. 66 South Australians, op. cit. G.J. Jenkins, 'Murray and Darling Waters Conservation', in APP 1901-2 v. 2,939. 3. cited F.F. Langley, 'Sanitary Conditions of the River Murray, 1924' ,31. Chapter Eight Co mmonw e alth Int e rv ent i on t72
leaving the Murray 'totally unfit for use' in South Australia in dry seasons.a \ilhen the South Australian Government threatened to sue interstate irrigators in 1914, the governments of New South Wales and Victoria agreed to form the River Murray Commission.5 The Commission comprised a representative of these state governments and the Commonwealth, which collectively provided funds of f4,663,000 to the Commission by taxing irrigators to undertake works to conserve water and limit irrigation.6
Commonwealth governments disregarded industrial pollution when striving to replace imports until Labor, ruling in its own right, introduced occupational and environmental protection in Commonwealth factories. Labor and protectionist
Liberals formed coalition governments from 1901 to 1904 and 1905 to 1909, as did free traders and conservative Liberals from 1904 to 1905 and 1913 to 1914, with
Labor winning office from 1910 to 1913.7 Desiring to establish a steel industry to replace imports and provide employment in 1904, the Liberal-Labor coalition only investigated pollutants which impeded steel production (coal ash, sulphur, silica and unnamed poisons), leaving the free trader Liberal J. Cook alone to ponder the occupational risks and uses for smelter byproducts.s Rather than control the safety of mining on Commonwealth lands, this coalition left that role to the states from
4, Commonwealth and State Ministers and Premiers Conference Reports: '1903', inAPP 1903 v.2, 1133-1135,'1906',inSAPP1906I75,199-200,206,'1906',inAPP1906v.2,1457,1464-6, 1481, 1484, 1488-9 and '1911', in SAPP 1911-12 7. Reports on River Murray (SA): '1905', 1, 3,9and'1906', 1,3. 'RiverMurrayWatersAgreement, 1914', PaperNo. T4 inSAPP I9I4l-2. 5. J. Cook, W.A. Holman, W.A. Watt and A.H. Peake, 'Murray River rùy'aters', ín APP l9I4 v.2, 650-2. E. Mead, 'River Murray Waters Agreement, Memorandum', inAPP 1914-15-16-17 v. 5, 6t4. 6. J. Cook, W.A. Holman, W.A. Watt and A.H. Peake, 'Murray River Waters' , in APP I9l4 v. 2, 650-2. E. Mead, 'River Murray Waters Agreement, Memorandum' , in APP 1914-15-16-17 v. 5, 6t3-14, 617. 7. F. Alexander, Australia Since Federation: A Narrative and Critical Analysis (Melbourne, 1976), 14-15, 17,20-1. 8. Royal Commission, 'Bonuses for Manufacturers Report' , in APP 1904 v . 2, I4l3-15, l43l , 1431, 1441, 1473, 1517-18, 1546, 1559, 1583. Chapter Eight C ommonw e alt h Int e rv ent i on 173
1906.e The Fisher Labor Government (1910-1913) only introduced occupational and environmental pollution controls at Commonwealth factories in 1912, by providing its cordite factory with a medical officer to examine industrial accidents and recruits, a casualty room, deep drainage and attempts to recycle the 10 to 14.5 million gallons of water contaminated with mineral acids per annum.10 However, with the Fisher ministry setting regulations which directed all Commonwealth
factory managers to put production efficiencies before occupational safety, its
clothing factory, not liable to the explosions and poisoning of the workforce of the
cordite factory, only gained a saw-tooth roof and wastes were disposed of in a fast
flowing river.l1
The Labor Party, while introducing the invalid pension in 1910, left it to
state governments to introduce worker's compensation, to provide relief to afflicted
workers and make it in the interests of employers to curb pollution. That Australia
lagged behind ten European countries in providing worker's compensation was due,
the Labor Party claimed, to better climate, working conditions and wages, not a lack
of poisonings from anthrax, arsenic, caustics, dust, mercury, phosphorous, sulphur
and tar or chimney sweeper's cancer.12 State governments left injured workers to
rarely successful common-law suits for negligence.13 Linking the national 'weal or
woe' to those of workers, the Labor Party considered compelling workers to insure
9. Commonwealth and State Premiers and Ministers Conference, 'Report, 1906', in APP 1906v.2, 1351. 10. Commonwealth Government Cordite Factory Reports: 'l9l2ll3' and'l9l3ll4', in APP I914- I5-16-17 v. 2,220,230. 11. Cordite workers suffered six cases of pollution related diseases and a 'heavy loss of life' from two explosions trom 1912 to 1914. [bid.,220,228-9. A. Gould, 'Factories Established by the Commonwealth Since 1910', in APP 1912v.3,209. J. Smail, 'Woollen Factory Sites', in,4PP 1912 v. 3, 2ll-13 and 'Woollen Cloth Factory Report, I9l5l16' , in APP 1917-18-19 v. 4, 1189- 90, 12. LA. Cockburn, 'International Workmen's Congress in Vienna, 1905', in APP 1907 v. 1, 541. Social Insurance Reporrs: APP 1909 v. 2, 1396, APP 1910 v. 2, 1363 and APP 1911 v. 2, 986-7 , 13. Ibid., APP 1911 v.2,986. Chapter Eight Commonwe alth Int e rv enti on 174
themselves against occupational risks, such as pollution, banning pregnant women from some work and training doctors to treat industrial diseases.14 G.H. Knibbs, the
Commonwealth Statistician, advocated making employers contribute, to provide an incentive to reduce the exposure of both workers and their communities to pollution and for the Commonwealth to administer the scheme so as to monitor the prevalence of industrial disease.ls The Fisher Labor ministry was criticizedby international
conferences on social insurance for introducing an invalid pension in 1910 and a f5
maternity allowance to free pregnant women from work prior to confinement in
1912, without requiring workers to contribute.16 On providing these funds and
worker's compensation to its own employees and seamen from 1912, the Labor ministry thought employees, employers and state governments should share the
expense of compensation insurance which state governments introduced from 1911
to 1918, beginning in South Australia.lT
Most Commonwealth politicians supported standardizing state food purity
regulations, while state governments clung to the power to make such regulations. In 1907 the Deakin Liberal-Labor ministry (1905-1908) convinced all state governments to standardize quarantine regulations for livestock, which South
Australia introduced in 1910.18 To promote public health and free trade the Fisher
Labor and Cook free-trade governments gained the endorsement of the chief health
officers of the state governments for uniform regulations to control the spread of
tuberculosis through pork, equivalent to those enforced by South Australian
14. Ibid., APP 1909 v.2, 1397-8. 15. Ibid., APP 1910 v.2, 1359, 1364, 1430, 1433, 1435-6. 16. Ibid., APP lgll v.2,985-7. J. Matthews,'Report, l9l7',inAPP I9l7-18-19v.5, 1013. 17. 'social Insurance', in APP 1911 v.2,987. G.H. Knibbs, Official Year Book of the Commonweatth of Australia, Containing Authoritative StaÍistics for the Period I90I-19 and Corrected Statistics for the Period 1788 to 1900 (Melbourne, 1920), 988-9. 18. Commonwealth and States Conference, 'Report 1908', Paper No. 23 in SAPP 1908 vü. 'Blue Book, 1910',41. Chapter Eight C ommonw e alt h I nt e rv ent i on t75
councils.le In 1914 the Cook ministry (1913-1914) succeeding in convincing state governments to apply Victorian and New South Wales food standards which, while proscribing contamination by poisonous preservatives and colourings, contact with flies, insecticides, dust or unhygienic workers, still permitted miniscule amounts of arsenic, lead and tin.20 While agreeing to the benefits of Australia-wide food purity standards, state health officers and the governments of New South Wales and
Victoria opposed Commonwealth control, claiming that only the states could ensure
'uniform efficiency and disinterested administration' and cherishing their market dominance.2l The state governments were yet to act on Commonwealth appeals to energetically inspect milk production, train milk processors and control working and housing conditions for pregnant women in order to curb the deaths of infants from pollution-related diseases, as identified by the London Conference on Infant
Mortality in 1913.22
South Australians experienced industrial pollution as a result of state governments refusing to grant the Commonwealth the right to control pollution created in one state and passed to another through the Murray. Where the
Commonwealth held direct influence over industrial pollution, it would merely standardize food purity regulations to allow local processors access to interstate markets and would merely stem pollutants which impeded the production of steel and munitions, leaving mining pollution to the states and clothing pollution to a waterway. As the Commonwealth had been prepared to pay the invalid pension to those injured by industrial pollution from 1910 and was limited to an advisory
19. Acting-Director of Quarantine, 'Tuberculosis', in APP 1911v.2, 106l-3. Commonwealth and States Conference, 'Report, l9l3' , in APP 191 3 v ' 3 , 13-14, 28-31 ' 20. Ibid., 14-15, l8-2I and'1914' , in APP 1914 v ' 2,265,276,320' 21. Ibid.,' 1913', in APP 191 3 v . 3, 14 and' l9l4', in APP I 9 I 4 v. 2, 317 -19, 32I. 22. Dr. M. Booth, 'Infant Mortality" ln APP 1913 v.3, 65-8. Chapter Eight C o mmonw e alth Int e rv ent i on 176
capacity, it could convince state governments to introduce worker's compensation, but not to limit industrial pollution, regardless of the impact on infants.
Inspiration Dimmed: 1914-1929
International conflict inspired Commonwealth governments to identify shortfalls in
public health, conceal the pollution produced by its munitions works, and to fund
research to recycle pollutants to replace lost imports and, after the Great War, to improve trade balances. To undermine anarcho-syndicalists and bolshevism,
Commonwealth governments also sought to curb occupational pollution in all but
core industries until Australians and the premiers rebutted this role.
Both Labor and National governments, while striving to replace lost imports
by recycling pollutants, concealed military pollution rather than effecting cleaner production. While these governments offered rewards to encourage local
industrialists to manufacture the poisonous and dangerous chemicals imported from
Germany prior to 1914, they funded an Advisory Council of Science and Industry
from 1916 to aid such manufacturing by finding the means to recycle pollutants.23 However, making munitions production the epitome and 'brain' of Australian
manufacturing during the war, did not translate into using the four-fold increase in
military expenditure to nearly f10 million per annum to prevent industrial pollution,
only to co-ordinate local manufacturers to supply Australian and British war needs.24
23. The Council advocated reducing industrial pollution by biologically controlling agricultural pests rather than using poisons, by tanners pruning rather than felling endangered wattles for tannin and industrialists refining wool washing wastes for lanolin, winery wastes for cream of tartar and the use of smoke-free alcohol driven engines in factories. Royal Commission, 'Trade and Industry During the War Report', in APP 1914-15-16-17 v. 5, l5l-2, 169, 174-84. Commonwealth Advisory Council of Science and Industry, 'Report, 1916l17' , in APP 1917-18-19 v. 5, 833, 843, 849, 850-1, 854-5, 858-64, 867,870. 24. P.T. Owen, 'Proposed Federal Arsenal', in APP 1914-15-16-17 v.2, I39, l4l-2. R.McC. Anderson, 'synopsis Report on the Business of Defence', ín APP 1914-15-16-17 v.2, I53. Munitions Committee, 'Report, 1915', in APP I914-15-16-17 v.5,1423. Chapter Eight Commonw e alt h Int e rv ention 177
Indeed, Labor and National governments hid the pollution from the munitions factories and defence projects under wartime security, merely hinting that munitions works polluted water and ceasing to detail instances of pollution and industrial disease at munitions factories from l9l5.2s Even the Parliamentary Select
Committee on Public Works thought such security too extreme, when prevented
from vetting twelve minor Defence projects ftom 1917.26
Labor keenly sought to educate the states to curb pollution-related disease
through the construction of military camps and Canberra and the inquiries of the
Committee of Invalidity, which fell victim to National Government cost-cutting,
The Hughes Labor ministry (1915-1916) formed the Committee of Invalidity in
1916 to determine why large numbers of army volunteers were rejected by medical
examiners, when the common perception was that young Australians were healthy
and strong, and to curb the cost of the invalid pension.2T Both Labor and National
governments supported this Committee which commended the states for reducing
tuberculosis and typhoid by building sewers, regulating food purity and factory
ventilation, pasteurizing milk and segregating the sick.28 The Committee found the
two major threats to public health were typhoid amongst rural infants, which could
be prevented by Commonwealth-funded sewerage schemes, and miners suffering a
25. The Department only reported three instances of pollution, five cases of industrial disease in 1915, curbing fire hazards and covering a drain at its munitions works. P.T. Owen, 'Visit to India by Arsenal Committee', in APP 1914-15-16-17 v.2, 146. R.McC. Anderson, 'Synopsis Report on the Business of Defence',ln APP 1914-15-16-17 v.2, 162. Commonwealth Government cordite Factory Reports: ',l9l4ll5" '1915116" ',1916/17', and',l9l7l18" in APP
1 9 1 4- 1 5 - I 6- I 7 v. 2, 236 md APP I 9 I 7- I 8- I 9 v' 4, !162, 1166, l2l8-19, 1269. 26. Parliamentary Select Committee on Public Works, 'Third General Report', inAPP I9I7-18-19v' 6,51. 27. P. Morron, Afrer Light: A History olthe City of Adelaide and its Council, 1878-1928 (Adelaide, 1996), 176. J. Matthews, 'Tuberculosis, 1916', inAPP 1914-15-16-17 v' 5. 28. Ibid.,'Tuberculosis, 1916'and'Typhoid,1916',inAPP1914-15-16-17v.5,74,77,88,91,97- 8, l0l-2,'Infant Mortality', ín APP 1917 v.2,615,621-2,626-7,644-5,648 and 'Final Report, 1918', in APP I917-18-19v.5, lO34' Chapter Eight C o mmo nw e alt h Int e rv ention 178
high proportion of work-related tuberculosis.2e Labor ministries heeded this advice at military camps throughout Australia and when building Canberra, by modelling
sewerage works on those of Adelaide and locating a small arms factory north of the
capital, to prevent the pollution of Canberra and New South rùy'ales.30 This instance
of preventing river pollution to ease interstate tensions did little for the River
Murray Commission which, operating from 31 January 1977 , could only measure the water taken from, not stop the wastes returned to, the River Murray and its
tributaries by 17 saw mills, 12 manufacturers, 4 butter factories, 3 dairies and a fruit
processor, winery and paper mill from 1918,31 Environmental considerations in the
construction of Canberra ended when the Hughes National Government (1916-1923)
opted for cheaper fuel-generated, rather than cleaner hydro-electricity and permitted
fossil beds to be destroyed to make bricks for houses in Canberra.32 After the war National governments continued wartime measures which
prevented industrial pollution to encourage recycling to curb imports and reduce the
cost of the invalid pension, while resurrecting occupational pollution controls at
munitions factories. Finding uses for industrial pollutants was one of the reasons the
Hughes National Government reinstated the Advisory Council of Science and
Industry in 1920 as the Commonwealth Institute of Science and Industry, which
became the Council for Scientific and Industrial Research (CSIR) in 1926.33 lts
research found that industry could be provided with a clean-burning alcohol fuel
29. Ibid., 'Tuberculosis, 1916', 90 and 'Infant Mortality', 644,652' 30. R.McC. Anderson, 'synopsis Report on the Business of Defence', inAPP 1914-15-16-17v.2, 161. G.E. Rich, 'Liverpool Military Camp Reports',inAPP 1914-15-16-17v.2,275,279,287. Parliamentary Select Committee on Public Works, 'Report on Sewer for Canberra' and 'Report on Small Arms Factory', in APP l9l4-15-16-17 v. 4, 863, 882, 907 , 926, 930, 1197 , 1200, 1250-1, t255-7. 31. River Murray Commission Reports: 'l9l7' , '1917 l18' and '1918/ 19' , in APP l9I7-18-19 v . 5, 1139,1148, 1196-1200. 32. W.Blacket,'Reports (5) and (6)', in APP 1917 v' 2, 53-4, 59, 63, 77. 33. CSIR, 'Report, 1926127' , it APP 1926-27-28 v. 5,2379' Chapter Eight C o mmonw e alt h I nt e rv e nt i o n 179
derived from waste cellulose and tanners with a variety of tannin producing trees, after known sources were close to extinction, by 7927.34 The Gunn ministry reiterated such advice to inform tanners of the profits and edge which could be gained over Victorian competitors by also recycling trade wastes into charcoal, acetone and wood pulp.35 However, the Bruce National Government (1923-1929) only acted to prevent atmospheric sulphur pollution to end the reliance on imported sulphur to produce fertilizer and munitions, by paying bounties equal to the wages of 'Wallaroo-Mount 161 workers to BHAS at Port Pirie and 510 workers at the Lyell
Co. works at Birkenhead and Wallaroo from 1925.36 Aping the United States, the
Hughes and Bruce governments funded research to reduce the cost of the invalid pension, by forming a Department of Health in 7921, funding some district medical officers and, from 1927, the School of Public Health at the University of Sydney, and coaxing state governments to apply uniform health standards.3T Managers resumed their efforts to curb occupational pollution in munitions factories while the
Department of Defence stimulated local production of pollution protection devices, such as respirators, to experiment with poison gas from 1924.38 Meanwhile, the
Department of Defence began polluting South Australia with weapons testing at the
Port Wakefield proof range fuom 1926.3e
The National governments also acted to curb industrial pollution to curtail anarcho-syndicalism and bolshevism, in-so-far-as core South Australian enterprises
34, Ibid., 2379, 2398. 35. Royal Commission on Manufacturing, 'First Report, 1926', iii, vi. 36. 'Bounties', in APP 1925 v.2,895-9. Director of Development, 'Superphosphate Industry', in APP 1932-33-34 v. 4, 13. Royal Commission, 'Report on Plumbism, 1925' ,7 ' 37. Matthews, 'Final Report, 1918', in APP 1917-18-19 v.5, 1034. Royal Commission, 'Health Report, 1925', in APP 1926-27-28v.4, 1290-1. Parliamentary Standing Committee on Public Works, 'Report, 1927' , in APP 1926-27-28 v. 4, 793, 795 ' 38. DefenceFactoriesManagers,'Reports, l920l2l',inAPP 1922v.2, 1577,1588, 1590, 1593. Munitions Supply Board Reports: '1922123', in APP 1923-24 v. 4,282 and'1923124', in APP 1925 v. 2, 45. 39. Ibid.,' 1925 126', in APP I 926-27-28 v' 2, 286. Chapter Eight Co mmo nw e alt h I nt e rv enti on 180 were not impeded. Prime Minister W.M. Hughes certainly contended that improving the lot of workers was the best means of defeating the Industrial Workers of the World and bolshevism.a0 Though moderately expressed, so, too, did the heads of states drafting the Treaty of Versailles, which committed signatories to
form the International Labour Organization to end the:
... conditions of labour [which] exist involving such injustice, hardship and privation to large numbers of people as to produce unrest so great that the peace and harmony of the world is imperilled .... [and to protect] the worker against sickness, 41 disease and injury arising out of hit employment .. '
For these reasons the Hughes Government, on the advice of the Committee on
Invalidity to curtail tuberculosis by supplying workers with more fresh air, in 1919
initiated trials amongst miners, the group at greatest risk from the disease.a2 The
Hughes administration also brought Australia into accord with half the founding
principles of the ILO in 1919 by setting the basic wage to enable a worker to support
an average family.a3 To improve the working environment ravaged by epidemics of miner's phthisis, silicosis, and lead poisoning at BHAS, the Hughes ministry
included a division to research industrial hygiene in the Department of Health from
7921.44 Rather than have the Commonwealth publicly investigate state health
services, the states implemented some federal suggestions to improve industrial
hygiene, such as South Australian factory inspectors following ILO inspecting and
40. cited V, Burgmann, Revolutionøry Industial Unionism: The Industrial Workers of the World in Australia (Melbourne, 1995),143. cited Royal Commission, 'Basic Wage Report', inAPP 1920- 21 v. 4, 535. 41. 'Treaty of Peace, Versailles, 1919', in APP 1917-18-19 v ' 4, l0l7 . 42. Matthews, 'Final Report, 1918', in APP 1917-18-19v' 5,103I' 43. Child labour was already banned and working conditions were regulated in Australia prior to 1919. Australian governments were flexible over the eight hour day and the right to unionize, The remaining founding principles of the ILO were the payment of a living wage and equal pay for men and women. 'Treaty of Peace, Versailles, 1919', in APP 1917-18-19 v. 4, 1017, 1022. Royal Commission, 'Basic Wage Report' , in APP 1920-21 v ' 4, 535-6' 44. M. Hearn and H. Knowles, One Big (Jnion: A History of the Australian Workers Union 1886- 1994 (Melbourne, 1996), 160. Royal Commission Reports: 'Health, 1925', inAPP 1926-27-28 v. 4, I290-l and 'Plumbism, 1925' , 49. Chapter Eight Commonw ealth Int e rv ention 181
reporting procedures.a5 Both the Hughes and Bruce National governments only
sought to prevent the ILO from championing occupational pollution controls for core
Australian wool and lead industries.a6
However, with the electorate and premiers refusing to cede any industrial
pollution controlling authority to the Commonwealth, National governments ceased
attempting to influence state workplace regulations. The cost of sewering rural
towns to prevent industries and townsfolk polluting rivers, blamed nationally for
causing typhoid epidemics since 1918, made the premiers refuse Bruce's offer of joint venture in 1923 and limited the Commonwealth to sewering Canberra until
Bruce made sewering rural towns an election pledge in 1929.41 These costs also
limited the River Murray Commission to getting the Victorian Government to filter
the wastes produced at Tallangatta in 1922 and the New South Wales Government to
promise to prevent soil erosion at the proposed hydro-electric scheme at the Hume
Reservoir.as Australian employers' delegates to the ILO broke ranks with fellow
Government and workers' representatives from 1925, when Australian employers
considered the workplace sufficiently reformed, by opposing conventions seeking to
rectify defects in worker's compensation insurance, testing the efficacy of factory
45. Premiers' Conference, 'Report, 1923',80-I,84. Royal Commission, 'Health Report, 1925', in APP 1926-27-28 v. 4, 1288-9. Inspector of Factories Reports: '1923' ,3 and '1926' ,3. 46. Rather than ban white lead from paint and require wool to be disinfected for anthrax, Australian delegates convinced the conferences to make lead and anthrax poisoning notifiable, warn spray painters of hazards and set safe working conditions in the white lead industry, by arguing that substitutes for lead in paint were unavailable and disinfecting wool for anthrax inhibited dyes. ILO Reports; '1921',inAPP 1922v.2, 1639,1642-7,'1924', inAPP 1925 v.2, 1159-60 and ' 1925', in APP 1926-27-28 v. 5, 1274, 1295. 47, Matthews, 'Final Report, 1918', in APP 1917-18-19 v.5, 1031, 1033. Premiers' Conference, 'Report, 1923',80-4. Langley,'SanitaryRequirementsof theRiverMurray,1924',5, 15, 19, 22. Parliamentary Standing Committee on Public Works, 'Report', inAPP 1925 v.2, 156-7. Commonwealth and State Ministers Conference, 'Report, 1929' , in APP 1929 v. 2, 1438. 48. Langley, 'Sanitary Requirements of the River Murray,1924', 5, 8-11, 14-17,20,22. River Murray Commission Reports: '1921122', in APP 1922 v.2, 1858, '1922123 and 1923124', in APP 1923-24 v. 2, 1549, 1597-8, 1601, '1924/25' , '1925126' and '7926127' , in APP 1926-27-28 v . 5, 2225, 227 4-5, 2329 and' 1927 128', in APP I 929 v . 2, 2167 . Chapter Eight Commonw e alth Int e rv enti on t82 regulations or even publicizing industrial safety.ae Defects in worker's compensation insurance (insurance companies would not cover those workers most at risk from industrial diseases, state governments did not require doctors to notify
authorities of industrial diseases and employers preferred to pay 'dirt money' rather than, as in the USA, curb pollution or provide medical services), led the Bruce
Government to hold a referendum in 1926 to gain direct control over workplace
regulations from the states.50 On losing the referendum, the Bruce ministry merely
fulfilled international obligations to compensate residents of the British Empire injured in Australian workplaces, while trying to shift the cost of gold-miners'
compensation from itself to state governments in 1928.51 Both Bruce and the
premiers excused themselves from ratifying ILO conventions from 7927 .s2 ln 1929,
the Bruce Government contented itself with gaining pledges from Australian chief
health officers to improve industrial hygiene and from premiers to introduce ILO
conventions, as it opted out of occupational pollution regulations completely.s3 Wartime needs for healthy recruits and import replacement led
Commonwealth governments to investigate public health, cajole state governments
to introduce standard health regulations and fund research to recycle pollutants. The
research funded by the Commonwealth to improve working conditions and public
49. ILO Reports: ',1925" in APP 1926-27-28 v. 5, 1273-4 and '1928" in APP 1929 v.2, 1812, t8r9-22, 1825-7. 50, Royal Commission Reports: 'National Insurance', ínAPP 1925 v.2,1280,'Health, 1925'and 'National Insurance', in APP 1926-27-28 v. 4, 1249, 1289-90, 1301, 1469. R.J. Murphy, 'Manufacturing Industries in the United States Report, 1925', in APP 1926-27-28 v. 5, 1145, 1183-5. ILO, 'Report, 1925', in APP 1926-27-28 v. 5, 1264-5. Commonwealth and State Ministers Conference, 'Report, 1929' , ln APP 1929 v. 2, 1429. 51. Imperial Conference Reports: '1923' , in APP 1923-24 v. 2, 648 and'1926' , in APP 1926-27-28 v.5, 1077. H.W. Gepp, 'Gold-Mining Industry of Australia Repof', inAPP 1926-27-28v.5, 619. Commonwealth and State Ministers Conferences, 'Report, 1929' , in APP 1929 v.2, 1429. 52. Ibid., 'Report, 1927',Paper No. 63 inSAPP 192747. ILO Reports: '1927',inAPP 1926-27- 28 v. 5, 1372 and'1928' , in APP 1929 v . 5, 1822. 53. Federal Health Council, 'Report, 1927', in APP 1926-27-28 v. 5,771-2,777. Commonwealth and State Ministers Conference, 'Report, 1929' , in APP 1929 v. 2, 1434, 1438-9. Chapter Eight Commonw ealth Int erv ention 183
health by curbing industrial pollution from 1.916, led to the creation of the
Commonwealth Department of Health with an industrial hygiene section in 1921, and eventually to CSIR. Industrialists, however, were unwilling to recycle pollutants until the Bruce Government offered bounties to supply sulphur for
fertilizer and munitions from 1925. Neither industrialists, Australians nor state governments were prepared to permit the Commonwealth to establish worker's
compensation which financially penalized the most polluting industrialists. Neither
the Commonwealth nor state governments would provide the funds to curb industrial
pollution by building rural sewerage schemes to prevent disease, other than for
military camps during the Great War, and also for Canberra. Meanwhile invalid
pensioners increased from 4.8 to 6.7 to 9.7:1,000 Australians from 1916 to 1920 to
1930, respectively.5a Commonwealth governments made little of the League of
Nations Health Organization, which was set up to fight typhoid in 1921, and which
provided a venue for Britain to gather support for an international ban on oil spills in
navigable waterways and fishing grounds in l926.ss
Only What Pays: 1929-1945
The resistance of the Australian electorate and state premiers and the crises of the
Great Depression and World War Two limited the control of industrial pollution by
Labor and United Australia governments to the River Murray, munitions factories
and import replacement.
