Program: 03 Spies in the Outback | The women get wild

Alex Barwick: How different does all of this look?  

Sue Fielding: Looks really different.  

Jenny Taylor: There's the automated gates that look pretty sturdy with a stop sign on them.  

Alex Barwick (VO): I’m standing outside the gates of the most sensitive intelligence facility in Australia with two women as they remember some wild times from their 20s.  

I’m a journalist in Alice Springs, and I’ve driven down most streets here, but this one’s always felt off limits.   

Jenny Taylor: Here’s the cops now.  

Sue Fielding: Oh, here comes the Australian Federal Police.  

Alex Barwick (VO): Elsa, my producer is with me and the women, now in their 60s – Sue and Jenny.  

Alex Barwick: I'm from the ABC. We're reminiscing with two women who were here for the Women's Peace Camp who camped just along here in 1983.  

Alex Barwick (VO): Within 15 minutes there are four armed police officers and three vehicles surrounding us. 

Alex Barwick: I did see the sign said no photography. 

Is it okay just to do voice recording?  

Alex Barwick (VO): The first officer says he needs to check with his boss.  

 I keep recording, so you can hear what we say, but legally, I can’t share what they say.  

  Jenny Taylor: Are they filming us by any chance?  

Alex Barwick (VO): That’s Jenny and yes, we’re being filmed. 

Even though it’s a public road, whether we can record is a grey area - we are within sight of Pine Gap.   

Mind you, we can’t see anything from here.  

Yes, the large guard station is a few hundred metres in front of us, but then it's just a road disappearing between two hills.  

The ten-story high golf ball-like radomes that cover listening antennas are well hidden. 

Eventually the head of security arrives. 

I’ve never met him, but I’ve heard about him. 

He smiles, looks me squarely in the eyes and says, “I know exactly who you are.” 

Sold as a Space Base to locals in the late 60s and rumoured to be caught up in the demise of an Australian Prime Minister in the 70s, the 80s saw the CIA-run Base in Alice Springs become the focus of Cold War nuclear fear. 

The Americans were using this secret place deep in the outback to spy on the Soviets and their missiles.

Increasingly, peace activists were convinced this made Pine Gap a prime nuclear target.

And it was the women who flooded to the desert to try and shut the base down and break its wall of silence. 

What was really happening at Pine Gap?  

Why was there so much secrecy that authorities would turn to intimidation and mass arrest to protect it?  

I’m Alex Barwick and this is Episode Three: The women get wild. 

Jenny Taylor: I can remember at some point, that we women were going to try to get the gate off. 

Alex Barwick (VO): Jenny was in a sea of women at the gates of Pine Gap.  

She reached out her hands, fingers wrapped around the wire and steel. 

Jenny Taylor: We were rocking it back and forth  

Alex Barwick (VO): Around 800 women had gathered for an anti-nuclear protest.  

That day a group of them had decided it was time to go in.  

Jenny Taylor: We got it off its hinges and lifted it up, walked along holding on to it and singing like mad and the musicians were there, it was like a little parade. 

(Women sing Pine Gap out of Australia) 

Alex Barwick (VO): Jenny and this group of women carried the gate above their heads. 

Jenny Taylor: We just went into the base with it. 

Alex Barwick (VO): They were now trespassing on Commonwealth land.

When I spoke to her, it was almost 40 years to the day since Jenny broke into Pine Gap. 

Elsa Silberstein: And you've got, are you recording? 

Alex Barwick (VO): Elsa and I are walking from my house up to Jenny and her partner Sue’s place. They live four doors up, on the other side of the street. 

Jenny Taylor: Can I get you a coffee or a tea or? 

Alex Barwick (VO): They’re delightful neighbours. 

Jenny's an artist, she’s got a grey pixie cut and wears sensible shoes. 

Her partner Sue is a poet, I often see her watering natives on their verge. 

We've lived on the same street for years, but I had no idea it was the huge women’s protest that brought them both to Central Australia.  

Not surprising maybe, no one talks about Pine Gap. 

Back in 1983 Jenny didn’t know Sue either as she set off from Sydney in a convoy of packed buses.

Jenny Taylor: We had all our camping gear, musical instruments, props and paints and lots of riotous laughter and singing. 

