Rudd govt trying to deceive Australian public over radioactive waste dump
Labor Lied About Nuclear Waste, New Matilda, By Scott Ludlam , 17 April 2010, The Rudd Government is trying to force a nuclear waste dump on a remote Aboriginal community and is hoping that most voters won’t care or notice,Prime Minister Kevin Rudd’s proposed “solution” to our 60 year radioactive waste legacy has sparked a major confrontation.
Prior to the 2007 election, Labor lied to Northern Territory locals, promising to scrap the previous Howard government’s aggressive imposition of a radioactive waste dump on Muckaty cattle station near Tennant Creek. Two years on, the Rudd Government has drafted an even more coercive regime and framed it within language of quiet deceit. Decide, Announce, Defend is the strategy. Right now, they have a lot of defending to do.
In February, more than two years after the ALP made an election pledge to repeal the previous legislation, Resources Minister Martin Ferguson announced his new National Radioactive Waste Management Bill 2010. It is essentially a copy and paste job.
Like the existing Act, it explicitly overrides any state or territory laws that would hinder site selection and eliminates Aboriginal interests (the Land Rights Act and Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Heritage Protection Act 1984) as well as green interests (the Environment Protection and Biodiversity Conservation Act 1999). It goes further, erasing the property rights of any individual unlucky enough to be in the path of the dump or its access corridors.
It is a legislative battering ram that squarely lines up the Northern Territory as the target for the nation’s nuclear waste, with the remaining provisions vesting total discretion in the hands of the Minister to pursue the site at Muckaty Station….
Even the name has been lost in translation. “Manuwangku”, Diane told us. “It’s not Muckaty.”
The Traditional Owners’ testimony was the highlight of the Darwin senate hearings, but the whole day had been a powerful experience. Witnesses including the NT Chief Minister Paul Henderson and local member of the NT Parliament Gerry McCarthy, the cheerfully unstoppable Natalie Wasley representing the Arid Lands Environment Centre, and the CEO of the Central Land Council all lined up to demolish the Government’s case for the waste dump.
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