54. 'Invalid and Old Age Pension Statement, 1916ll7', in APP 1917-18-19 v. 5, 1039. Social Services, 'Report, l94ll42' , 1940-41-42-43 v.2,287 . Knibbs, Commonwealth Year Book, I90I- 19 83, tt9. 55.LeagueofNationsReports:'1921',inAPP1920-21v.4,780and'1922',inAPP1923-24v.2, 688-9. Imperial Conference, 'Report, 1926' , in APP 1926-27-28 v. 5, 1083-4. Chapter Eight Commonw e alth Int e rv ention 184
The Scullin Labor administration (1929-1932) abandoned the ILO, preferring to counter industrial pollution through research and the River Murray Commission during the Great Depression. Government delegates sided with those of employers to oppose all ILO conventions in 1929 and 1930, while the Scullin ministry missed
the 1931 conference to save money.56 The states were left to determine whether to
implement ILO conventions to protect waterside workers from pollutants, teach and
house a permanent display on industrial safety from L929, have factory inspectors
report to the ILO in 1930 and declare silicosis as an industrial disease in 1931.s7
Joining the ban on gas warfare in 1930 and call for bans on chemical and bacterial
weapons, aerial bombardment and flame-throwers in 1932, cost Australia little as it
had no significant production of these weapons.5s Commonwealth advocacy of
recycling pollutants continued, with the Departments of Development and Trade
claiming Australia could save over f165,000 per annum in imports by extracting
tartaric acid, tannin and grape seed oil from the 7 million gallons of winery wastes
produced annually, as practised overseas and by one Barossa winery by 1931.se The
School of Public Health finally opened in 1930 to train doctors and undertake
research.60 But, only the River Murray Commission actually prevented industrial
degradation of the environment by reducing the volume of the Hume Reservoir to 63
per cent of what the governments of New South Wales and Victoria had sought to
56. ILO Reports: 'lg}g' and '1930' ln APP 1929-30-31 v.2,733-4,789,792,795,'I93I' and '1933' in APP 1932-33-34v.4,9,ll-I2,15, 53. 57, Ibid., '1929'and '1930' inAPP 1929-30-31 v.2,733-4,737-9,743,779,789, 807 and'1931' inAPP 1932-33-34 v. 4,9,23' 58. 'Treaties to which Australia is Party', in APP 1934-35-36-37 v.3,271' J.G' Latham, 'Disarmament Conference, 1932', in APP I 932-3 3-34 v. 4, ll, 15, 19-20' 59. The Barossa winery derived cream of tartar from 10,000 gallons of winery wastes annually and a Sydney firm recouped potash and glycerine, CSIR, 'Report, 1928/29', in APP 1929-30-31 v.2, 2299. Director of Development, 'Report on Wine Industry', in APP 1929-30-31 v. 3, 395-6. 60. Commonwealth Health Department, 'Report, 1969170' , in APP 1970 v. 4,789. Chapter Eight Commonw ealt h Int erv ention 185
use in l930l3l to produce hydro-electricity, in order to prevent sea water entering the Murray Mouth.61
Such policies were continued by the Lyons United Australia Government
(1932-1939), while advances in defence technology permitted workers to operate in polluted environments. The River Murray Commission prevented industrial pollution by making two Victorian mining ventures leave flood plains and filter wastes through marginal lands to stop algal blooms in the Hume Reservoir from
1932 to 1934.62 Civil servants convinced the Lyons administration to maintain tariffs on sulphur so that refineries, such as BHAS, would continue to supply fertilizer producers rather than pollute the atmosphere, while three South Australian companies still imported 13,000 tons of US sulphur per annum.63 The Lyons ministry hoped to realize similar trade balance improvements in 1937 by directing the CSIR to find useful products from industrial wastes which caused much water pollution, such as wool grease, in the hope of emulating the success of abattoirs and gas works in recycling wastes.64 But advice from CSIR personnel to drop the alcohol excise to enable sugar and wood wastes to be distilled to provide cleaner fuel for factory engines and vehicles was unheeded.65 However, under the Lyons ministry, the Commonwealth munitions works trained civilians to use gas masks to prevent industrial disease from acid fumes, spray-painting, sand-blasting and
61. River Murray Commission Reports: '1929130' and '1930/31', in APP 1929-30-31 v.2,2248, 2265. 62. lbid.,'1931132', in APP 1932-33-34 v. 4, 8, '1932133', \n APP 1932-33-34 v.4,7 and ' 1934 135' a¡rd' 1935 136', in APP I 934-3 5-36-37 v . 3, 1238, 1268-9. 63. Director of Development, 'Superphosphate Industry', in APP 1932-33-34 v.4,4-5, 11, 13-15, 23. 64. G.A. Julius, 'Secondary Industries Testing and Research Report, 1937', in APP 1937-38-39-40 v. 4,943-4,959. CSIR Reports: '1937138' and '1938/39', in APP 1937-38-39-40 v. 4, 784, 861. 65. CSIR, 'Oil Production from Coal'and'Oil from Coal', in APP 1937v.5,2455,2459,2461. L.J. Rogers, 'Power Alcohol Industry', inAPP 1937-38-39-40v.3,1842-3,1845, 1854-5. Chapter Eight Commonw e alth Int e rv ention 186
solvents on the request of industrialists and factory regulators from 1933.66 The medical services and industrial hygiene afforded Commonwealth munitions workers kept pace with expanded production and proofing instigated by European insecurity,
such that only one case of industrial disease was reported between 1935 and 1938.61
Once more the Commonwealth Government began linking all Australian industry to
supplying defence needs and aircraft production in the event of war without making
pollution prevention a condition of contractual arrangements.6s
The Lyons Government also failed to champion ILO conventions to control
industrial diseases or compensate the victims. The Lyons administration absented Australia from the ILO conference of 1932 and ignored the global interest in
worker's compensation until 1935.6e Australian workers' delegates to the ILO
rebuked the government for the absence, not ratifying conventions and, with the press, failing to publicize the conventions, contending that it was in the national
interest to ensure that all nations operated under similar working conditions.T0 The
Lyons ministry countered by noting a lack of signatories internationally, blaming
state governments for not ratifying forty-eight ILO conventions, some of which
aimed to curtail occupational pollutants and compensate workers for industrial
disease.Tl However, it made no attempt to implement its findings, British practices
66. Commonwealth and State Ministers Conferences Reports: '1934' utd'1936', in APP 1934-35- 36-37 v.2, l0-ll, I'7, 45,56-7,75, I75. Munitions Supply Board Reports: 'l93ll32to 1932133' , 1934-35-36-37 v.2, 557. 67. Itwastheresultof benzolpoisoning in1937138. Ibid.,'1935136and1936137'and'1937138',in APP 1937-38-39-40 v. 2, 350-1, 388. Senator Foll, 'New Defence Programme, 1938', in APP 1 937-38-39-40 v. 2, 404. 68. Ibid., 403. 69. Social Insurance, 'Investigations Abroad', in APP 1934-35-36-37 v.3, 1579. ILO Reports: '1933', in APP 1932-33-34 v. 4, 53 and'1934' and '1936', in APP 1934-35-36-37 v' 2, 676, 696-8,745,765. 70. Ibid., '1931' and '1933' , in APP 1932-33-34 v. 4, 9, 16 and '1937' , in APP 1937-38-39-40 v. 3, 76,80-1. 71. 'Treaties to which Australia is Party', inAPP 1934-35-36-37 v.3,242-3,268-72,274. ILO, 'Report, 1937' , in APP 1937-38-39-40 v. 3,74,76, 108. Chapter Eight Co mmo nw e alt h I nt e rv ent i o n 187
and the ILO convention of 1925 that fixed the price of employer contributions to the risks of their trades in the hope of reducing industrial hazards and the burden on government pensions.T2 It only sought uniform controls for drugs, poisons and
controlling tuberculosis from state health authorities in the mid-1930s through the
Federal Health Council, which became the NHMRC in 1936.13 Subsequently,
Australian working conditions declined with silicosis and poisoning from arsenic,
benzene, carbon di-sulphide, hydrocarbons, phosphorous and ionizing radiation
uncompensatable diseases and no requirement for workers at risk to be medically
examined.Ta
As the ILO committed to defeating the axis powers and working for post-war
reconstruction from 194I,75 Commonwealth governments only controlled industrial
pollution according to the need to replace imports. While the occupational health of
munitions workers was once more shrouded in wartime secrecy, the Commonwealth
munitions factories of west Adelaide polluted Port Adelaide by overloading its
sewage works until munitions production ceased in 1946.76 While the Menzies
Government (1939-194I) ignored warnings of the dire need to produce gas
converters and subsidize distilling alcohol from industrial wastes and gas from coal
to assure fuel supplies for factories and transport, the Curtin Labor Government
(194I-1945) dropped these schemes as soon as crude oil and refining equipment
72.lbid., '1925', in APP 1926-27-28 v. 5, 1273-4. Social Insurance, 'Investigations Abroad', in App tg34-35-36-37 v. 3, 1583, 1585. W.S. Kinnear, 'Health and Pensions Insurance', in'APP 1937 v. 5,2226-7 . 73. Central Board of Health Reports: '1933' , 5,'1934' , 4, '1935' , 4 and'1936' , 4. 74. ILO Reports: ',1925' , in APP 1926-27-28 v. 5, 1274, 1295, ',1933', , in APP 1932-33-34 v. 4, 16 and' L934', in APP 1934-35-36-37 v' 2, 696. 75. Ibid., '1941', inAPP 1940-41-42-43 v.2,418-9. 76. The Port Adelaide sewage works treated a record 4,748,000 gallons of sewage and industrial waste on 16 September 1942. Parliamentary Standing Committee on Public Works, 'Further Extension of Port Adelaide Sewage Treatment Works, 1946' , Paper No. 33 in SAPP 1946 6. Chapter Eight C ommonw e alth Int e rv ention 188
were made available on lend-lease from the USA in 1943.17 However, the Menzies
Government established a Division of Industrial Chemistry within the CSIR to find uses for the wastes produced by the processors of metal, wool, fibre, leather and dairy goods in 1940.78 This Division found that Australia had an exportable supply of lanolin in the 100 million pounds of wool wax discarded each season and could
supply Britain with dehydrated milk from two-thirds of the butter milk wasted by
Australian cheese and butter producers.Te Under Labor governments, the Division
replaced imported bakelite with leather scraps and glue, soaked paper in wool wax
for food wrapping and investigated preventing pollution from soaking hides and
retting fibres, a non-oxidizing means to capture sulphur from ores and uses for whey
and tallow byproducts.sO The belief in the ability of science to solve all problems
was apparentby 1944, with the Division working on a means of concentrating South Australian uranium and the CSIR recommending DDT as an 'outstandingly
effective' insecticide to farmers.sl Only when victory seemed assured in 1944 did
the NHMRC look to the needs of post-war Australia, begin discussing industrial hygiene and call for improved sanitation, sewage, medical services in rural
communities and larger health departments.s2
Instances of Commonwealth agencies preventing industrial pollution were
sparse indeed between 1929 and 1945. The River Murray Commission had
prevented three industrial enterprises from polluting the river between 1932 and
77. T\e wastes included acetone, stock feed, potash and fusel oil. Standing Committee on Liquid Fuels Reports: '25 July 1939'and'6 November 1939', in APP 1937-38-39-40v.3,1827,1837- 9 and'1940' , in APP 1940 v. 6, 225-9. A.W. Fadden, 'Report of the Power Alcohol Committee of Inquiry, 1941', in APP 1940-41-42-43 v.3,422,450,459,467-8. Parliamentary Standing Committee on Public Works, 'Report, 1943' , in APP 1940-41-42-43 v.2, 675, 680. 78. CSIR, 'Report, 1939140',inAPP 1940-41-42-43 v. 3, 558. 79. Ibid.,'1940141', in APP 1940-41-42-43 v. 3, 657-8. 80. Ibid., '1941/42', in APP 1940-41-42-43 v. 3,732,747-9 md'1942143' a¡d'1944145', in APP 1943-44, 1944-45 and 1945-46 v . 2, 1042, 1046 and v. 4, 1505. 81. Ibid.,' 1944145', ín APP 1943-44, 1944-45 and 1945-46 v. 4, 1417, 1502. 82. Central Board of Health Reports: '1943' , 4 and'1944' , 4' Chapter Eight Commonw ealth Int e rv ention 189
1934. Commonwealth governments found value in applying measures at munitions factories during peacetime that the ILO hoped all industrialists would use to prevent occupational pollution. Yet, though training doctors in public health from 1930, the Commonwealth would not advocate that the states enforce similar measures, opposed all ILO conventions from 1929 and, rather than work to get silicosis declared an industrial disease by the states in 1931, offered gas mask training from
1933 as a solution to occupational pollution and industrial disease. With recycling of wastes adopted at but one winery by 1931 and some gas works by 1937, it seemed that industrialists would only prevent pollution by applying such
Commonwealth-funded research when provided with bounties from 1925, or when imports were unavailable, as during World War Two. Thus, the Menzies
Government could only reduce the proportion of Australians on the invalid pension to 8.4:1,000 Australians in 1940 by administrative manipulation (transferring recipients to the age pension on reaching 65 years of age) rather than by improving public health.83
83. Social Services, 'Report, l94Ll42' , in APP 1940-41-42-43 v.2,287 Chapter Eight C ommonw e alth Int e rv ent i on 190
ILO No, Bombs Ho: 1945-1960
\ilith communist unionists contained by industrial groupers, the police, courts and military under Labor governments from 1945 to 1949 and by the cold war hysterics of the Menzies Liberal Governments from 1949 to 1960,84 the Commonwealth ceased reporting on ILO conventions. The Chifley Labor and Menzies governments only sought to curb industrial pollution by prompting further industrialization through hydro-electricity and research to recycle industrial wastes. The Menzies
Liberal administration placed small government, states' rights and cold war allies before exposing South Australians to radiation and the risks workers faced from industrial pollution. The Chifley Labor Government acted against industrial pollution by developing hydro-electricity, establishing training for doctors and funding research to recycle industrial wastes, while monitoring advances in nuclear-generated electricity. The Chifley ministry sought to curb pollution with the Snowy Mountains hydro-electric scheme, not only by replacing the use of 4,000,000 tons of black coal annually from 1949, but by preventing the scheme from silting the Murray, supervising the occupational health of construction workers and planning the construction camps.85 To provide training for doctors in industrial hygiene, the
Chifley Government established a Section of Industrial Health in the School of
Public Health and Tropical Medicine at Sydney in 1948.86 The CSIR Division of
Industrial Chemistry convinced industrialists to produce the solvent, furfural, from
84. P. Deery, (ed.), Labour in Conflict: The 1949 Coal Stríke (Sydney, 1978), 61, 81-2. J. Moss, Sound of Trumpets: History of the Labour Movement in South Australia (Adelaide, 1985), 358, 361-2, 365, 367-8, 373-6, 380. 85. Snowy Mountains Hydro-Electric Authority Reports: '1949150' and '1950/51', inAPP I95I-52- 53-54 v.2, 1876, 1882-5, 1898. 86. Commonwealth Health Department, 'Report, 1969170' , in APP 1970 v. 4, 789. Chapter Eight Commonw e alth Int e rv ention 191
waste oat hulls from 1946, the dairy industry to feed all its processed wastes to stock from 1948 and found ways to extract cholesterol and alcohols from wool wax.87
The Division also sought the means to recycle solvents, remove industrial dusts and fumes, particularly at BHAS, and to improve the processing of Australian ores, such as by gaining titanium while concentrating uranium from Mount Painter and liquid fuel from brown coa1.88 The Chifley Government also explored the feasibility of nuclear-generated electricity by joining the International Atomic Energy Commission in 1946 (with the hope of eliminating nuclear weapons), investigating British research in 1947, offering a reward of f25,000 for discoveries of Australian uranium deposits in 1948 and forming the Industrial Atomic Energy Policy
Committee in 1949, under Mark Oliphant.se The Menzies Government could take little credit for the pollution preventative research of the renamed Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial
Research Oryanization (CSIRO) which was mainly funded by mining, chemical and paper companies.e0 Copper mining companies paid for the Division of Industrial
Chemistry, renamed the Chemical Research Laboratories in 1959, to adapt the electrolysis the Division found could purify water and recover 95 per cent of uranium and rare earths from ore, to copper refining by 1958, resulting in recovering arsenic, sulphur and other metals from ores, consuming two-thirds the
87. CSIR Reports: '1945/46', '1946147' and'1947148', it APP 1946-47-48-49 v.2, 1333, 1468, 1470 and v. 4, 1442, 1459. 88. Ibid., '1945146','1946/47','1947148'and'1948149',inAPP 1946-47-48-49v.2,1326-7,1466 and v. 4, 1440,1444-5,1582. 89. United Nations Atomic Energy Commission, 'Report, 1946', in APP 1946-47-48-49v.2,I41, 143. Australian Atomic Energy Commission, 'Report, 1953', in APP 1951-52-53-54v.6,1795- 6, 1809, 1812. 90. Corporarions funding the CSIRO included the NHMRC, Monsanto Chemicals (Aust.) Ltd., Imperial Chemicals of Australia and New Zealand Ltd., and Australian Paper Manufacturers Ltd., the Mount Lyell and Mount Morgan mining companies plus the Universities of Melbourne, SydneyandAdelaide. CSIRO,'Report, 1952153',inAPPI95I-52-53-54v.6,786-7,795' Chapter Eight Commonw e alth Int e rvention r92
power of roasting ores and stopping refineries from polluting water.el The CSIRO hetped reduce air pollution at wood and metal mills, foundries and power plants by finding the two native timbers which severely irritated the eyes and respiratory tracts of timber workers and that crushed coal depleted of organic chemicals burnt cleaner than untreated coal from 1950.e2 With local woollen mills recovering lanolin from wool wax by 1958, the Division sent an extract, lanosterol, to the US National
Cancer Institute to check for cancer treating properties.e3 The CSIRO began investigating solar energy in 1958, in connection with commercial fruit and nut
drying.ea However, it also abetted pollution by helping to develop the asbestos
sheeting produced by the Colonial Sugar Refinery Co. Ltd., Australian Plaster
Industries Pty. Ltd. and Associated Fibrous Plaster Manufacturers of Australia in
1960 and by advocating that farmers poison rabbits which were becoming resistant
to myxomatosis, despite noting the failure of DDT against pests in 1957.es Australians were exposed to radiation as a direct result of the Menzies
Government linking the defence of Australia to the nuclear arsenals of the USA and Britain. To aid Australia's defence through the cold war, the Menzies
administration permitted the British to test nuclear weapons in South Australia from
91. The mining companies included Mount Lyell, Mount Morgan, Mt. Isa Mines and Peko Mines. Ibid., '1950151', 'I95I152' and'1952153', in APP 1951-52-53-54 v.2, 1628-9, 1798-9, 1801 and v. 6, 787-8,791,795, '1953154', in APP 1954-55 v.2, 1485, and '1955/56', '1957/58', in APP 1956-57 v. 3, 1320, 1323, 1327 and v.7, 1278-9 and '1958/59" in APP 1959-60 v. 4, 1 187. 92.lbid., '1949150', in APP 1950-51 v.2, 1301,1305 and '1956157' and '1957/58', in APP 1956- 57v.5,1225,1227 and v. 7, 1288-90. 93. Ibid., ,l952l53"inAPP 1951-52-53-54v.6,791,',1953154' md',l954l55"inAPP 1954-55v. 2, 1481, 1664, '1956157' and'1957/58', in APP 1956-57 v. 5, l2l9 and v' 7, 1274 and '1958/59', in APP 1959-60 v. 4, 1184. 94. Ibid., '1958159' , in APP 1959-60 v. 4, Il97 . 95. Ibid,, ,1950/51' and '1951152" in APP 1951-52-53-54 v.2, 1593, 1764,'1956157', and '1957158',inAPP1956-57v.5, 1190andv.'7,1249 and'1959/60',inAPP1960-61v.4,1225- 6,1239. Chapter Eight Commonw e alth Int e rv ention 193