Alex Barwick (VO): Alice Springs today is unofficially the lesbian capital of outback Australia.

What happened at the Pine Gap gates likely helped it get that crown, but forty years ago the town was pretty conservative.

And as the buses rolled in residents soon realised these weren’t the kind of women they were used to.  

Jenny Taylor: We looked a little wild, I think.  Well, just maybe a bit flamboyant but also as time went by we were pretty dusty and bedraggled. 

Alex Barwick (VO): The threat of nuclear war had mobilised women across the country. 

Known as the Women for Survival Peace Camp, what was happening in little old Alice Springs was actually part of an international Cold War peace movement centred at Greenham Common in Berkshire, England, where tens of thousands of women were camped.

News reporter (archival): Their supporters, and there are many of them as well, believe the fact that the Greenham protesters are women has provided new arguments for nuclear disarmament.

Alex Barwick (VO): This Base in my backyard gave America an edge over the Soviets.  

It gathered information about their missiles from satellites eavesdropping overhead.

It was crucial for the Americans, making it a crucial target for its enemies.  

The women who came to Alice Springs didn’t want Australia involved in nuclear war. 

Almost a thousand women descended on this little town to try and close Pine Gap.

Jenny put up her small orange A-frame tent.  

There were tarpaulins for shade pitched on the hard ground alongside the road into the spy base.  

It was hot, with no running water.  

But they came up with ways to keep each other cool. 

Female protester: Do you want a squirt?  

Yeah. 

Jenny Taylor: We all had these squirty bottles with a couple of drops of lavender oil and we squirted each other quite generously with those.  

Alex Barwick (VO): Jenny was still working out who she was, when the Women’s Camp officially started on November 11, 1983.   

Jenny Taylor: I was a baby lesbian, and I was kind of still a baby feminist, really.  

I had long blonde hair tied up in a ponytail. 

It was a dawning of, of consciousness for me. 

I felt really lucky that I could go, there was a sense that we were speaking for a lot of women. 

Alex Barwick (VO): But this was the 80s, when way too many people still thought women belonged in the kitchen.  

One bloke even left the local peace group, furious that it was a women’s only protest.  

Come on.  

This whole ‘battle of the sexes’ thing was also on the women’s agenda. 

Even over whether they should be allowed to sort out some makeshift toilets 

Bob Boughton: There was a debate amongst some of the women in the camp as to whether it was okay to let men play this role of carting away the shit.  

I do remember some of our friends, women in the camp, saying, well that's a perfect job for them.  

Alex Barwick (VO): That shit-shoveller is Bob Boughton. 

Bob had been riding up to Alice Springs from Sydney on his motorbike, crashing at Philip Nitschke's house, learning about Pine Gap until he eventually moved here. 

Bob Boughton: There was a lot of really quite misogynist, aggressive, homophobic kind of abuse directed at these women.

Bernie Kilgariff: I'm not being derogatory to the women at all, but their sanitary, their cleanliness, they seem to be devoid of really any nice human nature.   

Alex Barwick (VO): That's Bernie Kilgariff – you heard him back in Episode One. 

He was the Alice Springs politician in the late 60s who fought to make sure the Base benefited the town. 

Bernie Kilgariff: Did they ever wash?  

Alex Barwick (VO): He was a man of his time. 

Bernie Kilgariff: I don't know.  

You’d have to say that by and large the people of Alice Springs were disgusted because of their behavior, health wise and whatever.   

Alex Barwick (VO): Un-phased by the push back, this groundswell of women had carefully planned every element of the camp and protest. 

Jenny Taylor: We were part of a health and well-being tent close to the gate so that we could, you know, intervene if women look like they were about to get heat stroke or were freaking out. 

Alex Barwick (VO): The camp and the marches at Pine Gap’s gates were colourful. Balloons floated high in the air, women carried huge fabric banners and parasols to shade the hot sun.  

There were paper mache missiles, street theatre, tambourines, guitars, singing... and more singing.

Alex Barwick (VO): The authorities had also boosted their resources in response.

Jenny Taylor: There were helicopters flying up and down during the night with lights, so they were using big search lights going up and down over the camp and sort of intimidation.   

Alex Barwick (VO): After a disrupted night’s sleep, Jenny got up the next morning and ate a bowl of muesli.  

