Antinuclear

Zane Alcorn speaks out: the uranium industry must go

Zane Alcorn, candidate for Newcastle , Green Left Weekly, 26 June 2010, We need to stand behind the first people of this country and fight for their land and cultural rights. The government’s so-called concern for Aboriginal welfare and living conditions is nothing but a cloak for a blatant land grab.The uranium-rich land of central Australia is coveted by government and private mining corporations alike. Aboriginal land rights are a direct threat to this potential source of huge wealth.

The fact that the Australian Labor Party abolished its “no new mines” policy in 2007 shows it’s more concerned about keeping private profits healthy than granting land rights and ownership to Aboriginal people.

More and more of the NT is being opened up to greedy and dangerous mining corporations. The Arid Lands Environment Centre in Alice Springs said that between January 2007 and April 2008, the NT government granted 386 exploration licences, 193 of which were to companies specifically interested in the exploration and mining of uranium.

Uranium mining in and around central Australia is a grossly destructive practice that desecrates Indigenous sacred sites, destroys water supplies and has many negative impacts on people and the environment.

The campaigns against uranium mining and waste dumping in central Australia — such as that waged by the people of Muckaty — are about both Aboriginal land rights and protecting the environment.

Uranium mining uses vast amounts of water. It exposes workers and people within hundreds of kilometres of the mine and tailings dams to toxic radon gas. Safeguards on the sale of Australian uranium, intended to prevent the use of uranium for weapons, are inadequate and simply free up non-Australian uranium for weapons production.

Nuclear waste will remain extremely toxic for tens of thousands of years and cannot be stored safely in the long term.

Traditional owners have the simple solution — “leave it in the ground”. Modern renewable energy can provide baseload power, is cheaper than nuclear, and infinitely safer.

Uranium mining has to go, along with the racist government policies used to justify and continue the theft of Aboriginal land. At the convergence, we will meet with Indigenous people standing up to the nuclear industry, including activists from Muckaty and Angela Pamela campaigns. Youth candidates to witness NT intervention | Green Left Weekly

June 28, 2010 - Posted by Christina Macpherson | aboriginal issues, AUSTRALIA - NATIONAL, uranium | aboriginal, antinuclear, Australia, Muckaty, nuclear costs, nuclear wastes, radiation, radioactive, uranium