26 September 1953 to April I963.e6 V/hile offering rewards and tax rebates to encourage uranium mining and leaving the South Australian Government to mine
Radium Hill, the Menzies Government created the Atomic Energy Commission in
1953 to ensure all Australian uranium supplied the British and American nuclear arsenals.eT The Department of Immigration supplied 619 migrants to mine the Radium Hill uranium deposits.es Disclaiming any public risk until 1959, the Commission advocated building nuclear power stations and sold to Australian industry the isotopes and instruments made at Lucas Heights which the Menzies
Government founded to develop nuclear power from 1955.ee The cost of such a power station discouraged all but the South Australian Government.too By following the lead of Britain and the USA in the United Nations, the Menzies Government opposed all proposed bans on nuclear tests until the British and Americans were willing to negotiate with the Soviets in 1959 and only supported forming the International Atomic Energy Agency in 1955 to prevent nuclear fuel from being used for weapons, draft occupational health standards and help construct nuclear power stations.l0r The Menzies ministry only began monitoring nuclear fallout from the atomic tests in South Australia in 1956, after the United Nations Radioactive
96. R.G. Menzies, 'Australian Defence, 4th April, 1957', inAPP 1956-57v.5,645-7,649. J. McClelland, The Report of the Royal Commissíon into British Nuclear Tests in AusÛalia (Canberra, 1985), v. 2,VIl-3, VII-10. 97. Australian Atomic Energy Commission, 'Report, 1953', in APP l95I-52-53-54v.6,1791,1795- 8, 1800, 1805-6, 1809-11, 1813. 98, Director of Mines, 'Report, 1954' ,28. 99. In 1959 the Commission admitted that exposure to beryllium was a health risk. Australian Atomic Energy Commission Reports: '1953', in APP 1951-52-53-54 v. 6, 1811, 1813, 1821, '1953154',inAPP 1954-55v.2,676,679-82,685,'1954155','1955156'and'1956157',inAPP 1956-57 v. 3, 633-5,707-8 and v. 7, 673, 675-8, '1957158', ín APP 1959-60 v. 4,782, and '!958159' and '1959/60' , ít APP 1960-61 v. 4,219,22I-3,279-80,284-5,287 ,289,291. 100. Ibid.,' 1958159', in APP 1960-61 v. 4, 227' 101. Ibid.,'1955156'and'1956/57',inAPP 1956-57v.3,7I1 andv.7,679-82. UnitedNations Reports: ',1955" in APP 1956-57 v.3, 1473, 1476,',1957" in APP 1959-60 v. 4, 1359 and '1959' , in APP 1960-61 v. 4, l5O4-5. Chapter Eight C ommonw e alt h I nt e rv ent i on 194
Committee began measuring the effects of radioactive pollution.l02 Public fear over fallout from the tests at Maralinga increased after scientists claimed safe exposure limits as hopefully 'pessimistic' in 1957 and the United Nations advocated halting public exposure to radiation in 1953.t01
The Menzies Government disregarded the risks that pollution placed on workers through the 1950s. Minister G. Mcleay sided with British experts, advising coal mining companies to ignore the safety bans that coal miners had imposed to curb the dust being raised by new machinery.l04 Australian Parliamentary Papers provide no indication that the Menzies Government played any role in getting the states to adopt the standards prepared by the NHMRC industrial hygiene committee for safe exposure to occupational pollutants, which the Playford Government adopted for organic phosphates, solvents and nuclear equipment in 1951.105 Nor do these papers throw any light on another possible source of occupational air content standards for toxic gasses, dusts and uranium which were set shortly after the Australian chief mining inspectors began meeting regularly from 1951.106 While South Australian uranium miners and processors were offered no greater safety precautions than those working other minerals, the scientists employed by the Commonwealth at Lucas Heights operated under elaborate safety standards and were issued with film badges to monitor their exposure.r0T The Menzies ministry made no challenge to the refusal by the
102. Australian Atomic Energy Commission, 'Report, 1956157' , in APP 1956-57 v . 7 , 683. 103. The National Radiation Advisory Committee found short exposure to high doses of radiation affected genes, while long exposure to low doses produced cancers and leukemia. S. Sunderland, 'National Radiation Advisory Committee Report, 1960', in APP 1960-61 v.4,1037-40. United Nations Reports: '1958', inAPP 1959-60v.4,1409 and'1959', inAPP 1960-61v. 4, 1504-5. 104. G. Mcleay, 'Coal, Ministerial Statement 14th March, 1951', in APP 1950-51v.2, 1015-18. 105. Central Board of Health Reports: '1951', 13 and '1960',4. 106. Director of Mines Reports: '1951', 9, '1952' , 10,'1956157' ,21-2 and'1957158' ,24. 107. Australian Atomic Energy Commission Reports: '1953154" inAPP 1954-55 v.2,6',74, '1954155'and'1955/56',ínAPP 1956-57 v,3,615, 636-7,684 and'1957158',inAPP 1959-60 v.4,781. Chapter Eight Commonw ealth Int e rv ention 195
Arbitration Court to grant special consideration of occupational health for Radium
Hill miners and Port Pirie uranium treatment plant workers in 1955 and only granted
a remote location payment for workers at Maralinga and Woomera.l08 The Menzies
Government's investigation into the causes of strikes on Australian wharves omitted
discussing the occupational conditions which provoked 9 per cent of the 6.73 million
hours of strikes by wharfies from 1949to 1955.10e By 1959 unions were raising the
need for protective clothing before the Arbitration Commission.ll0
The Menzies Government put protecting state rights above curbing the risks
that industrial pollution posed to South Australians. The Menzies administration
made no attempt to ban all industry from Victorian and New South Welsh mountain
catchments, as called for by the River Murray Commission in 1955.r1r Merely
having the Snowy Mountains Authority prevent silt and pay the Government of New
South Wales f 12,000 per annum to revegetate and ban cattle from the catchment proved insufficient to prevent algal blooms and gaseous odours in the Hume
Reservoir in 1959.rr2 The National Radiation Advisory Committee argued that only
national control of radioactive matter could hope to meet the potential hazards of a
large-scale accident crossing state boundaries, find safe disposal systems, reduce
community exposure to radiation to medical necessities and fulfil international
agreements.rr3 Neither Australian nor South Australian Parliamentary Papers show
that the Menzies Government made any attempt to convince state governments to
108. Hearn and Knowles, AWU 235-6. 109. J.B. Tait, 'stevedoring Industry Report, 1957' , in APP 1956-57 v. 5, 1446-8. 110. R.C. Kirby, 'Report, 1959160' , in APP 1960-61 v . 4, 402. I I l. River Murray Commission, 'Report, 1955/56', Paper No, 12 in SAPP 1957 17. 112. Ibid., '1958159' , Paper No. 72A in SAPP 1959 10. Snowy Mountains Hydro-Electric Authority Reports: '1953154', in APP 1954-55 v. 2, 1767,'1955156', in APP 1956-57 v. 5, 1324, 'L957/58', ínAPP 1959-60 v. 4,1294 and '1958/59' and '1959160', inAPP 1960-61 v.4, 1366, t424. 113. Sunderland, 'National Radiation Advisory Committee Report, 1960', inAPP 1960-61 v.4, 1037-8. Chapter Eight Commonwealth Int e rv ention 196
implement the plans drafted by the NHMRC ín 1957 to control and dispose of radioactive matter, merely that no state government had done so and that the industrial application of isotopes grew.lla
Though the Parliamentary Papers provided no indication of any effect, the
Commonwealth funded training facilities for doctors in industrial hygiene from
1948. The failure of other industries to follow the example of pollution prevention set by the Snowy Mountains hydro-electric scheme could be seen and smelt in the
Hume Reservoir by 1959. CSIR research finally began to curtail industrial pollution when grain processors began recycling their wastes from 1946 and milk processors from 1948, under the Chifley Government, with coal burners and wood mills following suit by 1950 and ore refiners and woollen mills by 1958, courtesy of private funding under the Menzies Government. State governments were adopting some of the occupational health standards designed by the NHMRC and meetings of the chief mining inspectors from 1951, seemingly without prompting from the
Menzies Government. The anti-communist hysteria of the Menzies ministry led to
South Australia, with no plan for containing an accident, being used for nuclear tests which increased the level of background radiation experienced by Australians four- fold to 4 millicurries per square kilometre and contaminated milk by 1969.tts The only employees the Menzies Government seemed willing to protect from occupational pollution were the nuclear scientists at Lucas Heights. V/hile invalid pensioners decreased from 9 to 8:1,000 Australians from 1950 to 1960, the ill health
114. Ibid., 1038, 1041 115. Ibid., 1040-3. Chapter Eight Commonw ealth Int en ention r97
produced by the industrial pollution permitted by the Menzies Government was yet to be noticed, such as the cancers suffered by uranium miners and ore processors.ll6
oo0oo
The refusal of state governments to grant the Commonwealth the power to prevent industrial pollution of the River Murray from the 1900s and the power to regulate occupational pollution in 1926 severely limited the ability of Commonwealth governments and agencies to curb industrial pollution. So confined, the
Commonwealth consistently produced information to curb industrial pollution by research on waste recycling and industrial disease from 1916, training doctors in public health from 1930 and industrial hygiene from 1948 and training industrial personnel in the use of respirators from 1933. From l9I7 to 1960, the River
Murray Commission had only prevented three instances of industrial pollution of the river, in 1922 and between 7932 and 1934. Having to gain acceptance from state governments, state pollution-controlling regulations were only standardized across
Australia for food purity in the 1910s, health regulations in the 1920s and NHMRC and chief mining inspectors' occupational health standards from 1951. The initial success of the Commonwealth in convincing state governments to introduce worker's compensation insurance in the 1910s could not further induce employers to curb occupational pollution as neither electors nor premiers were prepared to cede the power to the Commonwealth to set worker's compensation contributions from employers according to the hazards of enterprises in 1926. Industrialists failed to
116. The number of Australians receiving the invalid pension increased from 73,393 to 80,816 from 1950 to 1960. Social Services Reports: '1955156', in APP 1956-57 v.3, 1446 and '1959/60', in APP 1960-61 v.4, 1469. B. O'Neil, 'National Heroes not National Villains: South Australia and the atomic age', in B. O'Neil, J. Raftery and K. Round, (eds,), Playford's South Ausftalia: Essays on the History of South Australia, 1933-1968 (Adelaide, 1996), 172. Chapter Eight C ommonw e alt h Int e rv enti on 198
follow the examples Commonwealth governments set in preventing both
occupational pollution in its munitions works and pollution of the River Murray by the Snowy Mountains hydro-electric scheme. Without the bounties or tariff protection for sulphur from 1925 and the lack of imports during world wars,
industrialists were only prepared to apply Commonwealth research conducted from
1916 to recycle or prevent pollution which reduced production costs in wineries
from 1931, gas works by 1937, grain processors from 1946, dairy factories from
1948, coal burners and wood works from 1950 and ore refiners and woollen mills
from 1958. This lack of influence from the Commonwealth, coupled with its failure
to advocate state controls of pollution to prevent IlO-defined industrial disease from
1931, produced algae and stench in the Hume Reservoir and helped keep the number
of invalid pensioners fluctuating between 8 and 9:1,000 Australians from 1930 to
1960. The disease caused by increasing the level of background radiation four times
as a result of the pollution produced in South Australia by the anti-communist
defence policies of the Menzies Government remains to be determined. Chapter Nine
One Environment
1960-1975
Though South Australians became increasingly antagonistic to pollution from mass production, governments would only restrict industrial pollution if economic growth
was not disrupted. Governments sought to achieve this by getting industrialists to draft pollution controls, or introducing those which might curb strikes, or by
applying international covenants which could protect economic growth. Finding the
control of environmental industrial pollution could bolster economic growth in 1969,
all Commonwealth and South Australian governments began controlling this form of
pollution to make better use of resources, and established environmental agencies to
co-ordinate regulators from 1972.
Set Practices: 1960-1975
As shown by the nuclear industry and the means commonly chosen to deal with
industrial pollution, from 1960 to 1975 all Commonwealth and South Australian
governments reacted according to the impact on economic growth, rather than to impede this growing risk to public health or appease the enmity of South Australians. Although prepared to curb the pollution produced by their own
industries and extend sewerage, all governments sought non-intrusive means to
control pollution, such as profitable recycling, education and, from 1963, enlisting
industrialists to draft regulations to hide polluting enterprises from the community. Chapter Nine One Environment 200
Pollution from the rapid industrialization of the 1960s produced a backlash from the community, unionists and environmentalist groups. From 1960 to 1975, while industrial employment rose by 22 per cent to 121,463, the number of factories operating in South Australia decreased by 1 per cent to 4,635 after the global recession of the mid-1970s eroded the massive gains of industrialization and the metals boom through the 1960s.1 Around 64 per cent of these factories worked in traditionally polluting trades producing chemicals, foodstuffs, alcoholic beverages, leather, metal goods, paper, plastics, rubber, textiles and wood products,2
Highlights of this development included automated printing from 1967, the Moonta gas plant, the largest foundry in Australia built at Kilkenny, particle board manufacture and continuous vinyl production.3 From 1960 open cut mining and quarrying quadrupled the value of ores raised to $110 million in 1970, before collapsing from 1972 with the Whitlam and Dunstan governments requiring mining companies to be 51 per cent Australian owned and respect Aboriginal lands.a
Collectively, this rapid industrialization increased levels of air pollution at Adelaide and Port Pirie to exceed that which the USA regarded as safe for sulphur dioxide and smoke and the World Health Organization (WHO) for carbon monoxide, while insoluble air pollutants increased to 47.6 tons per square mile per month at Mount
Gambier and salinity in the River Murray periodically exceeded acceptable levels for citrus and grape growing in South Australia.s The incidence of industrial diseases increased from the odd fatal poisoning and 33 to 80 injuries from contact with
1.'StatisticalRegister, 1959160', PartV(b),5. Departmentof Labour,'Report, 1974',7,24-5. 2. 'Statistical Register, 1959/60' , Part V(b), 10, 12, 14. 3. Department of Labour Reports: '1967' ,8, '1969', 10-11 and '1970' , ll-12. 4. 'Statistical Register, 1959160', Part V(a), 69. Director of Mines Reports: '1970171',7-8, '1972173' , 5,7-8, '1973174' ,7-8 and '1974175' ,7 . 5. Commonwealth Senate Select Committee, 'Air Pollution Report, 1969', 692. W.G. Inglis, 'Environmental Protection Council, 1973174 and 1974175', in SAPP 1976,11. Central Board of Health, 'Report, 197I, 1972 and 19'73', 15, 30, 34. A. Gilpin, Environmenî Policy in Australia (St. Lucia, 1980),223. Chapter Nine One Environment 20r
hazardous chemicals per annum through the 1960s to 484 cases in 1973174, with industrial dermatitis a fixture from 1967.6 This increasingly hazardous experience of industrial pollution, together with overseas disasters and warnings from Rachel
Carson, increased the environmental awareness of South Australians and, together with councils, a preparedness to complain to state agencies over instances of pollution.T The impact of industrialization also encouraged some conservationists to launch national campaigns against industrial pollution from 1969 and to form twelve environmentalist groups in South Australia by 1974.8 South Australian workers also responded by increasing the number, participation rate and duration of strikes from
1961 to 1975.e
6. Central Board of Health Reports: '1961' , 8, '1962' , 7, '1963' , 6, '1964' ,7, '1966' , 12-13, t5, 23,'1967', I7,'1968', I3-I4, 3I and'1969', 6, 12-13, 33' Department of Labour Repofs: '1960' ,23, ',1961" 28, ',1962" 32-3,37-8, ',1963" 15,',1964" 21,',1965" 23,',1966" 34, '196'7', 12-13, '1968', 3, 10, 32 and'1970',33. Statistical Registers: '1968169', Part I' 41' '1969170 and l970l7l', Part I, 54, and'1973174' , Part I, 45. 7. Complaints over occupational pollution alone grew from23 per annum from 1963, to 163 per annum under Labor Governments from 1965 to 1968, to 278 under the Hall Government from 19ó8to 1970. ElectricityTrustReports: '1959160',9,'1961/62',8-l2and'1962/63',6. Central Board of Health Reports: '1961', 9, '1962' ,8, 10, '1963' , 8, 12, '1964' , 9-12, '1965' , 4,8, 10-12,',1966" 9, 11-16,',1967"11, 14, 16, 18,20,',L968" 9-10, 13, 15-16,',1969"11- 13, 15, 18 and '1970',16. Select Committees: 'Pulp and Paper Mill Report, 196l',3 and 'Pulp and Paper Mill Bill, 1964', 2. Director of Mines Reports: '1965166' , 45, '1966/67', 48 and '1967 168', 59,'1968/69', 58,'1970171', 5, 94,' 1972173', 106 and'1973/74', 37. E&WS Reports: '1965166', I0, '1966/67', 13 and '1967168', 35. Department of Labour Reports: '1966' , lO, '1973' ,36 and '1974' ,21, 40,44-6. Commonwealth Senate Select Committee, 'Air Pollution Report, 1969', 724. Gilpin, Environment Policy 214, 226, 234-6,263, 304-5. B' Brown, 'Greening the Conservation Movement', in D. Hutton, (ed.), Green Politics in Australia (Sydney, 1987),42. 8. These groups included the Conservation Council of South Australia, Australian Conservation Foundation, National Trust, Civic Trust of South Australia, Friends of the Earth, Nature Conservation Society of South Australia, Keep South Australia Beautiful, Field Naturalists of South Australia, Field Naturalists of Murray Bridge, Field Geology Club of South Australia, Adelaide Bushwalkers Group and Southern Districts Environmental Group. J. Moss, Sound of Trumpets: History of the Labour Movement ín South Australia (Adelaide, 1985), 385. D. Hutton and L. Connors, A History of the Australian Environment Movemenl (Melbourne, 1999), l0I-2. Select Committee, 'Report on Beverage Container Bill, 1974' ,2' 9. D.L.J. Aitchison: South Australian Year Book No. 5: 1970 (Adelaide, 1970), 274 and South Australian Year Book No. l0: 1975 (Ãdelaíde, 1975), 349. B.E. Leonard, South Ausftalian Year Book No. 12: 1977 (Adelaide, 1977), 360, 362,379' Chapter Nine One Environment 202
However, learning of the dangers of radiation did not halt the drive of
Commonwealth and South Australian governments to develop the nuclear industry.
