Senator Scullion’s Northern Territory deal – $10 million for a radioactive waste dump
Senator Nigel Scullion (Country Liberal Party) – South Australia refused, as a Territory we didn’t have the capacity to refuse…. Territorians generally feel that this should not have gone in the Northern Territory
Senator Scott Ludlum (Australian Greens) – I think it’s totally inappropriate that the Bill is before the Senate while the Government doesn’t yet know whose land they are dealing with…. I find it offensive that in the middle of that court action the Senate’s going to be debating a bill that explicitly names and targets that site.
the doctors and the medical professionals over the last couple of months who’ve come out and said please stop using medical technology as an excuse for producing this waste, because there are other ways of providing for radio pharmaceuticals that don’t result in these long-lived carcinogenic wastes.
Transcript ABC Radio National breakfast, 08-February-2012
FRAN KELLY:
Well more than twenty years after the search started for a nuclear waste dump Labor’s Radioactive Waste Management Bill is listed for debate in the Senate today. The Bill has already gone through the House of Reps, and with Coalition support it will also pass in the upper house, giving the green light to development of Australia’s low- and intermediate-level nuclear waste facility at Muckaty Station in the Northern Territory. This is despite bitter opposition from various Indigenous and environmental groups and from the Northern Territory Government itself. West Australian Greens Senator Scott Ludlam will try to delay a vote on the Bill, and the Country Liberal Party Senator for the Northern Territory, Nigel Scullion, wants an extra $10 million for the Territory. Both join me from Canberra this morning. Senators, good morning. Welcome to breakfast.
FRAN KELLY:
Senator Scullion, let’s begin with you. You once bitterly opposed a nuclear waste dump in the Northern Territory. In fact back in 2005 you said, “there’s not going to be a nuclear waste dump in the Northern Territory. The people of the Northern Territory don’t want anybody else’s nuclear waste. I represent them, so not on my watch”. Continue reading
Australian government bribes Northern Territory – a cancer ward for a nuclear waste dump
United Voice NT secretary Matthew Gardiner said: “There is still a Federal Court case hearing whether Muckaty Station can be used as the site, yet we have politicians bickering over what filthy lucre they can get.
“The waste will affect every Territorian, as it will be in our ports, on our trains and on our roads. “Every major town in the NT will see Australia’s lethal waste being transported past their offices, schools and homes.”
“Territorians pay taxes and deserve those facilities because we’re Australians, not because we sign up to a waste dump.”
Muckaty gets mucked up http://www.ntnews.com.au/article/2012/02/09/287821_ntnews.html NT News, NIGEL ADLAM | February 9th, 2012 THE Territory is to charge “rent” for storing radioactive waste. Payments will be put into a special fund and spent on the cancer ward at Royal Darwin Hospital.
Only the NT and federal governments will be allowed to send low-level waste to the Muckaty dump near Tennant Creek free of charge. Canberra will kick off the fund with a $10 million payment. But that money will be taken back out of rent money from states and territories using the dump.
The fund is expected to collect several millions of dollars a year. Territory Senator Nigel Scullion used the fund as the price for the Coalition allowing the National Radioactive Waste Management Bill to be passed by the Senate. Continue reading
Martin Ferguson’s nuclear waste dump Bill faces determined opposition
Muckaty nuclear dump faces more hurdles, SBS World News By Bill Code 08 February 2012 |Indigenous people in the country surrounding the proposed Muckaty nuclear waste dump have reiterated plans to block the Stuart Highway….. The Northern Territory government and various local clan groups are opposed to the plan to build a medium-level nuclear waste dump on the aboriginal land north of Tennant Creek.
