Alan Parkinson is a mechanical[citation needed] and nuclear engineer who lives in Canberra, Australia.
[1] In 1993, Parkinson became the key person on the Maralinga clean-up project, representing the then federal Labor government (through the Department of Primary Industry and Energy).
[2] The clean-up, which involved simply burying untreated long-lived radioactive debris in holes in the ground, was totally unsatisfactory according to Parkinson.
He exposed the situation through the Australian Broadcasting Corporation, provoking a strong rebuttal from the government, composed of scientific distortion and personal abuse.
Against the advice of Parkinson, the government department extended the contract of the project manager, even though that company had no knowledge of the complex process of vitrification.