Reflecting on ALP conference, and on the 1976 Fox Report on uranium mining
The Fox Inquiry (often referred to as the Ranger inquiry) was comprehensive. It travelled around Australia, to hear evidence from 281 people, recorded in 12,575 pages of transcript.
The specific Fox recommendation that Labor decided to finally reject today was as follows:
“No sales of Australian uranium should take place to any country not party to the N[uclear] N[on]-P[roliferation] T[reaty]. Export should be subject to the fullest and most effective safeguards agreements, and be supported by fully adequate back-up agreements applying to the entire civil nuclear industry in the country supplied.” (Report No 1, 1976, p.186)
Then and now: Labor’s nuclear conflict, The Drum Dan Cass , 6 Dec 11, My father, Moss Cass, phoned just now and we talked about the Labor Party’s national conference decision to export uranium to India, a country not in the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty.
Uranium mining was a big issue in our household when I was growing up and it became the reason that I decided to not to follow Moss into the Labor Party…… In 1984 the Labor Party national conference adopted the ‘three mines policy’ which sanctioned the largest uranium mine in the world at Roxby Downs (Olympic Dam) and the Ranger and Nabarlek mines, while preventing any new mines from opening.
I knew then that it would not be possible for me to join Labor, on account of its ‘half-pregnant’ stance on this issue…..
In 1995 I finished at university and decided to join a political party: The Australian Greens.
Mr Fox and the nuclear industry
My father was Labor’s minister for environment and conservation from 1972 till 1975, and he instituted a major inquiry into a proposed uranium mine by Ranger Uranium Mines. The inquiry was chaired by former Chief Justice Russell Fox and shaped Australia’s nuclear industry policy ever since.
The Fox Inquiry (often referred to as the Ranger inquiry) was comprehensive. It travelled around Australia, to hear evidence from 281 people, recorded in 12,575 pages of transcript.
The specific Fox recommendation that Labor decided to finally reject today was as follows:
“No sales of Australian uranium should take place to any country not party to the N[uclear] N[on]-P[roliferation] T[reaty]. Export should be subject to the fullest and most effective safeguards agreements, and be supported by fully adequate back-up agreements applying to the entire civil nuclear industry in the country supplied.” (Report No 1, 1976, p.186)
The Fox inquiry gave a qualified support to the uranium mining industry, on the basis of proper regulation of the whole nuclear fuel cycle. This proper regulation is yet to happen.
The proper interpretation of the Fox recommendations is that until there is a definitively safe way to dispose of long-term nuclear waste and guarantee no nuclear proliferation from our exported uranium, then mining is not OK.
Watching the nuclear debate at the Labor Conference at the weekend, I was struck by a few things.
Firstly, the anti-nuclear speakers had the facts on their side. After 50 years, the nuclear industry still has no solution to long-term nuclear waste and nuclear proliferation.
Secondly, the pro-nuclear speakers have stopped relying on fibs about nuclear safety and are now winning on the basis of lies about renewable energy and global warming.
They make out that baseload renewable energy is expensive, but omit to mention that US nuclear reactors cost 300-400 per cent more than promised, according to independent analysts, including Moody’s, Standard & Poor, MIT and McKinsey & Company.
The Prime Minister and her pro-uranium supporters also forgot to mention that the reactor construction industry has been in decline since 1980….
many of the anti-nuclear speeches were intelligent, principled and compelling. Minister Stephen Conroy was the big surprise. His voice broke as he recounted his family’s association with the Windscale (Sellafield) nuclear facility in Cumbria, home of the first reactor to export electricity to the grid (Calder Hall power station).
Minister Anthony Albanese was also excellent, as was delegate Maurice May, who recounted his experience with the McClelland Royal Commission into British nuclear tests.
There are some great people in the Labor party and I wish them all the best; may they prevail, on the side of life and facts. http://www.abc.net.au/unleashed/3712880.html
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