She was about to do something she’d never done before. 

Jenny Taylor: Got dressed, got our little packs ready. 

Alex Barwick (VO): She grabbed her hat. 

The sun was already beating down as hundreds of women headed towards the gates of Pine Gap.  

After ripping the gate off its hinges, the women carried it above their heads into the base, then flung it to the ground. 

Jenny Taylor: Eight or so of us started running.  

Alex Barwick (VO): Full of adrenaline Jenny headed inside the fence line, towards the Base. 

Jenny Taylor: I veered off the road and ran through the scrub.  

Alex Barwick: Were you feeling scared? 

Jenny Taylor: Adrenalised and probably scared, I just really wanted to move very fast and, go as far into the base itself as I could get. 

Alex Barwick (VO): Her hat blew off; she could hear footsteps closing in. 

Jenny Taylor: I had a quick peak and it was a policewoman, she was in Navy.  

I could hear her gaining on me. 

Alex Barwick (VO): Suddenly Jenny felt a pull on the back of her head.  

Jenny Taylor: She grabbed me by the ponytail, she got a good firm grip on my hair. 

“You're under arrest and you have to come back to the bus with me.” 

And then someone else came along and had me by the other arm, they kind of frog marched me back.  

Alex Barwick (VO): It all sounds kind of exciting, and it was - but then it wasn’t. 

Jenny Taylor: I wasn't really prepared for what it would be like in the watch house.   

It felt like it was freezing.   

Alex Barwick (VO): The cells were grey with two concrete beds in each.

Jenny Taylor: It was probably a little bit traumatic, probably a bit scared about what the processing would be like.  

Alex Barwick (VO): In the days prior,  more than 100 women had been arrested for trespassing on the base and rumours had circled back to camp that police were pretty rough.

Jenny Taylor: They wanted us to be fingerprinted. 

They took us one by one; they had lined us up outside this room and I think I just said something like, “You know you don't have to fingerprint me, and I don’t want you to,” 

And they were like, “We don't want any trouble from you.” 

On the desk there they had this kind of gripper, like a thumbscrew thing.  

And they said that you can either be printed or we'll put that on, and we'll print you anyway.   

Some of them were starting to get very aggro.  

There were a couple of guys in the background, and there was this real sense of threat, you know, if you don't cooperate... 

So I did.   

But I think the worst thing for me was after that being put in a cell adjacent to where they were doing that, and my friend was next, and she did scream and fight, and they really hurt her, and they broke her thumb. 

Alex Barwick (VO): Jenny's friend was screaming from the pain. 

Jenny Taylor: I think after that the women probably didn't fight as much as she did.  

And then we all ended up in that little cell. 

It had a high window with bars and we were shouting out and then we could hear voices outside. 

So we knew that the women from the camp had come and were supporting us outside. 

So we could hear them singing.   

(Women sing We say no to Pine Gap) 

Alex Barwick (VO): The turnout for the omen's peace camp was diverse. Across two weeks local Arrernte women, Aboriginal women from across the country, environmentalists, Christians, and a few politicians too united against nuclear war. 

Shirley Smith (protester): I'm Shirley C. Smith.  

First of all, I'm a black Australian.   

And then second, I'm a black woman. 

 Protestor: This installation is a symbol of global violence. 

Alex Barwick (VO): As for the police brutality? 

The papers printed claims women were stripped in their cells after a tip-off they’d sewn razor blades into their clothing.  

None were ever found.

Police denied all the allegations saying they could have laid more charges than they did, for damage to property and providing false names, and that protesters were given every opportunity to cooperate. 

The Human Rights Commission even travelled to Alice to investigate.

The Ombudsman's final report says it could find no evidence of widespread brutality. 

It highlighted that there was a small group of rowdy, aggressive protesters pushing the envelope in the watch house.  

So, it dismissed the claims of wrongdoing, saying that the protesters weren’t squeaky clean either - even repeatedly blocking the toilets with anything they could, paper, even a pair of panties. 

I tracked down a cop who was there in 1983. He told me the claims were nonsense and it would have been impossible for police to break someone's thumb with the tools they were using.  

Jenny and Sue never met during those two weeks, there were so many women, but their worlds had collided.  