These governments were informed that exposure to radiation damaged sensory systems in 1963, radiation diseases were independent of exposure levels in 1967 ,
South Australian school children were nearly irradiated when an apparatus failed in
1969, long-chain amine byproducts killed fish at undetectable levels in 1972 and nuclear wastes would have to be stored for thousands of years in 1975.10 Such news did not halt these governments from producing radioactive isotopes vital to automated production, encouraging uranium mining and refining and aspiring for uranium enrichment plants and nuclear power stations.ll The Central Board of
Health approved short-term isotope pollution to map the flow of artesian water at
Renmark in 1961, water in the Port River in 1963, silt in harbours in 1965 and water through the Great Artesian Basin in 1974.12 Liberal-National Commonwealth governments used the French nuclear tests in the Pacific, which exposed Adelaide to the third-highest level of fallout recorded on the mainland, as bargaining leverage when buying French Mirage fighters in 1967, exporting uranium to France from
1968 and seeking a joint venture with the French to enrich uranium in Australia in
10. Australian Atomic Energy Commission Reports: '1962163', 214, '1966167', 111, 118, '1969170',128,'1971172',71,81,'1972173',62-3,'1973174',36-7 and"l974l75',27,45. Central Board of Health, 'Report, 1969',13. Commonwealth Senate Select Committee,'Water Pollution Report, 7970' ,340. 11. Isotopes were used in the automated production of detergents, metals, paper, plastic and photographic film. Australian Atomic Energy Commission Reports: '196016I', 72, 49-51, 53, '196l162" r29, r37-9, ',1962163" 2r8-r9,221,',1963164" 71, 102, 106,',1964165" 198-9, '1965166" 247,272-4, 301, ',1966167" 74-5, ll4, 120-1, ',1967168" 82,84, 123, 125, 140-1, 163, 165, ',1968169" 150,',1969/70" 161, ',1970/71" 296,334,390-1, 393,40L,',r971172" 9- 11,34,38-9, 97-100, 103, rO7 , 109, ',1972173', ,2,9, 49, 66-7 ,70, 82, ',r973174', ,9, ll, 46, 47 , 49-50, 57,' 197 4 l7 5', 67 and' 197 5 l7 6', 49, 64, 7 L 12. Ibid., '1960/61',49-50,'1962163',221,'1964/65', 198 and'1973174',49. Chapter Nine One Environment 203
1972.13 Only the reluctance of mining companies and food merchants prevented the
Australian Atomic Energy Commission from using nuclear explosions in mining and construction and irradiating food to kill salmonella and fruit fly.ra
Commonwealth and South Australian governments were only prepared to improve the monitoring of nuclear hazards, until stricter safeguards were required to open opportunities for the nuclear industry. These governments reacted to the disclosures of the risks of exposure to radiation by increasing the monitoring of radiation hazards by the Radium Laboratory from 1963 and issuing South Australian radiation workers film badges from 1964.\s The precautions taken by state governments over the Radium Hill project, which produced an overall loss of f940,000, were to compensate thirteen miners, fill in and fence the mine, leave the enrichment plant and tailings dam at Port Pirie unattended until it was sold in 1968 and then avoid reference to its processing of radioactive rare earths.16 Having supported the development and testing of nuclear arsenals in the United Nations, the
Commonwealth belatedly accepted inspections from the International Atomic Energy
Agency which aimed to prevent nuclear material being diverted to military purposes from 1966 so as to export beryllium and radioisotopes and gain information on
13. Ibid.,'196616'7',74 and'1971/72',9. Department of External Affairs Reports: '1966167', 7372-4, 1388, '1967168', 589, 607 and '1968169', 1016. National Radiation Advisory Committee Reports: '1966', 175-6,'1968',20'7-8,216, and'1971',3. Atomic Weapons Tests Safety Commirtee, '1970', 205,207-8, 221 , 'L971', 11, 13 and'19'72', 1, 8-9. L.H.E. Bury, 'Ministerial Statement, 6 April l97l', in APP 1971, I0I2-13. International Court of Justice, 'Nuclear Tests Case, Australia V. France, 9 May 1973' , in APP 1973,3-4,20' 14. Australian Atomic Energy Commission Reports: '1965166',264, 271, 297, '1966167', 86, 88, ll3,' 1967 I 68', 96, 104-5, 134-5 and' 19681 69', 134-5, 155, 165. 15. CentralBoardof Health,'Report, 1964',11 . CommonwealthDepartmentof HealthReports: '1963164' , 21, 58-9, ',1964165', 158-9, '1965166', , 257-8, ',1966167', , 125, ',1967168', , 97, ll4, '1968169" 110-11, ',1969170" 784-6, ',197017|',, 534-5, ',1971172" 92, ',1973174" 86, 88, 90, '1974175', 104-5 and '1975176', 75. Australian Atomic Energy Commission Reports: '1962163' ,232, '1964/65' , 148,202 and.'1970171' ,291, 348-9. 16. R.R.St.C. Chamberlain, 'Radium Hill Project', Paper No. 79 in SAPP 1961 4,7-8. Director of MinesReports:'196I/62',32,47-8,'1962163',55,'1963164',46,'1966167',49and'1967168', 73. Central Board of Health, 'Report, 1969' , 16. Chapter Nine One Environment 204
nuclear power station technology.lT To attract tenders for a nuclear power station, which it axed on learning it would cost $200 million to build, the Gorton
Commonwealth Government (1968-L97I) finally heeded long-standing calls from its
nuclear agencies by taking over the regulation of nuclear pollution from the states in
lg70. 18
Commonwealth support for the CSIRO to find profitable uses for industrial
wastes continued and resulted in industrialists recycling wastes. Farmers heeded
CSIRO advice to use alternatives to DDT to stop polluting the food-chain from 1960
and reducing crop-dusting fertilizers from 1964, but still expanded the area crop-
dusted with poisons.re By 1966 dairy factories applied CSIRO techniques to remove
20,000 tons of casein annually from the 90,000 tons of wasted whey, which the
CSIRO sought to further transform into stock and human food from 1972.20 An
Adelaide firm recouped lanolin from woolwashing wastes, which the CSIRO found
could also be further processed for 50,000 tons of organic acids per annum by
17. Liberal-National ministries, so swayed by mutually assured destruction, refused to ratify the non- proliferation treaty, voted for more countries to develop nuclear arsenals in the United Nations and supported US nuclear weapons tests to the point of offering Christmas Island as a test site on 16 March 1962. tJníted Nations Reports: '1960', 1019-20, '1962',643,655,'1965', 521-2 and '19'70',622,709. G. Barwick, Ministerial Statements: 'Disarmament and Nuclear Tests, 1962', in APP 1962-63,745,749 and '1lth March, 1964', in APP 1964-66,723. Australian Atomic Energy commission Reports: '1964/65" 210, ',1965166" 315, ',1966167', , 77, 139-43, '1967168',150, 156, 159-62,'1968169',169 and '1969170', 170-2' International Coutt of Justice, 'Nuclear Tests Case, Australia V. France, 9 May 1973',15. 18. Australian Atomic Energy Commission Reports: '1962163',232, '1963164', 116, '1964165', 148,202,210,'1969170',128,'1970171',348 and'1972173', 55, 58,64. Commonwealth Department of Health Reports: '1963164' ,21, 58, 64-5, '1965166' ,264, '7968169' , 56, 130 and '1974175', 704. Department of External Affairs, 'Report, 1968/69', 1055. P. Howson, 'Conference on the Human Environment, 1972', in APP 1972,8, 10, 19-21,23,38, 49, 5l . Gilpin, Environment Policy 313. 19. The area crop-dusted with superphosphate reduced by 19 per cent from 1964 to 11,045,478 acres by 1966, while the area crop-dusted with poisons increased by 55 per cent to 3,663,035 acres. CSIRO Reports: '1959160', 1239, '1961162', 844, '1963/64', 308, '1967168', 687,724, 728, 742, 748, '1968/69', 418, '1971/72', 19 and '1972173', 27. Department of Civil Aviation Reports: '1964165" inAPP 1964-66,488 and ',1966167" inAPP 1967,1143. 20. CSIRO Reports,' 1962/ 63', 10 1 5,' 1 965/ 66', 7 37 -8 and' 197 I l7 2', 3l-2. Chapter Nine One Environment 20s
1967.21 The CSIRO found the means to prevent 12 million tons of coal ash and coke washing wastes polluting land, air and water annually by refining Leigh Creek coal, making roads from coal tar rather than bitumen, reducing the fire risk at coal mines and making liquid filters from coal, which replaced less easily disposed of imports by 1973.22 Its methods of recycling basalt, chromium, heat, methanol, sodium oxides, sulphur dioxide and sulphuric acid saved South Australian chemical works, paper makers, refineries and tanners over $1 million per annum by 1975.23
The CSIRO also developed less polluting equipment, such as solar heaters in 1964, a solar powered water desalinator at Coober Pedy for the E&WS and less polluting paper making in 1967, quieter air conditioners in l97I and a polymer to remove industrial wastes and oil from Adelaide water supplies in 1975.24
All governments were prepared to curb the pollution produced by state enterprises and to treat privately produced industrial pollution at sewage works. The
Playford Government acceded to complaints from Port Adelaide and Port Augusta councils and residents by landscaping the surrounds of power stations and introducing cleaner methods of burning Leigh Creek coal, in conjunction with the
CSIRO, while Labor governments (1965-1968 and 1970-1975) built two natural gas- fired power stations to curb air pollution over Adelaide.25 The commissioning of the first gas generator in 1969 curbed smog over Adelaide by one-third.26 Both state
21. Ibid,,' 1960 I 6l', 163,' 1965 I 66', 7 69 and' 1966 I 67', 582. 22. lbid., '196U62" 813, '1962163" 1040, '1963/64" 328, ',1964165" 502, ',1965166" 741-2, '1968169' , 417, '1969170', 395 n'ñ'1972173' , 47-8, 50. 23, Ibid. , '7965166',706,740, '1971172', 39 and '1974175', 36-7. Director of Mines Reports: '1961162', 4 and'1963164' ,4. Department of Labour, 'Report, 1967' ,9. 24. CSIRO Reports: ',1961162" 849, ',1963164" 33I, 337, ',1964165" 530, ',1965166" 728-30, ' 19661 67', 587, 591,' 197 I 172', 38-9 and' 197 5 17 6', 37, 39. 25. Electricity Trust Reports: '1959160',9, 12, '1961162',8-12,'1962163', 6 and Appended map, '1963164" 7,',L965/66" 5-6,',1966167" 5-7,',1967168" 8, '1968169" 6,',1969170" 5-6, '197017I',5-6,'1972173', 6 and '1973174',3. Depafment of Labour, 'Report, 1966',10. F. Walsh, 'Finance for a Natural Gas Pipeline, 1966167' , 8-9, 16. Director of Planning, 'Report, 1967168' ,9. Commonwealth Senate Select Committee, 'Air Pollution Report, 1969' , 724. 26 . Central Board of Health Reports: ' 1968' , 27 and ' 1969' , 30 . Chapter Nine One Environment 206
and Commonwealth governments were prepared to provide medical supervision for public servants to reduce occupational diseases, with the Commonwealth also running worker's compensation for seamen and the state government medically
supervising radiation workers.2T Commonwealth control over the Snowy Mountains
Hydro-Electric Authority ensured that it only silted the Murray when constructing
the Blowering Dam in 1960/61.28 All state governments built sewerage systems to
treat industrial wastes, with the Playford ministry vacillating between either building
one at Bolivar to service northern Adelaide or smaller plants for regional centres,
according to the needs of industrialists for increased supply of potable water and the ability of domestic ratepayers to pay for processing industrial liquid wastes.2e
Successive state governments did both and committed funds to complete the
sewering of the Adelaide plains by 1969.30 All governments sought to educate the community, industrialists,
professionals and regulators, thereby creating a less polluting society, The School
of Public Health and University of Sydney trained specialists in occupational health
and, from 7964, in order to curb the 133 South Australian cases of pollution-related
27. lbid., '196l', 13, '1962',, 12, ',1963',, 73, ',1964',, t2, ',1965',, 13, ',1967',, 16, '1968" 13 and '1969' , 12. Commonwealth Department of Health, 'Report, 1965166' , 243 ' 28. Snowy Mountains Hydro-Electric Authority Reports: '1960161' , 19 and '196415' ,87-8. 29. Parliamentary Standing Committee on Public Works Reports: 'Bolivar Sewage Treatment Works, 1960' , 4, 10-11, 'Woodville North, Mansfield Park, Athol Park and Wingfield Sewerage Scheme, 1962' , 3,'Nangwarry Sewerage Scheme, 196l' , 3,5, 'Mount Burr Sewerage Scheme, 1962' , 3- 5, 'Lobethal Sewerage Scheme, 1962',3-5,'Gumeracha Sewerage System (Revised), 1962',4-5, 'Woodville North, Mansfield Park, Athol Park and Wingfield Sewerage Scheme, 1962',3-4 and 'Le Fevre Peninsula Sewerage Scheme, 1963164',3,6. Select Committee Reports: 'Pulp and Paper Mill, 196l' , l-3 and 'Pulp and Paper Mill Bill, 1964' ,2. L.H. Densley, 'Decentralization of IndustryReport',8, 13. CentralBoardof HealthReports: '1961',8,'1963',8and'1964',7, 31. 30. H.J.\V. Hodgson, 'Effluent from Bolivar', 7. Parliamentary Standing Committee on Public Works Reports: 'sewerage System for General Motors-Holden's Pty. Ltd. and Actil Ltd, 1965166' ,3-5, 'Hardwicke Sewerage System, 1966167', 1-2, 'Sewerage System Reconstruction (Western and Southern Suburbs), 1967' , 3-5, 7, 'Mannum Sewerage System, 1967',3-6 and 'Christies Beach Sewerage System, 1968169', 4,8-9. Central Board of Health Repons: '1966', g,'1967',4, 11,27, '1968',4,8-9,'1969',9and'19'70',14' E&WSReports: '1966167',13, 25,28,30, 33, '1967168' ,25,31,35 and '1968169' ,23-4,26' Chapter Nine One Environment 207
notifiable diseases per annum, public health engineering.3l Governments ran conferences on curbing mining and wharf dusts in the hope of preventing 8.5 per cent of wharf strikes, representing 38,7676 hours lost due to polluted working conditions between 1966 and 1968.32 All state regulators disseminated the need for less polluting works to factory builders and industrialists, despite knowing the latter would only voluntarily remove a proven lethal hazard, and refused to provide medical supervision, ear muffs or remove workers from contaminated sites.33 The
Central Board of Health trained local council inspectors on pollution prevention through its newsletter and, from 1966, quarterly meetings and conferences.34 By
1970, all state pollution inspectorates ran massive industrial pollution awareness campaigns for the community, workers, industrialists and regulation drafters, in schools, factories, clubs, councils and at the Royal Show.3s As these educational campaigns aimed at showing the public what they could do to prevent pollution, information which may have alarmed the public was excluded. No mention was made of the findings of the United Nations Radiation Committee and the
31. Commonwealth Senate Select Committee, 'Water Pollution Report, 1970', 261-2. commonwealth Department of Health Reports: '1963164" 21, 88, ',1964165" 187,',1965166" 246-7, 289,' 1967 I 68', 104, 144, l5l,' 1968 I 69', I 18 and' I97 017 l', 541-2' 32. N.J. Hood, 'Australian Stevedoring Industry Authority Report, 1967168', inAPP 1969 v.I0, 1088-9, 1093. B.W. Hartwell, 'Joint Coal Board, 'Report, 1967168', inAPP 1968,v.5,783. 33. Central Board of Health Reports: '1961',13,'1962',lO-12,'1963',5, 12,'1964',70-72, '1965"9-12,',L966" 11-15, ',1967" 14-19,'1968" 7,10, 12-16,26 and',1969" l2-r7,29. Department of Labour Reports: '1961','7-8, '1962',7-9, '1963', 14, '1964',9-10, '1965', 1l- 13,'1966',20-1,'1967',16-17,'1968', 17, 19-20 and '1969', 3, 17-18. Director of Mines Reports: 'L960161' , 31, '1961162' , 33, '1962163' , 41, '1963164' , 46, '1964165' , 54, '1968169' , 59 and'1969170',79. 34. Central Board of Health Reports: '1961', 3, '1962',3, '1964',3, 8-9, '1965',3, '1966',8-9, '1967',10, '1968', 4,6, 12 and'1969',4-5, 8, 16. Commonwealth Senate Select Committee, 'Air Pollution Report, 1969',692. 35. Director of Mines, 'Report, I970l7l', 17. E&WS Reports: '1970171', 2I-2, '1971172', 39, '19'72/73',33and'1973174',35. DepartmentofLabourReports:'1970',3-4,18-19,'1971',3, 11, 18-20, '1972',3, l4-I5,'1973',12-14 and'1974',27-3. Central Board of Health Reports: '1970', 5-6, 8, 15 and '1971, 1972 and 1973', 6-8. State Planning Authority Reports: '197017I', 15-16, '1971172', 19, '1972173', 20-3 and '1974175', 27. Director of Planning Reports: '1970/71', ll, '1972/73', 11 and '1973/74', 12-13. S.B. Hart, 'Coast Protection Board, 1974175' , 6-7 , 9-I0, 14-15. Chapter Nine One Environment 208
Commonwealth Health Department provided advice on air pollution upon request, which grew in frequency through the 1960s, rather than issue public health warnings from 1963, when the WHO called for more stringent air pollution control after smog had killed 750 London and Los Angeles residents.36 By including industrialists on planning committees from t963, South
Australian governments amended zoning regulations to hide polluting industries from the public behind trees. Attempting to diffuse employment and industrial pollution through rural regions, these governments offered up to f350,000 worth of free electricity annually to tempt industries from the Adelaide plains.37 Subsequent governments continued the policy of the Playford Government to include industrialists on the clean air committee it formed in 1963 to draft regulations to limit industrial 'dark smoke' emissions in the wake of the call from the WHO.38
The Playford and Labor governments established more areas for noxious trades zones in 1964 and 1965 to buffer such polluting trades from the public.3e The
Dunstan Labor Government (1967-1968) also invited industrialists onto planning committees run by the State Planning Authority from 1967 to separate industries and residences by setting council zoning regulations according to industrial emission levels and to create reserves.40 From 1968, the Authority required all councils to act on the advice of the planning committees to make developers buffer residences
36. R.J. Walsh, 'Reports by the Australian Ionizing Radiation Advisory Council, 1973', in APP 1975, v. 1,4. United Nations Reports: '1960', 1032-3,'1967', l3l4-5,'1968', 1428,'1969', 740 and'1970', 645-6. Commonwealth Senate Select Committee, 'Air Pollution Report, 1969', 3I7,786. Commonwealth Department of Health Reports: '1963164',4 and '1967168',80. 37. Densley, 'Decentralization of Industry Report', 3. Electricity Trust Reports: '1964165', 10, ' 1967 I 68', 10,' 1968/ 69', 1 I and' 1969 17 0', 10. 38. Central Board of Health Reports, '1962',8 and '1964', 4, 12. Commonwealth Senate Select Committee, 'Air Pollution Report, 1969' ,317 ,786. 39. CentralBoardof HealthReports: '1961',3,'1962',3,'1964',6,8-9,'1965',5,'1966',8-9, '1967', 10 and '1968', 5. J. Roder, 'Planning Appeal Board Report, 1968169', in SAPP 1969, 10-1 1. 40. State Planning Authority, 'Report, 1967 168',3-4, 6-7, 10, 12. Director of Planning Reports: '1967168' , l1 and '1969170' , 7 . Chapter Nine One Environment 209
from new factories by planting trees, green belts, and fined unco-operative property developers to pay for 2,773.5 hectares of mining-free parks and grants to councils to make reserves in urban areas.41 The Dunstan ministry blocked quarrying from further exploitation of the Adelaide Hills face and the conservation parks covering old mining sites and reserves along the River Torrens.42 While prepared to curb the pollution some government-run industries produced, the desire for industrial expansion led Commonwealth and state governments to opt for measures to prevent pollution which did not impose costs on industrialists, such as education, hiding industrial pollution from the public behind green belts, sewerage schemes, cleaner technology and fuels, and profitable recycling. The last three of these successfully reduced environmental pollution.
Sewerage curbed the industrial contamination of water supplies. Switching from coal- to gas-fired electrical generation lessened air pollution over Adelaide by one- third in 1969. Recycling industrial wastes cut pollution from dairy factories from
1966, woollen mills from 1967, power stations from 1973, and chemical plants, paper mills, refineries and tanneries from 1975. The drive to export Australian radioactive goods and build a nuclear power plant also led Commonwealth governments to submit to international regulation to prevent the diversion of these goods into military weapons from 1966 and take control of regulating nuclear pollution from the states in 1970. All these preventative measures may have helped halve the number of prosecutions launched by councils under pollution controlling
41. State Planning Authority Reports: '1967168',6,'1968169',4,8, 10-11, '1969170',4,6, 8-9, '197017I', 12, '1971172', 14, '1973174',25 and'1974175', 24. Director of Planning Reports: '1968169',9-10, '1969170', 9 and '1973174', 13. Inglis, 'Environmental Protection Council, 1973174 and 1974/75' , 19-20. 42.statePlanningAuthority,'Report, 1967 168',3-4,6,8-10, 12. Personalvisitstoconservation parks, 1981-2001. Chapter Nine One Environment 2t0
by-laws to 2,736 per annum by 1970.43 The conviction of these governments that industrialists would voluntarily reduce pollution to safe limits had not been
realized.aa The French voluntarily polluted South Australians with nuclear fallout, while large-scale private industrialists were still free to continue polluting, such as
BHAS which knowingly caused disease and killed vegetation by polluting Port Pirie
and local waterways with poisonous concentrations of arsenic, lead, sulphur and
noxious and acidic gases.as
Differences on Occupational Pollution: 1960'1970
Just as governments opted for non-proscriptive controls of environmental industrial
pollution to maintain economic growth, so too proscriptive controls were employed
to advance occupational health standards according to the cost of strikes. V/hen
strikes declined, the Playford and Hall Liberal governments relaxed these controls accordingly. This impinged upon efforts by Liberal-National Commonwealth
governments to maintain an average of international occupational standards and
resulted in the Hall Government (1968-1970) favouring industrialists over public
health.
