Antinuclear

Shameful politics behind Rudd govt’s new radioactive waste policy

the introduction this week of Minister Ferguson’s National Radioactive Waste Bill (2010)….
This legislation fails to honour federal Labor’s clear pre- election promise and existing policy position

Radioactive politics ABC The Drum Unleashed -25 Feb 2010, Before the 2007 federal election Labor promised its approach to nuclear waste would be based on a “consensual process of site selection” with “agreed scientific grounds for determining suitability” and “community consultation and support”.

What a difference three years can make.

Labor’s Resources Minister Martin Ferguson this week announced his intention to locate a radioactive waste dump at Muckaty in the Northern Territory….The Commonwealth secured a ‘voluntary nomination’ agreement from the Northern Land Council. The terms of that agreement have never been made public.

Minister Ferguson claims the nomination has the “continuing support of the Ngapa clan” even though 57 Traditional Owners from the Muckaty Land Trust have written to him, inviting the Minister to visit their land and clearly stating they “don’t want that rubbish dump to be here in Muckaty”.

In Opposition federal Labor was highly critical of the NT dump plan and promised to end a decade of division over how and where to store radioactive waste………..
the introduction this week of Minister Ferguson’s National Radioactive Waste Bill (2010).

This legislation fails to honour federal Labor’s clear pre- election promise and existing policy position to establish a consensual process of site selection which looks to agreed scientific grounds for determining suitability and the centrality of community consultation and support.

The secretive process by which Muckaty was chosen is out of step with growing international support for genuine community consultation and consent in decisions about nuclear facilities,
articulated in this way by the UK Committee on Radioactive Waste Management in 2007:

“There is growing recognition that it is ethically unacceptable to impose a radioactive waste facility on an unwilling community”.

Imposing radioactive waste on the lands of Indigenous people in the 21st Century is not responsible management. It is shameful political expedience.

ABC The Drum Unleashed – Radioactive politics

February 25, 2010 - Posted by Christina Macpherson | AUSTRALIA - NATIONAL, politics | aboriginal, antinuclear, Australia, nuclear, nuclear wastes, nuclear weapons, radioactive