Ian Henschke

Ian Henschke is Chief Advocate for National Seniors Australia. He is a former South Australian television journalist and radio presenter. He hosted the ABCTV programme Stateline from 2001 to 2010, the South Australian ABC radio 891 programme Mornings from 2011 to 2015, and the ABC radio 891 programme Drive in 2016. He retired from the ABC in December 2016. He is a regular columnist for The Advertiser's Saturday supplement, SA Weekend. For broadcasting services to Australian society, he was given the Centenary of Federation Medal in 2003. He was twice named "TV Broadcaster of the Year" by the SA Media Awards, in 2004 and 2009. He was named "Radio Broadcaster of the Year" in the 2015 SA Media Awards for his coverage of the Gillman land deal.

Career at ABC

Henschke joined the ABC in 1983 and has worked on a diverse range of programs from shows for children to Four Corners. He worked for ABC radio, Radio National, in TV production and online. He is a graduate of the Murray-Darling Leadership Program and has served on the Advisory Board of the Institute of Sustainable Systems and Technology at the University of South Australia. While acting as a Staff-elected Director of the ABC from 2000–2002 he worked to obtain $70 million extra funding from the coalition government. He made efforts to secure The Australia Network for the ABC and saw that Radio Australia's signal was boosted. During his time on the board the managing director Jonathan Shier was replaced by Russell Balding. He has referred to his two years on the board as "the most important years of my life and some of the most important for the ABC". In 2013 he stood for a position as Staff Elected Director of the ABC again, but was unsuccessful. Veteran Sydney-based current affairs journalist Matt Peacock won the position.

Education

Henschke completed a Bachelor of Arts degree with honours and has a Diploma of Education from the University of Adelaide. He worked as a teacher before studying and then working on staff at the Australian Film Television and Radio School from 1980–1982. He is a graduate of the Murray-Darling Leadership Program. In 1999 he was awarded the inaugural ABC Reuters Foundation Fellowship to Oxford University. He studied carbon sequestration and climate change and produced the documentary Emission Impossible. It was screened on ABCTV and BBC World and won the Grenoble International Film Festival Jury Prize in 2000.

Nuclear power, weapons and uranium mining

One of the longitudinal topics Henschke has reported on is South Australia's role in the nuclear fuel cycle.

Documentary filmmaker Harry Bardwell has acknowledged Ian Henschke's support for his documentary film Backs to the Blast which was released in 1981.

On 7 April 2006 he hosted a Stateline episode entitled Should SA go nuclear? where he interviewed former ALP State Secretary Chris Schacht and Phil Sutherland from the South Australian Chamber of Mines and Energy. Both interviewees supported the expansion of South Australia's role, with Schacht predicting that Premier Mike Rann would reverse the Three Mines policy and continue to approve new mines in the future. Greens MLC Mark Parnell was interviewed and reminded viewers that nuclear weapons proliferation risks are ongoing while Adelaide's Thinker in Residence and climate change expert Stephen Schneider concluded the piece stating "if you're going to go nuclear you're going to do it smart, safe and you're going to deal with the waste accounting problem." The piece was a follow-up story to a piece that aired the previous year.

On 12 April 2007, Henschke reported a Stateline story entitled SA Uranium central. The piece presented "a look at how uranium is already transforming the State" and Hugh Morgan, former director of Western Mining Corporation was the main interviewee. Geologist Dr Ian Gould featured prominently, as did Tom Phillips of exploration company Uranium SA and Premier Mike Rann. Mark Parnell made a minor appearance. Ian Gould, representing South Australian Minerals and Petroleum Expert Group (SAMPEG), advocated for the rapid expansion of uranium mining in South Australia. Rann referred to South Australia as becoming "the Kuwait of uranium" and stated that "The mining industry will dominate the South Australian economy for the next 100 years." Hugh Morgan expressed that the interest of his company Australian Nuclear Energy's was "to be engaged in the civil nuclear power program, if it is economic and if it is permitted within the Australian environment." Hugh Morgan also advocated for South Australia to establish a nuclear waste repository.

On 23 August 2007, Henschke facilitated a discussion convened by the Australian Academy of Technological Sciences & Engineering (ATSE) SA Division entitled "Is Nuclear Power Australia's Future?" Speakers at the event included Martin Thomas AM FTSE (member of Prime Minister John Howard's taskforce appointed to undertake the UMPNER review), Dr John White FTSE (Director of Australian Nuclear Fuel Leasing) and Emeritus Professor Ian Lowe AO FTSE (President of the Australian Conservation Foundation).

James Lovelock

James Lovelock

On 14 February 2008, Henschke interviewed scientist James Lovelock for the ABC program Nexus, broadcast on the Australia Network. Henschke asked Lovelock about being pro-nuclear and Lovelock described it as a side-issue. In reference to countries where land is scarce and resource barren and populations are dense Lovelock said that "even if it were dangerous – and I don't think it is for a moment, I think it's unusually safe – but even if it were dangerous, we don't have much option but to use it."

On 17 July 2009, Henschke wrote an article for newspaper The Advertiser asking the question: "Is it time to nuke pollution?" In the article Henschke wrote of being influenced by James Lovelock, who prompted him to investigate the potential of transitioning to nuclear energy to mitigate climate change impacts driven by the combustion of fossil fuels. He wrote:

Nuclear energy wasn't just an option, it was a necessity. He (Lovelock) challenged me to investigate this and tell the truth about nuclear energy. The truth is SA has the largest reserves of uranium in the world, and although we are happy to export it we don't want a nuclear power plant here. But is that rational when there are more people killed every year by air pollution and coal mining than died in all the nuclear accidents in history, even including the bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki?

Barry Brook

He concluded the article by stating "Perhaps we should be thinking about a new "solution to pollution". Maybe it's time to go nuclear." He also suggested that change may be coming and pointed to Professor Barry Brook of the University of Adelaide's endorsement of nuclear power as a prime example.

On 28 August 2009 another Stateline episode entitled Is our future nuclear? aired on ABC. The reporter was Mike Sexton, and the Professor Barry Brook was the main interviewee as the proponent for nuclear power. His position was supported by Michael Angwin of the Australian Uranium Association. David Noonan of the Australian Conservation Foundation provided a more substantial counterpoint from the conservation sector than had been previously presented in Henschke's reports on the topic.

In 2012, Henschke interviewed Alice McCleary, director of exploration company Uranium SA. During the interview, Henschke questioned the efficiency of wind turbines and asked why the cost of establishing nuclear power plants in Australia would be higher than in other countries with existing facilities. Henschke asked McCleary if she thought it was hypocritical for Australia to mine uranium and not generate electricity from it. Henschke asked McCleary about reactors that produce minimal waste, and McCleary said that such reactors were still at concept stage and required further research. Caller Ben Heard from Decarbonise SA entered the discussion and described a fast breeder reactor which was being constructed in another country. Caller Brett Stokes of Adelaide Applied Algebra told of the deaths of his twin grandsons in utero in April 2011 in Sweden and of the false assurances of safety from Fukushima nuclear disaster fallout that he believes contributed to the deaths of the twins. McCleary endorsed a nuclear waste repository in "already contaminated land" such as the former Maralinga nuclear testing range was a good idea, and could earn the state approximately $1 billion per year. McCleary asserted that wind power "has all sorts of issues". Henschke asserted that "a lot of people on the environmental side of the debate" are starting to support an investigation of nuclear power.

External links

• Emission Impossible documentary film