The negotiation and introduction of controls over occupational pollution by
the Playford and Labor governments corresponded to the number, cost and duration of strikes in South Australia. There is a high level of accordance between the
43. Commonwealth Senate Select Committee, 'Water Pollution Report, 1970', 373-4. Statistical Registers: '196016l', Part I, 8,'1961162', Part I, 8,'1962163', Part I, 8,'1963164', Part I, 8, '1964165', Part I, 8,'!965166', Part I, 8,'1966167', Part I, 8,'1967 168', Part I, 8,'1968169', Part I, 8 md'1969170 and I970l7l', Part I, 8. 44. Commonwealth Department of Health Reports: '1963164',21, '1964165', 124, '1966167',97, '1967168',80, 113, '1968169',130 and 'l97Il'72',10. Commonwealth Senate Select Committee, 'Water Pollution Report, 1970', 183. 45. Commonwealth Senate Select Committee, 'Air Pollution Report, 1969',761,763,768,770-l' Chapter Nine One Environment 2tl
Playford cabinet negotiating amendments to the Industrial Code between unionists
and industrialists in 1962 to 1963 and a low level of strikes, on the one hand, and
deferring introducing the new Codea' and a high level of strikes in 1964, on the
other:
Table 9. 1: Industrial disputes of more than ten days in South Australia, 196l-1964. Strikes Strikers Days Lost per per as % of per per per annum annum workforce annum striker strike 196l 26 17,012 4.5 17,265 1.0 664 1962 31 11,748 nla 14,599 r.2 47r 1963 35 11,938 nla 8,956 0.8 256 1964 55 22,851 nla 63,785 2.8 I 160
Source: Aitchison, SA Year Book 1966228 and SA Year Book 1970274.
The dissipation of the costliness and duration of strikes from 1965 corresponded to
the Labor ministries (1965-1968) introducing this deferred Industrial Code, which
required industrialists to act on the advice of factory inspectors, remove hazardous
foundry fumes, gain Departmental approval for plans of new factories, adequately
drain premises, provide protective gear to workers and, if employing more than fifty
workers, provide separate dining rooms:47
46. Department of Labour Reports: '1961' ,3, '1962' , 4, '1963' ,3-4, '1964' , 4 and'1965' , 4. 47. Ibid., '!96r" 3, '1962', , 4, ',1963', ,3-5,7, ',1965" 3-4, 6, 8, ',7966', , 5, ',r967', ,3-4 and '1968" 3, 5-6. Chapter Nine One Environment 2t2
Table 9.2: Industrial disputes of more than ten days in South Australia, 1965-1967 Strikes Strikers Days Lost per per as % of per per per annum annum workforce annum striker strike
1965 48 28 323 nla 26,379 0.9 550 1966 42 8 697 1.9 20,903 2.4 498 1967 55 t7 351 nla 18,691 1.1 340
Source: Aitchison, SA Year Book 1970 274,287
Instead of merely publicizing national occupational pollution standards as the
Liberals did, Labor governments further eased industrial tensions by ending the payment of 'dirt money' for working in polluted environments by implementing all but three of the national standards to curb asbestosis, silicosis and pollution from lead, noise and refuse disposal in nineteen industries.as The Labor state ministries also used ILO conventions to formulate factory regulations and define occupational diseases, overseas practices to set clean air regulations and United Nations standards for occupational exposure to radiation.ae Labor ministries also granted health regulators greater autonomy than Liberal opponents to control or investigate occupational pollutants the Board considered detrimental to health, such as arsenic in the wood trades, benzene, electro-plating, industrial and quarry noise, lead, radiation, plastics, and foundry emissions.50 Inheriting an industrially harmonious working environment from the Labor ministries in 1968, the Hall Government
48. Central Board of Health Reports: '1962',3, ll, '1963',3, 13,'1964',3, 10, 12,'1965', 10, '1966', 17-12, '1967', 10, 14-15, 20, '1968', 11 and '1969', ll-2. Department of Labour Reports: '1961',10,'1962',8,'1966',13-14,2l ,'1967',9,20and '1968',6, 14, 19,23. Director of Mines Reports: '1962163',40,'1963164',45,'1964165', 53, '1967168',60-1, '1968/69' ,59 and '1969/70' ,78. E&WS Reports: '1966167' ,36 and 't968169' ,31. 49. Department of Labour Reports: '1966',21, '1967', 19 and '1968', 6, Central Board of Health Reports: '1966' ,3, 14 and'1968' , 12. 50. Ibid.,' 1963', 9-10,' 1965', 8,' 1966', 8-9, 1 I arrd' 1967', 10-l 1, 14. Chapter Nine One Environment 213
merely introduced US noise limits for new machinery and improved the regulation
of inflammable liquids.5l
The costliness and length of strikes also corresponded to the severity of the
policing of occupational pollution controls by governments. During the years of
heightened strikes in 1964 and 1969, Liberal-National Commonwealth govemments
increased the number of Commonwealth labour inspectors regulating the application
of federal awards in South Australia to five and six, respectively.s2 Whereas the
Playford and Labor cabinets provided 13 additional factory inspectors, 2 safety
officers, 8 regional offices and an Industrial Welfare Board, 12 health inspectors, a scientific officer and industrial hygiene medical officer, a fuel and chemical
engineer, an air pollution inspector, 5 district medical officers, a mining inspector
and2 underground waters inspectors, the Hall Government merely provided a part- time nurse for occupational hearing tests and insufficient funds to pay the
Department of Labour salaries.53 Consequently, the checks on mines and quarries
conducted by mining inspectors rose 30 per cent to over 500 visits per annum under
Labor governments and collapsed to a meagrc 46 under the Hall administration,
which ended inspections to control silicosis.sa The proportion of registered factories
checked by inspectors mirrored the decline in strikes, falling from 100 per cent in
1963 to 88 per cent under the Labor ministries and 70 per cent under the Hall
Government.55 Health and factory inspectors were far more likely to prosecute
polluters under Labor governments:
51. Department of Labour, 'Report, 1968', 6, Central Board of Health, 'Report, 1968', 16. 52. Australian Arbitration Inspectorate, 'Report, 1972' , in APP 1973, v . 2, 3 ' 53. Central Board of Health Reports: '1961' , 5, '1962' , 5,8, '1963' , 4, 8-9, '1964' , 4-5,7, '1965' , 3, 5, 18-19, '1966',3-4,'1968',10 and '1969',11-12. Department of Labour Reports: '1961', 4, '1962', 5, '1963', 6, '1964' , 5, '1965', 6, '1967', 5 and '1968', 3-4. Director of Mines Reports:' 19641 65" 52, 65,', 1967 I 68" 1 5- 17 and', 1969 170" 78. 54. Ibid., '196016l' ,30,'1961162', ,32, ',1962163', , 40,',1963164', , 44,',1964165', , 52, ',1965166', , 45- 6,' 1966167', 48-50,' 1967 168', 59-60,' 19681 69', 58-9 and' 1969 l7O', 77 . 55. Department of Labour Reports: '1963' ,9,'1965',8,'1967' ,21, '1968' , 13 and '1969' , 13. Chapter Nine One Environment 214
Table 9.3: Fines levied by health and factory inspectors under state governments per annum, 1960-1970.
Number of Convictions Against Food Processors Factory Owners
Playford Government (1960-65) 6I 28 Labor Governments ( 1965-68) 82 32 Hall Government (1968-70) 70 t3
Source: Statistical Registers: '196016I', Part I, 8, '1961162', Part I, 8,'1962163', Part I, 8, '1963164', Part I, 8,'1964165', Part I, 8,'1965166', Part I, 8,'1966167', Part I, 8,'1967168',PffiÍ. 1,8,'1968169', Part I, 8 and '1969170 md l970l7l', Part I, 8'
Except with factory inspectors issuing 136 orders per annum on factory owners
under Hall and only 79 orders per annum under Labor, Liberal governments chose
less proscriptive measures than Labor.s6 Labor governments made routine and
continuous the Liberals preferred one-off safety reviews by mining inspectors of new
ventures and, after these failed to prevent fatal gassings at two blast furnaces in
1967168, introduced cease-work orders which reduced the number of re-offending
quarry operators from eight under the Playford Government to three.57 Labor's
doubling of worker's compensation pay outs corresponded with declining absences
from work caused by industrial diseases in 1967168 by 31 per cent and a rise in
fatalities and absences in 1969/70 by 42 per cent and 27 per cent, respectively, when
cut by the Hall Government.ss In such a regulated atmosphere, by 1968 Labor
governments were able to persuade the owners of polluting factories, brick works,
incinerators, an oil refinery, quarries and a rubber mill objected to by local residents
either to move to less populated sites, switch from burning coal to oil, or introduce
56.Ibid.,'1963"9,'1965"8,',1966"r0,',1967"9,',1968"14,',1969" 13and',1970"14. 57. Director of Mines Reports: '1960161' ,30,32, ',1961162" 30,32-3, ',1962163', , 40-1,'1963164', , 44-6, ',r964165', , 52-4, ',1965166', , 45-6, ',r966167', , 46-50, ',1967 168', , 58-62, '1968/69" 58-60 and'1969/70', 78-80. 58. Industrial disease caused 7 deaths and 2,018 weeks of absences, costing insurance companies f63,417 in 1962163: 7 deaths and 1,390 weeks of absence and cost companies $129,800 in 1967/68: and 10 deaths and 1,769 weeks of absence and cost insurance companies $147,500 in 1969Æ0. Department of Labour Reports: '1963', 15, '1968', 32 and'1970' ,33. Chapter Nine One Environment 215
cleaner technologies.5e The Hall Government merely maintained the Labor requirement that builders gain departmental approval for new factories which collectively resulted in less polluting works being built to process chlorine, sulphuric acid, car components, electricity, natural gas and plastics than would otherwise have occurred by 1970J0 While factory regulations were extended to 5,287 or 51.per cent more factories, and 128,107 or 61 per cent more factory workers from 1961 to 1970, the protection that workers were afforded plunged under the Hall
Government, which permitted inspectors to make only minor alterations and regarded growing industrial disease as a product of media hyperbole, rather than the increasing prevalence of hazardous chemicals in the workplace.6l
The victory of the Hall Liberal Government in 1968 thus impinged upon attempts by the Liberal-National Commonwealth governments to maintain the average occupational pollution controls applied by other nations. Commonwealth interest in the ILO resumed in 1967, when the Holt Government (1966-1967) found itself unable to ratify conventions covering workers in hazardous industries due to the lack of health services outside capital cities.62 With an upgrade of such
Commonwealth health laboratories as operated at Port Pirie insufficient to ratify these conventions, the Gorton Liberal-National ministry could only convince the
Hall Government to open a permanent industrial safety exhibit so that Australia could ratify its twenty-ninth ILO convention and thereby reach the world average to
59. Central Board of Health Reports: 'L965',4, 12,'1966', 16 and'1967',20. Commonwealth Senate Select Committee, 'Air Pollution Report, 1969' , 691-6,755-7. 60. Department of Labour Reports: '1966',9-10, '1968', 12 and'1970',13. 61. Ibid., '1961',15, 17 and '1970', 14. Central Board of Health Reports: '1962',10,'1963',12, '1964" 10-11, '1965" 10-11,',1966" 11-15, '1967" 14,16, 18, '1969" g-10, 13, 15-16 and '1969', ll-15, 17-18. Commonwealth Senate Select Committee, 'Air Pollution Report, 1969', 696. 62. Commonwealth Health Department, 'Report, 1966167',650-1. ILO Reports: '1959',648-9 and '1965', ,76r-3. Chapter Nine One Environment 2r6
honour the fiftieth anniversary of the ILO.63 The Gorton administration made no
further attempt to ratify ILO conventions by improving such medical services or granting women paid maternity leave, or compensating workers for long-term
medical treatments, or medically examining young workers, or improving invalidity insurance, and the protection afforded workers from radiation, lead paint and dangerous cargoes.6a Neither did the Gorton cabinet seek to get the Hall Government to adopt the occupational exposure limits recommended by the
NHMRC in 1969, even though, at 136 ppm for gases and vapours and 66 ppm for
dust, fumes and mists, and12 ppm for substances, these were double the levels the
US considered safe for carbon dioxide.6s It seemed the Gorton ministry retreated to the position of the Menzies Government (1960-1966) which left occupational
hazards to the states and the Arbitration Commission, despite knowing of the difficulty workers faced in controlling these hazards via arbitration, where 464
disputes and 15 per cent of the cases heard by the Commission from 1960 resulted in only 601, or 8 per cent of the notifications subsequently issued.66 Indeed, both
ministries seemed to follow the lead of the business community which sent such
delegates to the ILO as W.F.J. Foster, who only reported on the conditions of the
hotel at which he stayed.67 Urban communities and workers gained protection from pollution by
government inspectors during times of severe strikes. The industrial harmony of
63. Commonwealth Department of Health, 'Report, 1967 168',88-9. L'H.E. Bury, 'Australian Law and ILO Conventions' , in APP 1969,'1',70-2,774. Department of Labour, 'Report, 1969', ,3. 64. Bury, 'Australian Law and ILO Conventions', 782-3, 790,793,804-6, 835, 837-8, 857-8, 866' 65, Commonwealth Department of Health Reports: '1963164',21, 64-5, '1965/66',264 and '1967168', lL4. Commonwealth Senate Select Committee, 'Air Pollution Report, 1969',286, 367 , 373-9. 66. Commonwealth Conciliation and Arbitration Commission Reports: '1959160', 402,'1960161', 295,',1961162" 660, '1962163" 877,',1963164" 891, ',1964165" 905, '1965166" 654-5, '1966167" 675, ',1967168" 808-9, ',1968169" 1048-9, ',1969170" 629, ',1970171" 664-6, '1971172' ,9, 17-19, '1972173' , 12-75 and'1974175' , ll' 67.ILO,'Report, 1970' , 19. Chapter Nine One Environment 217
1962 and 1963, that coincided with negotiations between unionists, industrialists and the Playford Government to amend the Industrial Code, ended with its deferral. The upsurge in strikes in 1964 abated after the Labor ministry introduced the amended
Industrial Code in 1965 and administered stringent policing of occupational pollution standards, cease-work orders and doubling worker's compensation pay outs. By
1968 such measures had cut absenteeism by 30 per cent and convinced brick works, quarries, fuel processors, chemical, rubber and plastic manufacturers to use cleaner fuels, technology and works. The Hall Liberal Government's undermining of the successful reduction in occupational industrial pollution achieved by Labor governments coincided with a massive increase in the costliness of strikes:
Table 9.4: Industrial disputes of more than ten days in South Australia, 1968-1969.
Strikes Strikers Days Lost per per as % of per per per annum annum workforce annum striker strike
1968 83 38,011 nla 51,082 1 3 615 1969 72 r0l,l02 nla 128,957 I 3 179l
Source: Aitchison, SA Year Book 1970 274,287 Chapter Nine One Environment 2r8
Air and Water Pollution Inquiries z 1969-1972
The decision of the OECD in 1968 that its members should not diminish pollution controls to undersell competitors produced the watershed Commonwealth Senate inquiries into air and water pollution, popular initiatives amidst growing environmentalism in public opinion, protests by environmentalist groups and calls for pollution prevention by the likes of 1,500 BHAS workers.6s Finding that both environmental and occupational industrial pollution limited economic growth, the
Senate inquiries urged governments to apply the pollution controls drafted by international trade organizations and industrialists. While awaiting international pollution controls to be drawn by the United Nations, Commonwealth and South Australian governments applied those constraints which produced indubitable benefits to growth and the McMahon Government established the Australian
Environment Council to co-ordinate regulating agencies in 1972.
Prior to the Senate inquiries into pollution, governments would only limit environmental pollution from small-scale operators to ease growing complaints from the public and agriculturists. Public complaints led state governments to tighten the controls for pesticides after thirty-seven children were accidentally poisoned in
1961, and with councils, to sporadically control environmental pollution from small- scale enterprises, such as a Renmark winery in 1961, electro-platers, sandblasters
and industrial waste incinerators in 1962, opal mining in 1963 and where the purity
of food was threatened.6e This intervention was far from proscriptive, with all of
68. Commonwealth Senate Select Committee Reports: 'Air Pollution, 1969',76t-2 and'Water Pollution, 1970', I47, 150-3, 157, 168-9, 250-l , 253, 279,313, 318, 321, 324' 326-31, 333, 335-7,343,35r-3. 69. Central Board of Health Reports: '1961' ,3, 6, 9-10, '1962' ,3, 6, 8, '1963' , 8, '1964' , 8-9, 12, '1965',8,'1966', 5, 8-9, '1967', 10-11, 20 and '1968', 5' Director of Mines, 'Report, 1962163" 6. Chapter Nine One Environment 2t9
the state regulators only prosecuting one industrialist for air pollution in the 1960s.70
Prior to 1970, no state government sought to curb environmental pollution from any significant private enterprise. No state government required industrialists to exercise greater pollution controls than industrialists were willing to undertake themselves without prior public objections to industrial expansion.Tr State governments continued the reluctance of the Playford Government (1960-1965) to concede air pollution as a public health risk that led to placing monitoring stations where emissions from the lead smelters were least likely to gather at Port Pirie from 1961 and to ignore complaints from the Millicent council of the odorous twenty-three miles long drain from the Apcel paper mill to Lake Bonney.72 State governments would intervene on behalf of agricultural lobby groups, with the Victorian
Government curbing mining pollution in the River Murray catchment from 1963, and the River Murray Commission and the Hall Government retaining saline waters from 1968 in the hope of curbing the five-fold increase in salinity.T3 However, not even the return of algal blooms to the river in 1968 prodded governments from ignoring CSIRO warnings against crop-dusting agricultural poisons and
70. The sandblasting firm, Diemet Ltd., was prosecuted for causing continual pollution after many complaints were made by West Torrens residents in 1962. Central Board of Health Reports: '1962',8 and'1964',4, 12. Commonwealth Senate Select Committee, 'Air Pollution Report, 1969', ,317,786. 71. Select Committee Reports: 'Gas Act Amendment Bill, 1961', 1,'South Australian Gas Company's Act Amendment Bill, 1964', l, 'Oil Refinery (Hundred of Noarlunga) Indenture Act Amendment Bill, 1965', 1, 'Oil Refinery (Hundred of Noarlunga) Indenture Act Amendment Bill, 1967',1 and'Gas Act Amendment Bill, 1969',l. J.R. Dunstard, 'Inquiry into the Citrus Industry, 1965166' , 7-9. 72. Commonwealth Senate Select Committee, 'Air Pollution Report, 1969',301, 692,724,765-6, 769. Select Committee Repons: 'Pulp and Paper Mill, 1961', i-3 and'Pulp and Paper Mill Bill, 1964',2. Central Board of Health Reports: '1961',12,'1962',8, 10-11,'1963',8, 12-13, '1964" 7, 10,',1965" 11,',r966" 12, 16,',1967" 16,20,'1968" 12 and ',1969" L2,18. Director of Mines Reports: '1962/63' ,40 and '1963164' , 45. 73. River Murray Commission Reports: ',196016L" 9-I0,',1963164" 36,',1964165" 31,',1965166" 32, '1966167' , 8-9,26, 33-4, '1967168' , l0-ll, 4l-2, '1968169' , 37 and'1969170' , 5-6,32. Chapter Nine One Environment 220
superphosphate in the catchm ent.1 a
The Senate committees found that both environmental and occupational industrial pollution were national problems requiring immediate action to benefit both economic development and public health and that it would be cheaper to prevent pollution than treat contaminated environs.Ts The two inquiries found the
industries operating at Adelaide, Whyalla, Port Augusta and Port Pirie caused
disease and environmental damage by creating atmospheric dust five times US safety
levels for smoke and sulphur dioxide.T6 Half of Australian urban air pollutants were produced by metal, chemical, brick and ceramic processors and municipal
incinerators, with power plants generating 10 per cent and motor vehicles the
remainder while, in the countryside, crop-dusting blew 70-80 per cent of poisons
such as DDT and fertilizers off target.7? These and food, paper and wine processors
had polluted the three main water supplies of South Australia (the River Murray, the
Mount Lofty Ranges and artesian water in the south east), while the oil refinery put
beaches and fisheries at risk.78 By affecting public and environmental health,
industrial air and water pollution limited economic growth by causing at least
850,000 days of absenteeism per annum by injuring and killing Australians and,
through the spread of algae and disease, jeopardized the use of vital waterways such 'Water as the River Murray.Te pollution had already made population growth in
74. rbid., '1960161" 34, '1963164" 32, ',1964165" 27, ',1965166" 31, ',1966167" 32, ',1967168" 10, 39,' 1968/69', 32 and' 1969 170', 31. 75. Commonwealth Senate Select Committee Reports: 'Air Pollution, 1969' , 305-7 ,334-5, 341,344 and'Water Pollution, 1970', 163, 166-7, 169, 210, 269, 306, 308-l l, 351-2. 76. Ibid., 'Air Pollution, 1969' ,277-8,281-2,289,293,297-8, 692. 77 . lbid., 284, 290, 293, 297 -8. 78. Ibid., 'Water Pollution Report, 1970' , 176-9, 183-8, 191,209-14,253-5. 79. Air pollution killed up to 750 Australians annually, made urban dwellers 1.24 times more prone to respiratory diseases than rural counterparts, and chronically poisoned workers, The use of DDT on food crops had increased the incidence of leukemia and anaemia. Industrial water pollution caused algal blooms, killed fish and birds and spread cholera, typhoid, dysentery and hepatitis. Ibid., 'Air Pollution, 1969',290,299,301, 303,305-7,761,763,768,770-I, 1128, 1155, 1191-3,1196,l2O7 and 'rüater Pollution, I97O', L77-9, 185-6, 191. Chapter Nine One Environment 221
South Australia unsustainable and, since 1926, sporadically limited industrial growth in the state and threatened exports from the Riverina.s0 The senators found all sectors of the community contributed to this pollution.sl Industrialists made sewerage effluent non-recyclable, by disregarding toxicity when illegally draining wastes into sewerage schemes which put pollutants out of public sight and mind.82 Companies, such as Sulphuric Acid Pty. Ltd. at Port
Adelaide and BHAS at Port Pirie, flouted government directives to ease emissions by knowingly polluting residents with poisonous concentrations and only treating pollutants to capture valuable byproducts.s3 Some industrialists, such as paper makers, finding air emission controls too expensive, dispersed pollutants through taller chimneys and, like consumers, opted for cheaper rather than cleaner machinery and fuels.sa The committees blamed all tiers of government for permitting gross industrial pollution to bolster private profit and compete for industrial growth. Councils such as at Port Pirie had prevented state controls in their own areas, state regulators viewed legislation as ending pollution itself, South Australian governments limited inspectors to persuade, rather than force industrialists to curb pollution and inadequately funded pollution monitoring, and the
Commonwealth agencies monitoring air and water pollution failed to notify state regulators of any need to act against polluters and left farmers to prevent pollution
80. Ibid., 'Water Pollution Report, 1970',254-5,257-8. 81. Ibid., 148, 155. 82. Uranium miners and processors 'were just as guilty of water pollution as other miners and refineries. lbid., 172-3, 181, 183, 189,259-61,275. 83. Ibid.,'Air Pollution Report, 1969','7 41, 7 43-4, 1 61, 7 63, 7 68, 770-L 84. Sulphuric Acid Pty. Ltd., with an annual turnover of $2.5 million, preferred a 200 foot chimney stack at $80,000 rather than a new plant at $900,000 which would only capture $34,000 worth of sulphur per annum. The Electricity Trust could only afford arresters at one of the Port Augusta power stations, leaving the other to jettison 200,000 tons of ash per annum. Ibid., 454, 74I,743- 4,764,787-9,794-5,797,887,891-4,1118,1120-1,1123,1125-6,1191,1193,1196,1203. Chapter Nine One Environment 222
from crop-dusting.85 The payment of 'dirt money' to workers was an insufficient incentive for industrial management to curb dangerous levels of occupational pollutants and, when coupled with the failure of local and state governments to prevent toxic emissions from large-scale works, subjected both workers and residents in industrial suburbs and towns to heinous levels of pollution.s6
The senators promoted emission controls drafted by international trade organizations and industrialists, according to industrial benefit, not public health.