They would fall in love in the years that followed and eventually make Alice Springs home. 

In fact, it turns out quite a few women from the camp would settle in the outback.

As planned, the bush camp on the fringes of Alice Springs was packed down after a fortnight.  

There had been well over 100 women arrested and the protest had got national coverage. 

But the spy base - it returned to business as usual.  

The women’s protest hadn’t closed the base or revealed its secrets, but it would inspire waves of people to travel to the heart of the country and to put their bodies on the line in the years to come. 

And, it raised the stakes in the nation’s capital, Canberra. 

Kim Beazley: So I used to say, you know, when I was looking at those demonstrators at Pine Gap at the time, I said, ‘Meh, so you don't want any arms control and you want a nuclear war’. 

Well done.  

Get stuck in.  

Alex Barwick (VO): Labor politician Kim Beazley had closely watched Gough Whitlam’s demise.  

He had no time for these hippies.  

Kim Beazley: What they're calling for is the blinding of the United States and the blinding of Australia.   

And you don't tend to be at all sympathetic to that point of view. 

Alex Barwick: What do you think would have been dangerous about the closure of Pine Gap at that point? 

Kim Beazley: The point about the facilities is that they're critical to maintaining a balance which retains the peace.  

So people who are campaigning against Pine Gap were campaigning to open up the possibility of nuclear war. 

Alex Barwick (VO): While protesters argued Pine Gap made Australia vulnerable to a nuclear strike, the government saw it as protection - and not just for us.  

It initially sounded contradictory to me – how could Pine Gap be both a nuclear target but also help stop a nuclear war? 

But I can see how Pine Gap’s intelligence might put the brakes on a hostile party launching a missile. 

Because that inside information might just mean they get nuked first.  

As I speak to more people I’m realising this secret base is complicated.  

But when the details are classified it’s hard to know what’s right. 

As women tore the front gate off this base shrouded in secrecy, Kim Beazley’s political career was taking off.  

Back in 1980, he’d won a seat in Federal Parliament. 

By '83 Labor was returned to power and in ‘84 Kim Beazley became Defence Minister, responsible for the Pine Gap partnership. 

Alex Barwick: Kim, can you describe what kind of a politician you were then? 

Kim Beazley: Very young and overweight. 

(Kim Beazley laughs) 

You want a description of me in the 1980s? That's it.   

Alex Barwick (VO): Kim did have something in common with the protesters though. 

He wanted to know the secrets of Pine Gap.  

Kim Beazley: We'd come into office on the basis that we needed to have full knowledge of what was going on in the facilities and consent to their activities.  

Alex Barwick (VO): Why, after almost two decades since the deal was done between the US and Australia, was our government still in the dark?  

Kim Beazley: We were very conscious that there was a high level of probability that those facilities were targeted by the Russians with nuclear weapons, and that we needed to level with the Australian population about that. 

Alex Barwick (VO): I was struck by this. The former Australian Defence Minister confirming that yes, Pine Gap was a nuclear target and it might be worth letting the public know. 

I’ve trawled through a lot of archival documents from that time, the authorities were consistently playing down any likelihood of a nuclear missile attack.  

In the early 80s a top-secret study was even done assessing the fall out if Pine Gap was bombed.  

It suggested evacuating Alice Springs... or at least taping up the kitchen windows. 

Can you imagine your home becoming a nuclear target, but you aren’t even told?  

That report was only declassified three decades later. 

Anyway, Kim Beazley knew the Soviets had Pine Gap in view. 

Kim Beazley: It was a nuclear target back in the 1980s but, nevertheless, it was necessary to host them because they are absolutely critical to the  global balance on which peace and stability was based.  

Alex Barwick (VO): And that’s still Kim Beazley’s argument today, and he’s not alone. 

But as Defence Minister he wanted to dig deeper. 

Kim Beazley: What I wanted to know was what they're actually doing, not just simply the capability.  

So how was the capability being used at that point of time? 

Alex Barwick: What did you find out?   

Kim Beazley: Oh well, as though I'm going to tell you.  

(Kim Beazley laughs) 

Alex Barwick (VO): Kim Beazley says he got the detail, but the Australian public then, and even now, wouldn’t be let in on the secrets.   

He began regular trips up to Alice Springs flying in and flying out. 

