Antinuclear

Australia does not need this economically risky uranium industry

Less than a third of one per cent of our export revenue comes from this toxic, destructive and obsolete trade. Yet somehow it has been painted as some sort of economic saviour, even as the mining boom is warping and damaging other parts of our economy.

What is happening here demonstrates a fundamental denial of the risk of the uranium trade. It glosses over the steep decline in nuclear capacity in Europe. The industry there has been in decline literally for decades—since the early 1980s—and it perpetuates the delusion that the safeguards regime actually provides meaningful safeguards

Greens dissenting report on Euratom Treaty criticises  the inadequate discussion by  Joint Standing Committee on Treaties , by Senator Scott Ludlam,  22 Nov 11 Before we raced down this path of shovelling this material to plants all across the Indian subcontinent, because the long and honourable history of the antinuclear movement in India will tell you there are very good reasons why people are staging sit-ins and hunger strikes at the moment at the site of a plant that is under construction by, of all people, the Russian government.

There are reasons that people are putting their bodies on the line and it is because they are sick of being showered in radioactive fallout from the normal operating practices of nuclear plants in India. The reason we do not have nuclear plants in Australia is because people do not want them in their backyard. Well, I do not want them in other people’s backyards either. It is long past the time that Australia took some responsibility for what happens to these concentrates when we put them on boats, wave them goodbye and count the meagre export revenues that, for some reason, MPs in both the major parties seem to think are so much more than they actually are. Less than a third of one per cent of our export revenue comes from this toxic, destructive and obsolete trade. Yet somehow it has been painted as some sort of economic saviour, even as the mining boom is warping and damaging other parts of our economy. Why don’t we take a proper look at the lessons that could be learnt from the horrific suffering in Japan, right across eastern and western Europe in the wake of the Chernobyl disaster, and in the various and numerous other parts of the world where near misses have almost depopulated huge areas and huge population centres. So this report on trade to Europe is a mistake. It is a brazen illustration that the government and the opposition are determined not to learn the lessons of the industry.

November 23, 2011 - Posted by Christina Macpherson | General News