To maintain the national religion of economic growth, the senators recommended limiting water emissions according to OECD standards or those drawn by industrialists through the Standards Association of Australia or the needs of downstream industrial consumers, the preparedness of the community to pay and the ability of waterways to purify themselves, while appeasing environmentalist groups by diverting wastes into lagoons.sT Similarly, the senators recoÍrmended setting air emissions according to what industry could achieve by requiring new plant to be less polluting, shielding the public from enterprises which could not curb emissions with green belts, and occasionally banning emissions when weather would increase the public health risk.88 Both committees advocated Commonwealth funding to monitor pollution and find abatement schemes.se Both committees urged state governments to form umbrella organizations, like the South Australian and Victorian clean air committees, in order to balance the needs of economic growth with public health
85. Ibid., 331, 489, 693-4, 696, 724,727-9,743,745-9, 757-60,765, 769-71,773,775-6, llg2-5, 1205, 1207,1210, l2l2-3, 1216, 1218, 1220-I, 1222-3 and'Water Pollution, 1970', 155, 195, 248-50, 279, 302-3, 307-8, 351. 86. Ibid., 'Air Pollution Report, 1969', 585, 761-2,764-6,768-9,772. 87. Ibid., 'Water Pollution Report, 1970',253,270-I,279, 313,318,321, 324,326-3I,333,335- 7,345-6,358, 363. W,I. StewarL, National Standards and Íhe Impact on Australia 1922-1980 (Sydney, 1980),3. 88. Commonwealth Senate Select Committee, 'Air Pollution Report, 1969',308-10, 316, 329-6, 693, 697, 728-9, 733-4, 738, 808-1 t, t2t3-7 . 89. Ibid., L199,1205,1216,1218, 1220-1,1222-3 and 'Water Pollution, 1970',157,352. Chapter Nine One Environment 223
and ensure that municipal and state inspectors enforced emission standards.e0 Although preferring that polluting industrialists fund emission abatement, since communities would ultimately pay by increased prices, the committees advocated government grants to polluting industries to offset costs and to limit any edge international competitors might so gain over Australian industries.el In the light of these recommendations, Liberal-National Commonwealth governments imposed pollution restrictions upon industrialists according to international covenants, if economic gains were likely to ensue, and formalized the co-ordination of pollution controls of the states in 1972. The McMahon ministry
(1971-1972) created the Australian Environment Council in 1972, from the national environment policy created by the heads of Australian health departments at the behest of the Gorton ministry.e2 The Australian Environment Council acted as a conduit for the states to co-ordinate their control of pollutants which crossed state boundaries.e3 To join the OECD in 1970, the Gorton administration had to adopt both its environmental standards and 'polluter pays' principle, by ending tax concessions to encourage industrialists to limit emissions.ea Aside from these, the
Gorton ministry had merely urged NHMRC sub-committees to draft industrial pollution emission standards and monitor the level of pesticides and poisonous metals in Australians and food.es The main focus of the McMahon Government (1971-1972) was for non-proscriptive measures: setting up an environmental
90. Ibid., 'Air Pollution, 1969' ,316-8, 325-6,329-3I and ''Water Pollution, 1970' , 156-7, 169, 174, 308-9, 346-7, 352-5, 35',1 -8. 91. Ibid., 'Air Pollution, 1969', 743,758-760, 887, ll24-5, 1127,ll29 and'Water Pollution, 197 0" 155, 248-9, 273, 2'1 5, 27 8-9, 281-7, 352, 357 . 92. Commonwealth Department of Health, 'Report, 197017l', 514. Howson, 'Commonwealth Environment Policy, 1972', 4. 93. Ibid., 4, 13 and 16. 94. Ibid., 4-6, ll. Australian Bureau of Statistics, Yearbook: Australia No. 67, 1983 (Canberra, t983),397. 95. Commonwealth Department of Health Reports: '1968169', 130, '1969170', 784, 803-4, ' 197017 l', 514-5, 554 and' 197 ll72', ltl. Chapter Nine One Environment 224
advisory service in the Commonwealth Department of Health, adding 65 staff to
Commonwealth health laboratories, providing $14.5 million to the CSIRO to assess pollution and pledging funding for future projects according to environmental impacts.e6 Most of the proscriptive measures which the McMahon ministry imposed aimed at making an economic gain. These included requiring wharfies unloading dangerous cargoes to wear respirators from 1970 to prevent strikes on the wharves, threatening regulation to get the chemical industry to introduce biodegradable detergents in order to enable the recycling of sewage in 197I, ensuring state pollution controls constituted fair trade, setting water emission standards according to downstream industrial needs and offsetting the costs of stockpiling chemicals to clean up oil spills by increasing the maximum fines from $2,000 to $50,000 by 1972.e7 Without an obvious economic gain, the McMahon Government implemented minimal forms of proscription, such as requiring vehicle manufacturers to curb car exhausts by the least costly means and, rather than strive to reduce the metal and insecticide emissions which contaminated foods to ÌWHO safety levels, urged the states to amend food codexes and poisons registers.e8
State governments reacted by applying proscriptive restraints on industrialists wherever economic growth seemed to be threatened by industrial pollution, to maximize water usage and improve productivity. These governments sent the heads of pollution inspectorates to examine OECD methods of limiting industrial diseases
96. Howson, 'Commonwealth Environment Policy, 1972' , 4, 12-16. CSIRO Reports: '1971172' , 12-13, 18 and'1972/73' , 23-4. Commonwealth Department of Health Reports: '1969170' ,778, 847, '1970171' , 525-6,599 and '1971172' , 10,72. 97. Commonwealth Senate Select Committee, 'Water Pollution Report, 1970', 181-3. Commonwealth Department of Health Reports, 't969170', 793 and'1971172', 10. Howson, 'Commonwealth Environment Policy, 1972', 4, 6, 14-15. 98. Commonwealth Department of Health Reports, '1968169', 130, '1969170',765,767, 804 and ' 19'71/72', 9, 1 10. Howson,'Commonwealth Environment Policy, 1972', 10. Chapter Nine One Environment 225
and pollution.ee With the Senate findings that environmental pollution could curb economic growth published after the Hall Liberal Government lost office in 1970, this administration only used non-proscriptive controls of environmental pollution to appease protests from environmentalist groups, such as irrigating Adelaide Airport with recycled effluent from Bolivar, replacing DDT with malathion to eradicate mosquitoes from swamps and monitoring the level of pollution in the South
Australian environment from 1969 to 1979.too In contrast, between 1970 and 1972, the Dunstan Labor Government (1970-1975) imposed amendments on 83 per cent of the 414 applications for developments, convinced councils to stop burning industrial wastes at the Wingfield dump and even had mining inspectors investigate pollution from the Defence proofing ranges at Murray Bridge and Port V/akefield.r0l Already noting the importance of potable water to industrial development, ln 1969 the Hall ministry directed the E&WS to build sewers to stop all industrial pollution of rivers and underground water supplies identified by the Labor-introduced Bolivar water pollution monitoring laboratory, and to find safe dumps for toxic liquid industrial wastes.l02 The Dunstan Government continued these policies, spending over $39 million, four times the amount allocated by any previous government, on sewerage and water treatment, to end all known instances of the industrial pollution of public
99. Central Board of Health Reports, '1970',6, and '1971, 1972 and 1973', 6. Department of Labour, 'Reports: '1969' , ll-12, '1970', 14 and '1971' ,3, 20. E&WS, 'Report, 1973174', 4. 100. Ibid., '1968169',24,26,'1969/70', 19,2l and'1970/71',21. Central Board of Health Reports: '1968', 7,9-I0, 13,'1969',8, 10 and'1970',7-8, 14, 16. D.O. Jordan, Report of the committee on Environment in south Australia (Adelaide, 1972), 1,3. 101. State Planning Authority Reports: '19'70171', 11 and '197L172', 13. Director of Mines Reports: '1970171', 9'7 and'197 1172', l2l . A.G. Townley, 'Defence New Three-Year Programme, 7962' , in APP 1962-63, v. 3, 742. Commonwealth Department of Supply Reports: ' 197 ll72', 6l and' 1973/74', 17 . 102. E&WS Reports: '1965/66',10,'1966167',13,'1967168', 35 añ'1968169',21. Director of Mines, 'Report, 1967168' , 59. Chapter Nine One Environment 226
water supplies by 1975.r03 After strikes tripled in severity in 1969,104 these governments reacted proscriptively to occupational pollution. The Hall ministry gave the Department of
Labour control of worker's compensation, placed the factories in seven towns and four district councils under its regulation and banned silica from factories in 1970.105
The Dunstan cabinet introduced factory regulations to four more regional towns and districts, employed five regional factory inspectors, instituted safer working practices at the Electricity Trust, adopted the OECD polluter pays principle and ILO standards by increasing worker's compensation pay outs by 50 per cent and making deafness from industrial noise and asbestosis compensatable diseases.106 Mirroring the introduction of these proscriptive controls of occupational pollution, the costs and duration of industrial disputes were halved and cut by onethird, respectively, from 1969 to 1972:
103. Select Committee, 'Report on the South-Western Drainage, 1970', l. Parliamentary Standing Committee on Public Works Reports: 'Islington Sewage Farm Development, 1970', 9-10, 'Glenelg Treatment Works, I970l7l',3-5, 'Metropolitan Abattoirs Sewerage Scheme, l970l7l', 3-4, 'North-Eastern and Eastern Suburbs Sewerage System, I97l/72',4-5,7,'Murray Bridge Sewerage System, 1968169',3-4, 6-7,'Mount Gambier Outfall Sewer, 1973174',3-5, 7, 'Hope 'Works, Valley Water Treatment Plant, 1973174', 4,7-10,'Bolivar Sewage Treatment 1973174', 4,7, 'Hahndorf Sewerage System, 1974175' ,3-4,7-8, and 'Anstey Hill Water Treatment Works, 1975/76', 4,7. E&V,IS Reports: '1968169', 11,34,'1969170', 19, '1970171',3, 12, 19,21-2, 26,33, ',r971172', , 10, 19, 21, 25,27, 33, ',19721'73', ,6, 8, 16, 22,29 and',1973174', , 5, 14, 19- 20. Central Board of Health, 'Report, 1970',7-8. Electricity Trust, 'Report,'1973174',11 . Inglis, 'Environmental Protection Council, 19'73174 and 1974175' , I2-I5' 104. Aitchison, SA Year Book 1970 287 . 105. Central Board of Health, 'Report, 1970',7, 14, Department of Labour, 'Report, 1970', 4, 6, 14. 106. Ibid., '1970', 4, 6-7 and'1971', 5-6, 16, 25-7,30' Electricity Trust, 'Report, l970l7l', 12. Select Committee, 'Report on Occupational Safety and Welfare, l97ll72',4' Chapter Nine One Environment 227
Table 9.5: Industrial disputes of more than ten days in South Australia, 1969-1972
Strikes Strikers Days Lost per per as % of per per per annum annum workforce annum striker strike
1969 72 I 01 r02 nla 128,957 1 3 r79l r970 156 57 000 nla 93,100 1 6 597 t97l 135 64 100 13.2 93,100 1 5 690 t972 111 49 800 nla 60,900 I 2 s49
Source: Aitchison, SA Year Book 1970 287 and, SA Year Book 1976 344. Leonard, SA Year Book 1977 360.
The Commonwealth and South Australian governments delayed introducing further controls of environmental industrial pollution until international pollution control agreements were set to maintain growth through the United Nations
Conference on the Human Environment in 1972. To fulfil the right of humanity and internationally significant eco-systems to life-fulfilling habitats, this conference added to the Senate proposals to prevent pollution from dangerous chemicals, ban weapons of mass destruction, permit community consultation over new polluting works, provide public awareness campaigns, monitor the level and sources of sea pollution and inform the United Nations of river pollution and power station emissions.l07 The conference thought that pollution should only be accepted if it could not be prevented by the 'best practicable means' or resulted from producing food or goods vital to human health.lO8 Australia joined fifty-seven other countries on the permanent secretariat of the United Nations to curtail industrial pollutants by providing aid to developing nations; drafting international compensatory law, emission standards and health warnings; preventing forestry and mining pollution; publicizing environmental issues; monitoring pollution levels; and finding less
107. Along with heavy metals, agro-chemicals, organochlorines and radiation the conference sought to control chemicals affecting the climate. Howson, 'Conference on the Human Environment, 1972', , 6, 8, 10, 19-24, 26-7 , 38, 49, 5r, 54-6. 108. Ibid., 51. Chapter Nine One Environment 228
hazardous pesticides, herbicides, fuels and waste disposal systems.lOe The
McMahon Government only committed to apply ministerial discretion over sea pollution and monitor the impact of pollutants until the United Nations set international regulations for noise, sea and air pollution that were amenable to industrial growth and living standards.lrO The Hall and Dunstan state governments had deferred introducing the dark smoke regulations drafted by the clean air committee until after the United Nations Conference on the Human Environment.lll
The Commonwealth Senate inquiries into air and water pollution rekindled government action to prevent industrial environmental pollution by demonstrating that this could aid economic growth. Only the Hall Government, unaware of the impact of environmental industrial pollution on economic growth, did little to prevent it in response to protests by environmentalist groups. Commonwealth governments introduced the polluter pays principle and emission standards to gain membership to the OECD in 1970 and established the Australian Environment
Council in 1972 for the states to co-ordinate the regulation of industrial pollution to further economic growth, such as by enabling greater use of water. To assure a supply of potable water to enable continued economic growth from 1969, both the Hall and Dunstan governments funded the sewering of all known instances of industrial water pollution by 1975. The concerted efforts of these govemments to prevent occupational pollution coincided with a massive reduction in the duration and costs of industrial disputes from 1969 to 1972. These reforms also provided wharfies with respirators, banned silica from factories and replaced DDT from
1970, ended detergent water pollution from 1971, and treated or removed sources of occupational and environmental pollution by 1972. Such proscriptive and concerted
109. Ibid,, 9-10,20,23,29,33-6,43,47-51,54-5,60,64. UN, 'Report, 1972',7-8. 1 10. Ibid., 6-7 , 13-17 . Commonwealth Department of Environment, 'Report, 1972 to 1974' , 16-17 111. Central Board of Health Reports, '1969',4,6,'1970',14, and '1971, 1972 and 1973',7. Chapter Nine One Environment 229
efforts placed South Australia in advance of other Australian states in industrial pollution control and provided Australia with models for clean air committees and recycling liquid effluent.112 They also helped South Australians, representing 9 per cent of the Australian population, account for a mere 2 per cent of national fatalities from industrial accidents, 3.5 per cent of non fatal accidents,5.3 per cent of absences from work and 3 per cent of compensation pay outs.113
A Human Environment: 1972-1975
Viewing environmental and occupational pollution control as a means of stimulating economic growth, both Whitlam and Dunstan Labor governments were not only prepared to enforce limits on industrial pollution through an economic downturn, but formed Departments of Environment to co-ordinate state pollution-regulating agencies, which were reformed and launched the greatest regulation witnessed in
South Australia.