You know what else kept flying in and out?  

Those huge military cargo planes. 

And crouching in a ditch next to the tarmac in Alice Springs was that guy who’d helpfully shovelled shit at the women’s camp – Bob. 

Bob Boughton: It was very hot and dry, it was very scrubby.  

Sort of sand hill country with witchetty bushes and mulga bushes around. 

Alex Barwick (VO): Bob and three friends wanted to stop an enormous US military plane from landing... with their bicycles.

It was 1985. 

Bob Boughton: Possibly the craziest political action I've ever undertaken in my life.  

Archival:  Reports from the United States have suggested an upgrading of Pine Gap to meet the tasks associated with a new generation of United States spy satellites.

Alex Barwick (VO): Bob had caught wind that Pine Gap was expanding. And these huge Galaxy planes were flying in the crucial spy parts.

Bob Boughton: So we figured that if we could get onto the tarmac, the plane would have to abort its landing.  

It’s one of the most hair-raising Pine Gap protests I’ve heard so far. 

Bob Boughton: We were lying in the bush for at least an hour, waiting, waiting, waiting.   

We were just cracking nervous jokes about what might happen to us. 

Alex Barwick (VO): Another group had gathered at the terminal end - they were the decoy. 

Bob Boughton: And I just remember seeing this massive plane and thinking, my God, it really is very large. This big, grey, green warplane. 

And we took off. 

We grabbed our bikes, and we ran through the bush. And we got to the tarmac, then we jumped on our bikes and started riding.  

And the plane was coming in towards us and it was absolutely huge.  

Like it came, over the top of me. It was quite low and quite terrifying. 

Alex Barwick (VO): Bob pedalled hard. 

Bob Boughton: We had no choice, we had to keep going.  

Alex Barwick (VO): The plane roared overhead. 

Bob Boughton: Just as it went over the top, it banked and lifted and it did a big turn and we realised we'd done it, and we just went berserk.   

We hooted and hoo-haa-ed. 

The yellow cars from the airport security came flying out onto the tarmac and started chasing us. 

But a car can't catch a bike because the car pulls up next to you and then you take off again.  

They go after one of us and then they go after the other and when they went after one, then another one would take off.  

We felt like we'd pulled off this extraordinary action. 

Alex Barwick (VO): They had. 

They'd stopped a Galaxy military plane from landing... for about 15 minutes, when it did land. 

Protestors through the 80s genuinely believed they could shut down Pine Gap – why would they go such extreme lengths if they didn’t?  

They thought once the country knew how close to home the nuclear threat was, the Australian government would respond.  

But Australia was in deep with the United States. 

What chance did papier mache missiles, street theatre and bicycle stunts ever have against this growing military alliance? 

Bicycle Bob copped a fine for putting his body and bike on the tarmac. 

And the arrests over Pine Gap would keep coming.

Momentum was building for something big before the decade was out. 

(Protesters singing We are gentle, loving people, and we're singing)

 News reporter (archival): Peace activists have launched a national campaign to close the Joint Defence Facility of Pine Gap.

 Peter Garret: It is our intention to give 12 months notice of termination of the above agreement.

Russell Goldflam: We were delighted to have Peter Garrett as one of our supporters.  

He was one of the most popular musicians in the country. 

Alex Barwick (VO): Russell Goldflam, the curly-haired young man who’d joined the local peace group, wanted Pine Gap to be the focus of a newly formed national Anti-Bases Coalition.  

Plans built towards a huge conference and action for October 1987.

The Cold War fear of nuclear annihilation was causing a groundswell around the country and Russell was sure their group could persuade people to come to Alice Springs, and they did. 

Barb Flick: I'm Yurrandaali tree goanna on my Gomeroi grandfather's side. 

I'm Oongi, the pademelon wallaby, on my maternal grandmother's side.  

And I'm Bigambul on my great, great grandmother Susie's side. 

My given name is Barbara Flick.  

Alex Barwick (VO): Barb grew up on the Darling River in New South Wales.  

Born in ‘51, she comes from a long line of strong women who’ve called out racism.  

After moving to Alice Springs in the mid 80s she was one of almost a thousand fired up by the nuclear threat of the Cold War.  

And that saw her running, just like Jenny a few years earlier, across prohibited land, police on her tail.  

