Antinuclear

How the nuclear lobby distorts Australia’s media coverage

Distorting the facts. Socialist Party Australia 17 June 11 The industry’s domination of the public debate around nuclear energy is clearly evident in Australia. In 2006 the Australian government commissioned the Uranium Mining, Processing and Nuclear Energy Review, which was unbelievably blatant in its distortion.

The panel included no health professionals, no environmental experts and no leaders in the field of weapons proliferation. Not surprisingly the report expressed no serious concerns in any of these areas.

Within the report a table titled “Fatal accidents in the worldwide energy sector, 1969 –2000” indicated a total of 31 deaths associated with nuclear reactor accidents during that period. A tiny footnote added that “These figures do not include latent or delayed deaths such as those caused by air pollution from fires, chemical exposure or radiation exposure that might occur following an industrial accident.”

One commentator pointed out that the tobacco industry could similarly claim that the number of deaths attributed to cigarette smoking equals the number of people who die in house fires caused by people smoking in bed, with a footnote stating that there may be some risk of cancer and heart disease also.

Nuclear waste – problem solved?

The nuclear industry has proven just as skilled at diverting attention away from other dangerous aspects of nuclear power generation, such as nuclear waste.

The problem of nuclear waste has generally been presented by the industry as resolved. This is in no way true. Not one single country has in place a proven, viable, permanent nuclear waste management plan.

Rather, some of the methods employed in dumping nuclear waste have been frightening.

At the Maxey Flats nuclear waste dump in Kentucky, U.S.A., industry consultants estimated that plutonium buried there would take 24,000 years to migrate one half inch. After just 10 years plutonium was detected 2 miles away.

Australians have no reason to expect any higher standards of nuclear waste management here, if the “clean-up” of the Maralinga nuclear test site is anything to go by. Maralinga was a British nuclear weapons test site in South Australia, where local Indigenous people, Australian servicemen and even British troops were treated as guinea pigs.

Despite government claims that the 1967 Maralinga clean-up was “world’s best practice”, Alan Parkinson, author of “Maralinga: Australia’s Nuclear Waste Cover-up”, says the actual approach to dealing with plutonium was “just put a hole in the ground, throw it in.”

By the 1980s Australian servicemen and local Indigenous populations were suffering blindness, sores and illnesses such as cancer. A second clean-up had to be conducted again in 2000, costing $108 million.

Land rights or a nuclear waste dump?

The experience of Maralinga is as relevant today as ever, with Parliament debating the National Radioactive Waste Management Bill (NRWMB) this month. The ALP bill would give sweeping powers to override state and territory laws and to bypass federal laws. The bill would give the minister powers to override the Environmental Protection and Biodiversity Conservation Act and the Aboriginal Heritage Protection Act 1984.

In exchange for dumping radioactive waste on their traditional lands, the Warlmampa Traditional Owners have been offered new roads, housing and education opportunities. The fact that the government is attempting to compensate the local population with services they should be providing anyway, shows how deeply marginalized and dispossessed Indigenous people remain to this day. This legislation, if passed, will be used to build a radioactive waste dump on contested Aboriginal Land at Muckaty, in the Northern Territory. The Muckaty dump is planned to contain the nuclear waste from the Lucas Heights reactor, the most radioactive waste produced in Australia…….
http://www.socialistpartyaustralia.org/archives/3006

June 18, 2011 - Posted by Christina Macpherson | AUSTRALIA - NATIONAL, media