The Whitlam Commonwealth GovernmerLt (1972-1975) introduced all the remaining reforms to control industrial pollution recommended by the Senate and
United Nations to further economic growth. It immediately created the Department
of Environment, with 156 staff, to conduct mandatory hearings on the environmental impact of controversial Commonwealth-funded development, to support
environmentalist groups and to promote environmentalism in the professions.lla To create wealth by providing water for regional development, the Whitlam
112. Commonwealth Senate Select Committee Reports: 'Air Pollution, 1969',325-6,329-3I and 'Water Pollution, 1970' , 147 ,289,298-9,306,340-1,346. 113. Unfortunately, fhe Parliamentary Papers only permitted the comparison between these state and national statistics to be made for 1971. Department of Labour, 'Report, l97l',25,30. ABS, Year Book 1983 I22. 114. Commonwealth Department of Environment Reports: '1972 to 1974' , äi, l-2, 16-20,33, 44-5, 48-9 and' 1974175', 4-5. Chapter Nine One Environment 230
Government formed the Bureau of Environment Studies to fund South Australian water treatment plants and research water pollution, to set multiple use water emission criteria, to prevent the pollution of the River Murray and to take control of ocean dumping from the Minister for Transport, who had yet to refuse a request.lls
The Whitlam cabinet formed a standing parliamentary committee to determine the need for environmental legislation and increased Commonwealth monitoring of sea and air pollutants.rr6 By taking France to the international court to stop atmospheric tests of nuclear weapons at Mururoa, the V/hitlam ministry prevented radioactive fallout in Australia in addition to setting safer mining and milling codes for Australian uranium ore processors and providing extra staff to the Radium
Laboratory.rlT The Health Department also produced a National Poisons Registerto
curb the poisoning of 8,113 Australians per annum from 1970 to 1972 and sent
representatives to the OECD Environmental Committee.ll8
The V/hitlam Government succeeded in preventing industrial pollution by
approaching the states and industrialists far more aggressively than had the Liberal-
National administrations. By threatening to take over the control of industrial
pollution in the River Murray in 1973, it prompted Victoria to stem mining pollution
and New South Wales to stop 'excessive pollution' of the river, to the satisfaction of
the E&WS.lre It ratified thirteen ILO conventions by threatening to take over the
115. M. Cass, 'A National Approach to Water Resources Management, 1973', 1-5. Commonwealth Department of Environment Reports: '1972 to 1974" 17-18,22,24-5,30-2, 36-7,39, 44, 49, 5l-2, 58 and'1974/75', 13-14, 17-18. United Nations, 'Conference on the Law of the Sea Report, 1974' ,3,25-6. 116. CSIRO Reports: 'I974175', 2I-2 and '19751'76', 45. Commonwealth Department of Environment Reports: '1972 to 1974' ,24-5,27,38, 49, 66 and'1974175' , 13, 16-17 . 117. International Court of Justice, 'Nuclear Tests Case, Australia V. France, 1973' , 5-7, t0-12, 24, 30-1. Commonwealth Health Department Reports: '1973174', 86, 88, 90, '19141'75', 104 and '1975176' ,75. Australian Atomic Energy Commission, 'Report, 1972/73' , 64. 1 18. Commonwealth Department of Health, 'Report, 1972173' , 38-9 , 4l . 119. R.J. Higgs, 'River Murray Interim Report', in APP 1973 v.7,5,20-t. C.L. Settle, 'River Murray Report to Ministers', in APP 1976 v. 12,3. River Murray Commission Reports: '1972173' , 35, 38 and '1973174' , 33, 37. Parliamentary Standing Committee on Public Works, 'Report on Hope Valley Water Treatment Plant, 1973174',4. Chapter Nine One Environment 23r
regulation of industrial safety from those states which failed to ban carcinogens such as benzene from the workplace, make deafness an industrial disease and investigate and prevent occupational accidents in ports.r20 While directly urging private industrialists to improve productivity by reducing illness and absenteeism by providing medical services to employees and applying 60 ILO occupational health standards, the V/hitlam Government employed 6 more arbitration commissioners and 4 additional labour inspectors, who found 313 instances of South Australian industrialists breaching occupational health awards, and used the Industries
Assistance Commission to induce car makers to further reduce emissions from new vehicles.l2l This ministry impressed urgency on the states and industry to adopt
NHMRC standards for emissions, metals in fish, detergents, leaded petrol, vehicle exhausts, industrial noise and ocean dumping while the NHMRC drafted emission standards for vehicles, water, microwave ovens and the life-long recording of the health of radiation workers.l22 The Whitlam Government strove to get the states to introduce impact statements wherein developers would be required to determine and publicly air the effect their proposals would have on the environment.rz3
The Dunstan Government immediately reformed the public service and regulations in line with all the recommendations from the United Nations environment conference. It created the Department of Environment and
120. ILO Reports: '1970',22,'Maritime 1970',9,'197I',12-13,33 and'1974',13-14,43,51. Department of Labour Reports: '1970' ,23, '1971',25-6, '1972' ,27,'1973' , 14 and '1974' , 12, 39,42. Director of Mines, 'Report, I97ll72',118. Central Board of Health, 'Report, 1971, 1972 and 1973' , 10. 121. Commonwealth Department of Health Reports: '1972173',6,'1973174',6I,'1974175', 58 and 'L975176' , 47. Commonwealth Conciliation and Arbitration Commission, 'Report, 1972173' , 5- 6. Australian Arbitration Inspectorate,'Report, 1972', 3, 6-7, 20, 22. Commonwealth Department of Environment, 'Report, 1972 to 1974' , 28, 55. 122. Commonwealth Department of Health Reports: '1972173' ,38-9, 130, '1973174' ,50-3, 152 and '1974175', , 44-5, 145. 123. Commonwealth Department of Environment, 'Report, 1974175' , 6, Chapter Nine One Environment 232
Conservation in 1972 to co-ordinate pollution controls and promote environmentalism, formed the Environmental Protection Council as a watchdog over both government and the private sector, and finally gave inspectorates control over the entire state, with the Department of Health policing environmental pollution, the
E&WS checking artesian water, the Department of Mines vetting quarries and mines, the State Planning Authority overseeing the development and zoning regulations of all councils, and passed legislation to give the Department of Labour control over the internal environments of all South Australian factories.l2a This rationalization addressed the trend of state inspection agencies amalgamating efforts to tackle the growing complexities of industrial pollution since 1960.12s These reforms were accompanied by 10 additional factory inspectors and new industrial noise and health sections in the Department of Labour, 3 mining inspectors and a horticulturist to rehabilitate mine sites, bringing environmental health inspectors to
43, air pollution monitors to 62 and a mobile service to the Department of Health, doubling the pollution monitoring staff of the E&WS and providing a new
124. Select Committee, 'Report on Occupational Safety and Welfare, l97ll72',4,6, II. Inglis, 'Environmental Protection Council, 197317 4 atd 197 417 5' , 5-8 , 21-2, 3 1 . Department of Labour Reports: '1972' , 3, 6-7, 16 and '1973' , 10, l4-15. Director of Mines, 'Report, 1972173', 7. E&WS,'Report, 1973174',4,6. Directorof Planning,'Report, 1972173',3, 13. StatePlanning Authority Reports: '1970171" 4, 8-10, ',I9lll72" 10-12,',1972173" l0-ll,16,'1973174" 9-10, 18-19 and' 1974/7 5', 13, 15-17, 20, 25. 125. Due to the growing complexity of dealing with industrial pollution, councils on the Adelaide plains amalgamated their efforts to dispose of industrial and domestic wastes in 1967 and state governments formalized joint regulation by the inspecting agencies to tackle the pollution of artesian and River Murray water, monitor and control air and noise pollution and industrial diseases. Director of Mines Reports: '1960161', 19, '1962163" 26, ',1963164" 20, ',1964165" 2r-2, 47, 49, ',1965166" 15, ',1967168" 16-17,25,27, ',7968169" 13, 59 and',1969170" 79. Central Board of Health Reports: '1962', ll, '1964', 10, '1965', 9, '196'7', 11,20,'1969',4, 16 and '1970' ,'7. Department of Labour Reports: '1963' , 22, '1965' , 8, '1966', 9, '1967' , 9, '1968', 14 a¡d'1969', 13. E&\VS Reports: '1966167',33 and'7972/73',14. Director of Planning,'Report, 1968/69', 12. Chapter Nine One Environment 233
laboratory at Mount Gambier and equipment to gauge sea pollution and fallout.r26 lt also formed a committee of all permanent departmental heads to curb occupational noise and accidents in government workshops from 1972.127 It set acceptable emissions into the River Murray according to the needs of downstream industrial users; made occupational polluters pay by increasing worker's compensation pay outs by two-thirds, making deafness and afflictions from hazardous materials compensatable and all ILO-defined industrial diseases notifiable; required
employers to minimize air emissions as much as possible or meet NHMRC standards
and provide medical services for lead and asbestos workers; applied the clean air
committee's dark smoke regulations to 300 factories; insisted that miners and
quarry operators rehabilitate their works and report all, rather than only serious, mining accidents; and forced pest controllers to meet NHMRC standards and
exhausts from new vehicles to comply with Australian design rules.128
The Dunstan Government coupled tightened regulations controlling industrial
pollution with increased policing and proscription. In the aftermath of massive anti-
pollution protests over the Redcliff petrochemical proposal, a project which failed
due to unprofitability, the Dunstan administration made the Environmental
Protection Council assess the environmental impact of proposals for an uranium
enrichment plant at Port Pirie and quarries to avoid future public furore.r2e All state
126. Department of Labour Reports: '1972', 16,'1973', 10, 14-15, 32 and'1974',10. Director of Mines Reports: '1972/'73', 102 and '1913174',87. Central Board of Health, 'Report, 1971, 1972 and 1973', 6-7, 15, 26. Inglis, 'Environmental Protection Council, 1973174 and 1974175', 9, 13. E&WS Reports: '1972173' , 16 and '1973174' ,20. Parliamentary Standing Committee on Public Works, 'Bolivar Sewage Treatment Works, 1973174' ,3-5,7 . 127. Department of Labour Reports: '1972' , 3, 16 and '1973' , 13 . 128. Inglis,'EnvironmentalProtectionCouncil, l973l74andI974l75',10, 12-13, 15,21. Central Board of Health, 'Report, 1971, 1972 and 1973' ,7, 15. Department of Labour Reports: '1972' , 3, ó-8, 16 and '1973' ,6. Director of Mines Reports: '1970/71' , 5, '1972173' ,7 and '1974175' , 72. Select Committee, 'Report on Occupational Safety and Welfare, l97l/72',5-rc. 129. Inglis, 'Environmental Protection Council, 1973174 and 1974175',26-'7,29,3L Director of Mines Reports: '1972/73', ,7, ',1973174', ,37 and',l9',74/75', , 8' Chapter Nine One Environment 234
regulating agencies prevented pollution, with the E&V/S stopping several factories from polluting the sea and curbing emissions from two paper mills into Lake
Bonney; health inspectors tackling industrial dermatitis, deafness, solvents and pesticides according to a tide of complaints; the Department of Labour registering worker's compensation claims and inspectors vetting 98 per cent of all regulated factories per annum; the Department of Mines seeking less polluting mining methods, ores outside environmentally sensitive areas, preparing pollution potential maps and rehabilitating disused quarries.l30 Regulators were more demanding of industrialists, with environmental health inspectors increasing fines of food processors by 53 per cent after 1972 to I47 prosecutions per annum, local regulators issuing 37 per cent more fines under pollution preventing by-laws to 5,586 per annum, factory inspectors issuing 57 per cent more orders to modify plant and practices to 163 per annum and, after mining inspectors found that air concussion from quarry blasts caused property damage, 10 per cent more fines to 1l per annum.13l The State Planning Authority reviewed plans of industrial zones according to ecological surveys, wind direction and the potential for water recycling and pollution.132 Agitation by the Department of Environment and Conservation made the E&WS curb environmental pollution from its plants at Hope Valley,
130. E&WS Reports: '1971172',21,'1972173', 16 and'1973174',20. Central Board of Health
Reports: '1970' ,8 and '1971, 19'72 and 1973' , 14,28. Department of Labour Reports: '1972' , 16,'1973',10, 14-15, 32and'1974',10,20-1,25,40. Director of Mines Reports: '1970171', 5,94-6,',197v72" 5, 18,26-9, 41, 63, 1r9,',t972173" 5,7-8,23-5,34,38,40, 102, t06, 'L973174', 7-8, 27, 32, 35-7, 94 and'1974/15', 8, 26, 28, 43, 59, 69, 72. Inglis, 'Environmental Protection Council, 1973174 and 1974/75' , 29. 13l. Statistical Registers: '1969170 and l970l1l', Part I, 10,'1971172', Part I, 7,'1972/73',Par¡.1, 8 and'1973/74' , Part I, 8. Department of Labour Reports: '1970' , 14, '1971' , 13, '1972' , 17, '1973' , l7 and'1974' , 25. Director of Mines Reports: '1970171' , 5, 94, 96-7, '1971172' , ll8- 19, l2l,' 1972173', 102, 106, 108 and' 191 3 11 4', 87, 89, 93. 132. Inglis, 'Environmental Protection Council, 1913114 and 1974175', 11, 16-19. State Planning Authority Reports: '1971172' ,8 and '1974175' , 6. Chapter Nine One Environment 23s
Bolivar and Mount Gambier.l33
Following the massive increase in the number and severity of strikes in 1974, the Dunstan Government expanded the ability of factory and mining inspectors to regulate occupational pollution. ln 1974 the Dunstan ministry applied the regulations it enacted, but deferred, in 1972, giving the control over all factories in the state to the Department of Labour, requiring industrialists to limit occupational pollution to Standards Association of Australia benchmarks and let workers elect safety representatives.l3a While the factory inspectors enforced these regulations, mining inspectors checked all 185 mining accidents in 1974175, instead of
investigating a mere handful of accidents per annum.r35 This ministry also acceded
to union bans by making the E&WS end fifty years of toxic foundry and plastic pollution at its Kent Town works and noise pollution at the new Ottoway works.l36
The application of these reforms coincided with the number of strikers, cost and
severity of strikes falling to below the five-year average in 1975, despite the year
experiencing the greatest number of strikes for the period:
Table 9.6: Industrial disputes of more than ten days in South Australia, 197I-1975
Strikes Strikers Days Lost per per as % of per per per annum annum workforce annum striker strike
t97r-1975 156 77,300 13.6 149,600 2.r 959 t972 111 49,800 nla 60,900 1.2 549 t973 159 56,900 nla 130,600 2.3 82t 1974 180 116,300 nla 316,500 2.7 1758 1975 194 69,000 12.3 127,600 1.8 658
Source: Aitchison, SA Year Book 1976344. Leonard, SA Year Book 1977360,362,379
133. Parliamentary Standing Committee on Public Works Reports: 'Hope Valley Water Treatment Plant, 1973174' , 4,7-10, 'Bolivar Sewage Treatment Works, 1973174' , 7 and 'Mount Gambier OutfallSewer, 1973/74',5-6. E&WSReports: '1971172',37 and'1973174',19-20,27. 134. Department of Labour Reports: ' 1972' , 6-7 and ' 197 4' , 7 , 16 . 135. Ibid., '1974', I0,20-I,25, 40. Director of Mines, 'Report, 1974175',8,26,28, 43, 59, 69, 72. 136. Parliamentary Standing Committee on Public Works, 'Ottoway, I974175' ,8-10, 12-18. Chapter Nine One Environment 236
Linking pollution control to economic growth enabled the V/hitlam and
Dunstan governments to directly curtail toxic pollution in vital rivers and the sea, radioactive fallout, and the prevalence of poisons in the community by 1975. Both governments created Departments of Environment In 1972 to co-ordinate the work of state pollution-controlling agencies. The Whitlam cabinet reduced industrial pollution from 1973 by funding water treatment plants and research to control pollution, threatening to take over pollution controls from the states in regard to the
River Murray and occupational health and suing France to prevent nuclear fallout.
The Dunstan ministry curbed industrial pollution by logically delineating the controls exercised by regulating agencies, employing more regulators, increasing their knowledge of occupational pollution by requiring worker's compensation claims to be registered with the Department of Labour and all mining accidents to be investigated by mining inspectors by 1975 and forcing 300 factories to curb emissions. While the Dunstan Government sought to calm protests by environmentalist groups by assessing the environmental risks of new industrial enterprises, its deferral of tightened occupational pollution controls in 1972 and introduction of these in I975 coincided with the level of industrial disputes.
Collectively, these improvements resulted in decreasing levels of pesticides in food, no cases of environmental pollution-related diseases being reported from 1972 to
1975, mine and quarry owners preventing soil erosion and rehabilitating mines, while sulphur dioxide declined at Port Pirie by 11 per cent, smoke density by one- third at Adelaide, industrial noise by 19 decibels, and industrial diseases only rose Chapter Nine One Environment 237
by 30 per cent to 484 cases compared to the 6.5-fold increase from 1970171 to
1973174.r37
oo0oo
When the Commonwealth Senate inquiries into pollution connected the control of
industrial pollution to economic growth, governments gained an unequalled impetus
to prevent both environmental and occupational industrial pollution. Such shifts in thinking led the River Murray Commission to prevent Victorian mining from polluting the river in 1963; the Holt Government to accept the international
regulation of radioactive goods from 1966; Commonwealth and state governments
to reform the manner in which industrial pollution was regulated to gain entry into
the OECD in 1970; the Hall Government to ban silica from factories from 1970;
Liberal-National Commonwealth governments to provide wharfies with respirators
and introduce pollution controls to build a nuclear power plant in 1970, end water
pollution from detergent in 1971, and enable greater use of water from 1972; the
Hall and Dunstan state governments to sewer all known instances of industrial water
pollution by 1975; and for the Whitlam and Dunstan governments to aggressively and directly curtail toxic pollution in rivers as vital as the Murray by setting
industrial emissions according to the needs of downstream users from 1973, to stop
sea pollution, to prevent further radioactive fallout and pollution from 300 South
Australian factories, and reduce the prevalence of poisons in the community by
137. Commonwealth Department of Health Reports: '19'72173', 42, '7973174', 54, '1974175', 48 and'1975/76', 721. Central Board of Health Reports: '1970', 17-18,21 and'1971, 1972 arñ 1973' , 30,33, Department of Labour Reports: '1972' , 3, 6-7 , '1973' ,33-6 and'1974' ,7 , 44-6. Statistical Registers: '1969170 and l970l7l', Part I, 56, 60 and'1973/'14', Part 1,36,43, 45. Directorof MinesReports: '1971172', 115, 117,'1972173',102, 105,'1973174',87-90and '1974/75', , 69, 7l. Chapter Nine One Environment 238
1975. Such was the importance of controlling industrial pollution by 1972 that the
McMahon, Whitlam and Dunstan governments formed new departments to co- ordinate the efforts of state regulators. \ilhen no economic gain could be discerned from enforcing industrial pollution controls, governments made little effort. During times of industrial harmony the Playford Government deferred introducing the amended Industrial
Code in 1963, the Hall Government reduced occupational pollution controls and worker's compensation pay outs in 1968 and the Dunstan Government delayed applying new occupational pollution standards to factories throughout South Australia in 1972. Without any apparent economic benefit, protests by environmentalist groups could merely gain non-proscriptive controls of environmental pollution from the Hall Government in 1970 and environmental impact assessments from the Dunstan Government by 1975. While most of the forms of controlling industrial pollution open to governments operating in South Australia worked from 1960 to 1975, none did as much as linking growth to control. The only methods which failed to reduce industrial pollution were those relying on hiding pollution behind green belts, educating and expecting voluntary reductions from industrialists, who seemed more inclined to voluntarily pollute the workplace and environment. Recycling industrial wastes reduced pollution from dairy factories from 1966, woollen mills from 1967, power stations ftom 1973, and chemical plants, paper mills, refineries and tanneries from 1975. Cleaner fuels and works cut pollution by one-third for Adelaide just by switching electrical generation from coal to natural gas in 1969, with additional cuts made by the brick works, quarries, fuel processors, chemical, rubber and plastic manufacturers using cleaner fuels, technology and works by 1968. Making the industrial polluter pay, as attested by worker's compensation hikes for Ilo-defined Chapter Nine One Environment 239
industrial diseases by the Labor Governments in the mid-1960s and early 1970s, reduced the incidence of South Australian industrial deaths, accidents and absenteeism to well below the national proportion of the South Australian population. The strident policing of pollution standards, cease-work orders and doubling of compensation pay outs and providing mining and factory inspectors with
greater knowledge of the incidence of all compensatable industrial disease and mining accidents of the Labor governments of the mid-1960s and 1970s convinced
South Australian industrialists to apply less polluting technologies and, not only
created regulatory models for other states but cut poisonous concentrations in foods,
atmospheric sulphur dioxide and smoke density, soil erosion and the growth rate of
industrial disease. Chapter Ten What Works
Given that government sets the level at which it limits industrial pollution according to the impact on economic development and none of its controls have proven perfect, the community can only gain a pollution-free environment by making pollution reduction the means for industrial growth.
The Getting of Government Intervention
Governments operating in South Australia have reacted to industrial pollution according to the need to further economic development.
The colonial and state governments of South Australia have only sewered industrial pollutants to maintain development. These governments could only be convinced to fund sewer construction to maintain economic growth by draining underground water to keep the Kadina mines operational from 1863, freeing industrialists from court injunctions and the Central Board of Health from 1877, putting the unemployed to work sewering industries on the Adelaide plains in the
1930s, serving the munitions works during World War Two and aiding development at regional centres and the Adelaide plains from 1945.
The ability of councils to prevent industrial pollution has been conditioned by the dependency of the community upon polluting industries, the private holdings of councillors and the drive for industrialization by the government. While forty-six councils were prepared to drain industrial wastes and collect industrial garbage by
1889, only councils with an economy independent of polluting trades were prepared Chapter Ten What Works 241 to require such trades to limit emissions. Pastoral, mining and industrial communities and towns have only forced noxious trades to control pollution through their councils when manufacturing provided sufficient employment for these councils to be selective. When councils joined together to prevent food contamination by monopolizing slaughter on the Adelaide plains, it was the subsequent ability of the abattoirs to produce exports which made this an acceptable intrusion on private enterprise for the Price Labor Government in 1907. Just as councillors protected the dairies they owned at the expense of children's health in the 1900s, the Playford Government disregarded the desire of industrial communities for a less polluted environment to perpetuate industrialization in the 1950s.
South Australian governments have always conditioned the creation and operation of pollution-regulating agencies according to the survival of industry. To ensure polluting industrial enterprises were not sued to closure, the Blyth
Government formed the Central Board of Health in 1874. Subsequent governments provided polluting industries with sewers and immunity from regulation by the
Board and litigation in manufacturing districts from 1882. South Australian governments employed mining inspectors from 1886 and created the Department of
Mines in 1896 to stimulate mining by making such ventures more acceptable to landowners. Unionists gained factory inspectors to control occupational pollution from 1895 from the Kingston Liberal-Labor Government which was keen to end disruptions to industrial production by strikes, with employers refusing to negotiate over working conditions. South Australian governments dropped the environmental pollution controls of mining when the sector contracted from 1903 to 1916 and offered economically significant defence, mining and industrial ventures immunity from all regulators when seeking to further industrialization from 1936. South
Australian governments increased the power of health, mining or factory inspectors Chapter Ten What Works 242 to control occupational pollution according to unionists subscribing to anarcho- syndicalism and communism and disrupting industrial production through strikes in
1885, the 1890s, 1907, 1911, 1918-1920, 1939-1941, 1944-1949, 1955-1960, 1964,
1969 and 1974, to curb compensation claims against industrialists from 1925 and to prevent strikes to promote the state to industrialists from 1936. Only the need for healthy soldiers for the Great War made governments act differently.
Governments gained an unequalled impetus to control industrial pollution when connecting this to industrial growth. Such a shift in thinking led
Commonwealth and state governments to regulate environmental industrial pollution by sewering all known instances of industrial water pollution from 1969 and to apply the polluter pays principle in order to join the OECD in 1970. The control of industrial pollution attained such importance by 1972 that the McMahon, Whitlam and Dunstan governments formed public service departments specifically concerned with environmental issues and aggressively prevented industrial pollution from 1973. The regulation of industrial pollution traversed its first cycle from the South Australian government forming the Central Board of Health to co-ordinate local controls from 1874 to joining with the Commonwealth to form Departments of
Environment to co-ordinate state pollution-regulating agencies.
Effective Prevention
No form of pollution control was perfect. Non-proscriptive methods were more likely to permit than retard pollution. Technological means needed to be found and applied. Regulatory efforts were limited by the size of government and industry, immunity, knowledge of pollution and reducing the costs to polluting industrialists. Chapter Ten Wat Works 243
Non-proscriptive methods, such as voluntary or self-regulation, educational or publicity campaigns, failed to prevent industrial pollution. The pollution caused by the drive of colonists to exploit South Australian resources produced such health risks and discomfort that it could not be ignored. The self-regulation of mining pollution offered by South Australian governments prior to 1886 failed to prevent thirty-four South Australians being killed by mining activities, mining towns being turned into dust bowls and saturated with sulphur dioxide and forests destroyed to fuel smelters. Similarly, the voluntary regulation of industrial pollution by councils could not protect public health as it was least likely to occur in the industrial districts most likely to need it. The Parliamentary Papers showed merely two instances of corporations voluntarily curbing industrial pollution: the safety rules for explosives and boilers at the Moonta Mine by 1876 and BHP cutting the amount of coal needed to produce steel by one-third by 1950. Neither do these papers reveal any impact from training industrialists to prevent occupational or environmental pollution, though South Australian governments have trained the staff of mining companies from 1891. At best, all of the Board's attempts to prevent industrial pollution by publicity campaigns only convinced other regulators to act. After eleven years of publicity urging precautionary occupational health standards by the Board, industrialists employing workers in hazardous trades only began to take heed following the death of cyanide handlers in L957 and when the Board gained the staff to enforce the standards in 1959. Industrialists failed to follow the examples that
Commonwealth governments set in preventing both occupational pollution in its munitions works and pollution of the River Murray by the Snowy Mountains hydro- electric scheme. However, at least Commonwealth funding of education provided training opportunities for doctors in public health from 1930 and industrial hygiene from 1948 and for industrial personnel inthe use of respirators from 1933. Chapter Ten What Works 244
Using technical means such as sewers, recycling, cleaner fuels and works, helped reduce the impact of industrial pollution on public health and the environment. All drains, sewers and sewage treatments did neutralize liquid industrial pollutants initially. Such systems, however, needed continual upgrading to prevent overloads from increased industrial discharges producing typhoid epidemics by polluting public water supplies in the Torrens from 1841, reservoirs from 1881 and the River Murray from 1920 or grossly polluting communities, rivers, coastline and wetlands from I9I7. Unlike the failure of colonial tariffs to convince industrialists to co-operate with factory inspectors in 1895, the
Commonwealth tariffs and bounties for sulphur from 1925 and the lack of imports during world wars induced industrialists to apply the Commonwealth research conducted from 1916 to recycle or prevent pollution which reduced production costs. Recycling industrial wastes curbed the levels of pollution from meat processing on the Adelaide plains from 1913, smelters and fertilizer plants from
1925, wineries from 1932, gas works from 1937, grain processors from 1946, dairy factories from 1948, coal burners and wood works from 1950, refineries and woollen mills from 1958, power stations from 1973, and chemical plants, paper mills and tanneries from 1975. Recycling such wastes not only benefitted industrialization and the balance of trade, but also improved the air quality for townsfolk at Port Adelaide, Port Pirie, Wallaroo and Whyalla. Cleaner fuels could massively cut pollution, with the switch from coal- to gas-fired electrical generation cutting air pollution over Adelaide by one-third in 1969. The use of cleaner fuels and works produced additional cuts in industrial pollution from brick works, quarries, fuel processors, chemical, rubber and plastic manufacturers from 1968.