Barb Flick: I had been in training, so I took off. 

This policeman who wasn't very fit and was overweight was chasing me and he couldn't catch me and I felt so good about that. 

I remember running to the nearest little hill, getting up to the top and waving back at the crowd. 

Alex Barwick (VO): But when Barb turned herself in, she realised she was getting a very different experience in the watch house compared to the white protesters. 

Barb Flick: They took me down to the cell where they kept what they call the drunks and of course they were all Aboriginal people. 

I went in, um, to the cell and they locked the door.  

So, I started singing paper roses  

Barb Flick (singing): I realise the way your eyes deceive me.  

With tender looks that I mistook for love.       

Alex Barwick (VO): The next day, Barb represented herself54 in the boxy sandy coloured law courts in the centre of town.

 Barb Flick: They asked, “Well, how do you plead?” 

“Well, I need to know what I'm charged with.” 

“Well, you're charged with trespass on Commonwealth lands.”   

Alex Barwick (VO): The thing is, Barb had sought permission from the Arrernte people to be on that land.

Their land.  

Barb Flick: I said, ‘Well I wasn't trespassing, I was on the land of the Arrernte people, with their permission’. 

Alex Barwick (VO): That permission meant nothing before the courts.  

She was found guilty of trespass and ordered to do community service.

What a decade for the Alice Springs Peace Group. 

They'd supported a huge women’s protest, stopped a military aircraft from landing and encouraged hundreds of people to trespass and get arrested.   

But they still hadn't closed the base or exposed what was happening inside. 

And then, after simmering for decades, the Cold War - the conflict that had fuelled these protesters - ended almost in parallel with the 80s ending. 

Russell Goldflam: We were trying to think, whoa, what does this mean?  

Does that mean, like, America's won everything and all of a sudden there's no need for Pine Gap?  

Alex Barwick (VO): Russell’s beloved peace group began to fizzle. 

Russell Goldflam: We ran out of smoke. 

Momentum that had been building all through the 1980s for the peace movement in Australia had kind of evaporated overnight. 

The Cold War was finished.  

So, the Peace Group had run its course.  

Alex Barwick (VO): With the Cold War over, was there even a need for Pine Gap?  

Well, yep.  

Because there’s always another war or conflict on the horizon.  

Turns out, it would only grow.  

From the number of radomes that shield listening antennae pointed above the earth, to the scaled-up security checkpoint that stops entry to the base.  

Sue Fielding: Here we are at the fence.  

This is the very place that divides us.  

Alex Barwick (VO): The fence at Pine Gap is much higher than when Sue and Jenny came to protest with all those women in 1983.

The turn off from the main road gives away nothing about what lies within, but as you approach the check point a series of signs make it clear you’re not welcome.

Jenny Taylor: ...Commonwealth of Australia prohibited area Defense Special Undertaking Act, 1952.  

No trespassing, no photography, no firearms. Maximum penalty; imprisonment, 7 years. 

Alex Barwick (VO): The Australian and American flags flap high in the breeze above countless cameras and endless barbed wire. 

Jenny Taylor: The stakes are really high around this thing. 

It's chilling, isn't it?  

That they feel so much the need to ramp it up like this. 

Alex Barwick (VO): The stakes surrounding Pine Gap have grown since the 1980s. 

Now we know, it was never just about arms control and giving America the upper hand in the Cold War.  

With more and more oversized golf ball shaped radomes appearing on the desert floor, America’s listening ears were growing, more communications could be intercepted than ever.

And Pine Gap was about to change the way wars are fought.

David Rosenburg: There's probably very few places on earth that would look like the Pine Gap operations floor. 

Alex Barwick (VO): And finally, I'm going to hear the story from the inside, from a spy, someone who worked inside Pine Gap for years. 

This is Spies in the Outback. 

Season three of the ABC’s Expanse podcast is hosted and produced by me, Alex Barwick; supervising producer Piia Wirsu, sound engineer and producer Grant Wolter; executive producer Blythe Moore, with thanks to Elsa Silberstein for additional production and research and to ABC Alice Springs.  

Acknowledging the traditional owners of the land this podcast is created on: Arrernte land, Awakabal land and the land of the Stoney Creek nations. 

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