However, the problems with technological solutions were that industrialists needed to be cajoled into applying those which imposed costs. The Central Board of Chapter Ten What Works 245
Health began the drive to reduce the pollution from factories technologically by requiring industrialists to burn noxious fumes through factory furnaces which did diminish the stench emitted by factories from the 1870s. Mining inspectors sought to reduce occupational pollution by technical means such as certifying the safety of machinery from 1894, advising the use of respirators from 1932, requiring the use of less polluting machinery by 1950, while South Australian governments funded research to find less polluting extraction and processing methods from 1891.
Factory inspectors not only convinced industrialists to use cleaner equipment, but to build-in less polluting factories with well-ventilated saw-tooth roofs from 1906, providing 400 cubic feet of space per worker, washbasins for poison handlers and flues for dangerous gases from 1907, and electric fan driven ventilation from 1909.
The size of the government seeking to control industrial pollution and the industry being regulated matters. As stated previously, councils and colonial and state governments were too swayed by developing economic growth to order pollution abatement from economically significant industries. Whereas councils on the Adelaide plains were only able to prevent diseases such as typhoid and tuberculosis by monopolizing slaughter at an abattoirs from 1913 and unifying regulation to control dairies from 1900, the colonial government had no qualms about the Board regulating such enterprises from 187 4, or mining inspectors regulating individual gold-miners from 1886 and quarries from 1917. In contrast,
South Australian governments offered mining companies grants from 1886, the training of staff and research on extraction and processing methods from 1891 as compensation for this interference. South Australian governments felt obliged to offer regulation-free zones to large-scale works, such as the BHAS lead smelters at
Port Pirie in 1889, the BHP iron and steel works at V/hyalla in 1936 and 1958, and the oil refinery at Noarlunga and the Apcel paper mill near Millicent in 1958. By Chapter Ten What Works 246
limiting the powers of the Commonwealth Government, colonial and state governments severely impeded the regulation of industrial pollution. National standards of pollution regulation, needing to be achieved by negotiating with the states, were limited to food purity and worker's compensation in the 1910s, health in the 1920s and occupational health in the 1950s. The rejection of Commonwealth regulation of occupational conditions in 1926 prevented basing employers' contributions to worker's compensation on the risks of their trades and introducing
IlO-defined industrial diseases from 1931. The River Murray Commission could only prevent industrial pollution of the river in 1922, the mid-1930s, 1963 and from
1973. Collectively, these restraints on the Commonwealth produced algae and stench in the Hume Reservoir and helped keep the number of invalid pensioners fluctuating between 8 and 9:1,000 Australians from 1930 to 1960. The
Commonwealth's desire to join the OECD empowered further control of industrial pollution in Australia in 1970 due to the organization's requirement for pollution controls to be removed from cost-cutting competitiveness.
The problem with controlling industrial pollution by regulating agencies was the ease with which governments could undermine these agencies by providing havens for polluters and besetting the agencies with conflicting or overloaded functions. The regulation-free areas governments provided to noxious trades and economically significant industries from 1882, merely removed industrial pollution from some towns, while knowingly permitting unhealthy levels of pollution to contaminate the residents of others, as at Port Pirie, Port Augusta and Whyalla. In a similar manner, the isolation of residential suburbs from industry by allocating five to ten acres of land for smelters from 1894, through council town planning from the
1920s, zoning and green belts from the 1960s, constituted an acceptance of
industrial pollution and formalized the failure of councils of industrial suburbs and Chapter Ten What Works 247
towns to control it. The folly of such activities is amply demonstrated by locating the abattoirs in a manufacturing district and thereby exposing the meat supply for the
Adelaide plains to uncontrolled levels of industrial pollutants, such as radium. The creation of such regulation-free areas helped marginalize the Central Board of Health into regulating small-scale industry, food processing and poison usage from 1892 and curbed its anti-pollution crusades so that by the 1950s the Board accepted industrial pollution, ignored the ill health of those being polluted and advocated the use of highly toxic insecticides. These regulation-free zones also made it difficult for mining inspectors to enforce regulations throughout the mining sector from 1936. Being employed to stimulate mining, mining inspectors rarely reported
enforcing pollution controls from 1886, or the level of occupational and
environmental pollution produced by the mining sector. When industrial harmony
reigned in South Australia, such as during 1900-1906, 1933-1936, 1942-t943, 7950-
1955, 1963,1968 and 1972, governments subverted the control of occupational
pollution by diverting inspectors to other duties, providing more duties for factory
inspectors to perform, employing fewer inspectors, reducing the proportion of workers protected and worker's compensation pay outs, and deferring the introduction of more stringent standards. Under such conditions, miners could
expect accidents and deaths to rise by 155 per cent, just as accident rates could
increase for factory workers with occupational pollution an increasingly contributing
factor.
Inspectors could prevent industrial pollution from becoming a major public health hazard if cognizant of early manifestations. V/ithout this knowledge,
Carson's criticism that the number of inspectors needed Chapter Ten What Works 248
... to do the policing job properly would cost money beyond any legislator's courage to appropriate ,,.1 would be correct. In well-to-do districts, council inspectors were able to seek out and control industrial pollution to curb disease and discomfort from 1871. The Central Board of Health was able to use the incidence of disease caused by environmental pollution to target its control of industrial pollution to the most pressing needs for public health from 1884. Mining inspectors gained control over the worst forms of occupational mining pollution by investigating serious accidents
from 1888, setting the frequency of visits according to complaints from quarry
workers from 1918, dangerous mining ventures and the incidence of lead poisoning
from 1925, the incidence of silicosis from 1950, radiation exposure from 1951 and
all mining accidents from 1975. Similarly, factory inspectors investigated industrial
accidents from 1900, non-machinery accidents from 1924, cases of industrial
diseases from 1960, and worker's compensation claims in 1975. Hamstrung as it
was by the states, the Commonwealth Government could at least inform state
governments of major public health risks from research on the causes of infirmity
from 1916 and industrial hygiene from 1921.
Although producing effective, sustained and bipartisan government regulation
of industrial pollution, measures which made the industrial polluter pay could also
be easily withdrawn. Health, mining and factory inspectors have sought to make
polluters pay by imposing fines, expelling individual miners from goldfields from
1886, and placing work restrictions and closures on regulated enterprises by 1950.
Factory owners came to prefer factory regulations to strikes led by anarcho-
syndicalists and communists, contagion and the costs of low productivity and forced renovations. The introduction of worker's compensation in 19ll provided the
1. R. Carson, Silent Spring (New York, 1962),166. Chapter Ten What Works 249 watershed. By making industrialists pay for the harm their works caused their employees, factory inspectors could convince owners to reduce occupational risks to the point that the number of industrial accidents fluctuated according to levels of employment and government changes to what constituted a reportable industrial 'Worker's accident until 1941. compensation even convinced BHAS, which was excluded from state pollution controls, to cut by one-third the occupational exposure to pollution, which had poisoned 500 workers, in 1912. Enforcing pollution controls on the mining sector achieved its greatest level of consistency from 1919 to
1934 when employers benefitted from subsequent reductions in strikes by militant workers and compensation claims. Making the industrial polluter pay through hikes in worker's compensation pay outs and adding llO-defined industrial diseases by the
Labor governments from the mid-1960s, reduced the incidence of South Australian industrial deaths, accidents and absenteeism to well below the national proportion of the South Australian population. However, after the industrial harmony of 1965 to
1968, the Hall Government had little difficulty in halving compensation pay outs, after which the frequency of industrial deaths and injuries rose.
Linking policing levels of industrial pollution to economic growth provided governments with the wilt to intervene and regulators the ability to do so. Until industrial enterprises could be secured from litigation over pollution from 1882, the
Central Board of Health could make polluting operations less obnoxious to the public. V/ith sewerage and manufacturing districts providing industrialists with
security from litigation from 1882, South Australian governments undermined what were then viewed of as economically limiting pollution controls by the Central
Board of Health. Following massive and costly strikes over polluted workplaces
since 1885, South Australian governments changed the target of these controls from protecting public health by curbing environmental pollution to protecting Chapter Ten What Works 250 occupational health and productivity by restricting occupational pollution.
Similarly, governments employed mining inspectors to control mining pollution in order to increase the appeal of mining to landowners and limit the liabilities of mine, refinery and smelter owners to worker's compensation claims. When Liberal state governments sought to curb strikes to promote the state to industrialists from 1936, factory inspectors were even able to reduce complaints from workers over factory conditions to below 8 per cent of the complaints received by the Department. The cease-work orders and doubling of worker's compensation pay outs by Labor governments from the mid-1960s convinced South Australian industrialists to apply less polluting technologies. In this manner, the powers of mining and factory inspectors rose from 1886 and 1895, respectively, while those of the Central Board of Health inspectors were confined to food purity and poison usage, until the Board gained a role in the control of occupational pollution in 1946. Commonwealth governments also reacted to industrial pollution according to economic considerations by ensuring that state governments did not use pollution controls as a means to stifle inter-state trade from 1912, funding research to find profitable uses for pollutants and to minimize its payment of invalid pensions after 1916. Similarly, the Holt Government accepted international regulation of radioactive goods from
1966 and the Gorton Government set regulations for a nuclear power station in
I970. Government control of environmental industrial pollution was revitalized from 1969 on the realization that water was needed for further development in South
Australia. This led the Hall and Dunstan governments to sewer all known instances of industrial water pollution by 1975 and for the Whitlam Government to force New
South Wales and Victoria to limit industrial emissions into the River Murray according to South Australian needs. Chapter Ten What Works 25r
While nearly all of the forms of controlling industrial pollution open to governments operating in South Australia worked, none did as much as when governments linked economic growth to pollution control. Then governments expanded all activities to control industrial pollution, established pollution-control co-ordinating bodies, and permitted strident policing of pollution standards. Collectively these actions created regulatory models for other states and cut poisonous concentrations in the atmosphere, food and water and the growth rate of contagious and industrial diseases.
Community Signifïcance
The history of the control of industrial pollution in South Australia shows that these contaminants can only be contained when industrialists, governments and regulators have the will to do so. Industrialists appear more willing to prevent pollution when it is in their economic interests, through litigation and compensation claims from the polluted, grants from government, or cease-work and renovation orders from inspectors. Democratic governments are most likely to allocate funding for public works, such as sewers, to offset the effects of industrial pollution on public health in response to the will of the community. However, only when democratic governments have perceived that it is in the interests of economic growth, either by stopping strikes or enabling better use of resources, is their will maintained. Of course, new political parties can initiate government intervention, such as the
Political Association which provided councils with the power to control industrial pollution in 1861 and unionists backing parliamentarians in the 1880s and forming the Labor Party in 1891. However, the creation of regulatory agencies is no guarantee that industrial pollution will be curbed, as witnessed by the trials and Chapter Ten What Works 252
tribulations of the councils, Central Board of Health, Department of Mines and factory inspectors. The ability of pollution to kill has been insufficient to prod governments to control industrial emissions which, in South Australia, have
surpassed war in devastation by killing townsfolk and workers, poisoning the entire workforce of factories, contaminating the food-chain and remaining in the
environment for the lifetime of plutonium. So, too, there is the hysteria to contend with that enabled the Menzies Government to increase the level of background
radiation by four times as a direct result of anti-communist defence policies. For
both workers and the community it truly seems that, if you do not continually fight
industrial pollution, you shall lose by being poisoned. If the community wishes to
avoid this, it must continually reward non-polluting enterprises and, just as strikes
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Sewage Treatment Works, 1960', 'Nangwarry Sewerage Scheme, 196l',
'Mount Burr Sewerage Scheme, 1962', 'Woodville North, Mansfield Park,
Athol Park and Wingfield Sewerage Scheme, 1962', 'Lobethal Sewerage Bibliography South Australian Parliamentary Papers 267
Scheme, 1962', 'Gumeracha Sewerage System, 1962', 'Le Fevre Peninsula
Sewerage Scheme, 1.963-64', 'General Motors-Holden's Pty. Ltd. and Actil Ltd., 1965-66', 'Hardwicke Sewerage System, 1966-67 ', 'Mannum
Sewerage System, 1967', 'sewerage System Reconstruction (Western and
Southern Suburbs), 1967 ', 'Christies Beach and Noarlunga Sewerage
System, 1968-69', 'Murray Bridge Sewerage System, 1968-69', 'Islington
Sewage Farm Development, 1970', 'Glenelg Treatment Works (Reticulation
of Reclaimed Water), 1970-71', 'Metropolitan Abattoirs - Burford Gardens
Sewerage Scheme, 1970-71', 'Re-Organization of North-Eastern and Eastern
Suburbs Sewerage System, l97l-72', 'Mount Gambier Outfall Sewer, 1973- 74', 'Hope Valley 'Water Treatment Plant, 1973-74', 'Bolivar Sewage
Treatment Works (Engineering and Biology Building), 1973-74', 'Hahndorf
Sewerage System, 7974-75', 'Ottoway - Rationalizing of Engineering and
Water Supply Department Workshop Activities, 1974-75' and 'Anstey Hill
\üater Treatment Works, 1975-76', in SAPP 1928-30, 1939, 1944, 1946,
1951, 1953, 1955-57 and 1960-76.
Petitions:
55 miners, 'Echunga Goldfield' , in LCP 1853. 'Water 339 Adelaide residents, 'Adelaide Supply' , in LCP /'855-56.
8 Insurers, 'Amendment to Building Bill' , it SAPP 1857-58.
591 South Australians, 'Against Timber Licence Regulations', in SAPP
1860.
124 residents of Adelaide suburbs, 'For \ilater Supply to Suburban
Localities' , in SAPP 1860.
100 residents of Port Adelaide, 'For Extension of Water-Works to Port
Adelaide' , in SAPP 1860. Bibliography South Australian Parliamentary Papers 268
94 residents of Adelaide, 'Against Proposed Erection of Gas Works', in
SAPP 1861 v.3.
Duryea Mining company, 'Drainage from Mines Bill' , in sAPP 1861.
Cornwall Mineral Association Ltd., 'Drainage from Mines Bill', in SAPP
1861.
T. English, 'From Adelaide Corporation' and 'Against Cattle Slaughtering Bill', in SAPP 1862.
682 citizens, 'For Servants' Home' , in SAPP 1862.
130 residents, 'For Sale of Land on Port Road' , in SAPP 1863.
S. Goode, 'From Adelaide Municipal Corporation' , SAPP 1864' R.A. Fiveash and Co., 'From Mineral Claimants in the North' , in SAPP
1865-66.
121 signatories, 'From District Council of Payneham', in SAPP 1865-66.
228 residents, 'Ffom District of Portland Estate' , in sAPP 1865-66.
C. Bonney and A. Scott, 'Great Northern Mining Company' , in SAPP 1866-
67.
146 residents, 'Inhabitants of Queenstown and Alberton' , in SAPP 1866-67.
314 citizens, 'Relative to Prostitution', in SAPP 1867.
89 Lessees, 'From Mineral Lessees' , in SAPP 1868-69. 'Wesleyan Church Minister, 'Against Sunday Railway Traffic', in SAPP
1868-69.
83 South Australians, 'For Forest Reserve' , in SAPP I87I '
13 signatories, 'Petition from Fire Insurance Companies', in SAPP 1872.
A.H.F. Bartels and T. Worsnop, 'From Adelaide Municipal Corporation', in
SAPP 1873.
220 residents, 'For Grant for Filling in Port Road Swamps', in Sz4PP 1874, Bibliography South Australian Parliamentary Papers 269
E.T. Smith, 'Against Chinese Immigration', in SAPP 1880.
265 Mannum residents, 'For Manufacturing Districts', in SAPP 1881.
E.T. Smith, 'Against the South Australian Electric Company's Bill', in SAPP
r882.
175 Mannum residents, 'I-Inder the Manufacturing Districts Act, L881', in
SAPP ]882.
171 Mannum residents, 'For Manufacturing District at Mannum', in SAPP
1883-84.
534 Gawler residents, 'For Manufacturing District at Gawler', in SAPP
1883-84.
J. Welsby, 'For Manufacturing District, Port Adelaide', in SAPP 1884.
J. Fisher, J. Acraman and J. Evans, 'From the South Australian Gas
Company' , in SAPP 1885.
54Yatala residents, 'For Manufacturing District, Yatala', in SAPP 1886.
2,390 South Australians, 'For Protection of Local Manufacturers', in SAPP
1887.
34 Wingfield residents, 'Extension of Manufacturing District of Wingfield',
in SAPP 1887.
72 miners, 'Re Mineral Lands in Neighborhood of Mutooroo', in SAPP
1890.
J.J. Green, Chair of the 24 July 1891 meeting of manufacturers, 'Against
Factories and Shops Bill', in SAPP 1891.
C. Tucker: 'Against Electric Light Bill', Paper Nos. 65 and 110 in SAPP
1897.
49 petitioners, 'In Favour of the Factories Amendment Bill', in SAPP 1900.
17 factory owners, 'Against Factories Amendment Bill' , in SAPP 1900. Bibliography South Australian Parliamentary Papers 270
74 factory owners, 'Against the Factories Bill' , in SAPP 1900. 94 butchers, 'Re Metropolitan Abattoirs Bill' , in SAPP 1908. T. Playford, 'Valuation of Adelaide Electric Supply Co. Ltd., in Support of Claim
for Additional Compensation' , in SAPP 1946. Public Service Lists: l9l8-21, 1923 and 1925-26, in SAPP 1918-21, 1923 and
1925-26.
C. Reade, 'Planning and Development of Towns and Cities in South Australia', in
SAPP ]9]9.
Regulations:
Crown Lands: 1877, Paper No. 27 and 1884, Paper No. 30 in SAPP 1878
and 1885.
Gold-Mining: 1861, Paper No. 23, 1866-6'1, Paper No. 14, 1867, Paper
No. 117, 1868, Paper No. 162, 1869, Paper No.22, 1870, Paper
No. 105 , 187I, Paper Nos. 17 and 2I, 1886, Paper No. 28, 1887,
Paper No. 19 and 1891, Paper No. 42 in SAPP 1861, 1866-71, 1886-
88 and I89L
Manufacturing Districts, Paper No. 49 in SAPP 1883-84.
Mineral Leases: 1853, Paper No. 63, 1859, Paper No. 23, 1861, Paper No.
26 and 1866-67, Paper Nos. 15 and 91 in LCP 1853 and SAPP 1859,
1861 and 1866-67.
Timber, 187I, Paper No. 16 inSAPP 1871.
Under the Factory Act: 1895, Paper No. 23, 1900, Paper No. 48, 1901,
Paper No, 23 and 1908, Paper No. 59 in SAPP 1895, 1900-1 and
r908.
Under the Food and Drugs Act: 1910, Paper No. 48, 1912, Paper No. 52
and 1915, Paper No. 55 in SAPP 1910, I9l2 and i,915. Bibliography South Australian Parliamentary Papers 271
Under the Health Act: 1885, Paper No. 94, 1896, Paper No. 92, 1898,
Paper Nos. 48 and 89 in SAPP 1885, 1896 and 1899.
Under the Mining Act: 1894, Paper No, 20, 1901, Paper No. 64 and 1907,
Paper No. 107 in SAPP 1894, l90l and 1907.
River Murray Commission: 'Annual Reports', 1955156, 1958159, 196016l-61162,
1963164-69170 and 1972173-73174, in SAPP 1957, 1959, 1962, 1964-71 and
1974-75.
River Murray Reports (SA): 'Irrigation from River Murray, 1885', 'River Murray Waters, 1905',
'Murray River Waters, 1906' and 'River Murray Waters Agreement, l9l4' ,
in SAPP 1885, 1905-6, and 1914.
J. Roder, 'Planning Appeal Board Year Ended 30th June, 1969' , in SAPP 1969. Royal Commissions: 'Port Adelaide Coal Wharf , 1920', 'Plumbism, 1925',
'Manufacturing and Secondary Industries (the Leather Trade) , 1926' , 'Afforestation, 1936' and 'Adelaide Electric Supply Company, 1945' , in
SAPP 1920, 1925-26, 1936 and 1945.
A.R.C. Salwyn, 'Geology of South Australia' , in SAPP 1859. F.J. Sanderson, 'Number of Chinamen Landed Since Imposition of Poll Tax', in
SAPP 1884.
Sanitation Commission, 'Report' , in SAPP 1876.
R. Schomburgk, 'Rural Industries and Preservation of Forests' , in SAPP 1873.
Select Committees: 'Waterworks Bill, 1851', 'Management of the West-Terrace
Cemetery, 1854', 'Water Supply and Drainage of Adelaide, 1855-56',
'Mineral Development, 1860', 'Gas Company Bill, 1861', 'Present Mineral
Laws, 1862', 'Drainage from Wallaroo Mines, 1863', 'Mineral Regulations,
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Abattoirs Bill, 1907', 'Metropolitan Abattoirs Bill, 1910', 'South Australian
Gas Company's Bill, 191-2', 'Metropolitan Abattoirs Act Further Amendment
Bill, 1972', 'Adelaide Sewerage System, 1920', 'Town Planning and
Development Bill, 1920', 'Broken Hill Proprietary Company's Indenture
Bill, 1937', 'Whyalla Town Commission Act Amendment Bill, 1949', 'Gas
Act Amendment Bill, 1950', 'Gas Act Amendment Bill, 1955', 'Oil Refinery (Hundred of Noarlunga) Indenture Bill, 1958', 'Broken Hill Proprietary Company's Steel Works Indenture Bill, 1958', 'Pulp and Paper Mills Agreement Bill, 1958', 'Pulp and Paper Mill (Hundred of Gambier)
Indenture Bill, 1961', 'Gas Act Amendment Bill, 1961', 'Pulp and Paper Mill (Hundreds of Mayurra and Hindmarsh) Bill, 1964', 'South Australian
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F.D. Taylor, 'Boiler Accident at'Wallaroo Mines' , in SAPP 1916.
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G.H.F. Ulrich, 'Mineral Resources North of Port Augusta' , in SAPP 1872.
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