Penny Philips, a member of the Wintiku clan, told SBS the federal government will have a fight on its hands if local people block the Territory’s principal road. “We’re going to do it if they’re going ahead with it…we’ll get people to block it, get traditional owners from other countries if they can block it as well.” Continue reading
Factual rundown on Australia’s Nuclear Waste Dump Debate
Factbox: Muckaty Nuclear Waste Dump SBS World Newsw, 08 February 2012
http://www.sbs.com.au/news/article/1624930/Factbox:-Muckaty-Nuclear-Waste-Dump
On a national level, renewable energy prosperity – because the FUEL IS FREE
This golden age of energy prosperity will make a sharper contrast between these nations and states and those that will face higher fossil energy costs.
Renewables will bring golden age of free energy http://www.tgdaily.com/sustainability-features/61320-renewables-will-bring-golden-age-of-free-energy February 8, 2012 by Susan Kraemer, EarthTechling Most people understand that once solar panels are paid off, the energy they provide is free. But what about on a national level?
Many haven’t really internalized the corresponding fact. The same people worry that government investment in solar, or policies that encourage it, is somehow wasting money. But solar works the same way at the national level. Once the infrastructure is paid for, the energy is free. The same with wind. It is money well spent. Continue reading
German economy doing very well with renewable energy
Energy production using fossil and nuclear fuels is penalised in Germany by virtue of the Renewable Energy Act, which guarantees higher prices for generators of electricity sourced from wind and solar through feed-in-tariffs.
Today Germany has over 150 million solar panels installed or 25,000MW, more than Australia’s entire baseload capacity.
Germany has the wind at its back, MATTHEW WRIGHT, ABC 9 FEB 2012, Germany is currently the world-leader in installing renewable energy THE recent clinching of a $1.9 billion Australian defence contract by the Germans illustrates to carbon price knockers that they need look no further for proof that an economy which relies on renewable energy can outsmart one dependent on fossil fuels.
Germany’s electricity sector delivers 21 per cent of its power from renewable sources, such as the wind and the sun. Just 8.5 per cent of Australian power is provided by these sources, despite the fact that our continent has them in spades compared to the Germans….. Continue reading
Australian Renewable Energy Agency (ARENA) needs to move quickly
Energy Matters Video News – Episode 57 – February 9, 2012 by Energy Matters In this episode, Virginia reports on Senator Christine Milne’s criticism of Energy Minister Martin Ferguson’s handling of Solar Flagships, a $1.3 million solar power system for Hervey Bay Hospital, a 189 megawatt wind farm for Victoria and Intel the USA’s biggest purchaser of green power
– Earlier this week, Australian Greens Deputy Leader Senator Christine Milne accused Energy Minister Martin Ferguson of mismanaging the Solar Flagships program. Senator Milne also stated the Australian Renewable Energy Agency (ARENA) must get off the ground as soon as possible to stop political interference in renewable energy scheme design and decisions. …. http://www.energymatters.com.au/index.php?main_page=news_article&article_id=3038
Australia should follow successful renewable energy economy banks in Europe, China USA
Why we need a big green bank for low carbon transition, REneweconomy By Giles Parkinson 9 February 2012 One of the arguments that has been thrown forward against the proposed Clean Energy Finance Corporation – and will no doubt continue to be so in the coming months – is that it will be good money thrown after bad, and the $10 billion planned injection by the federal Government over a five year period is out of all proportion to the task at hand. There is a general assumption, as there was in the carbon debate, that Australia is doing something that no-one else has contemplated, and that it is recklessly and needlessly leading the world. But as in the carbon pricing debate, this is not so.
The experience of the Solar Flagships, and other grants-based programs for that matter, highlight the need and the opportunity for the CEFC. Institutional investors, noting the $100 billion that will be required in renewable energy investments at a minimum over the next two decades, insist that such an independent financial institutions will play a critical role in stimulating the transition to a clean economy.
Recent surveys suggest that this is the approach of all the countries that are currently playing a leading role in clean energy investment – Germany, China, the US and Brazil – and each have state-owned development banks, or their equivalent, underwriting the majority of cleantech investment. Continue reading
Sandi Keane explains how Australia’s fossil fuel industries deceive us with ASTROTURFING
The Landscape Guardians, their front group, the Waubra Foundation, with their links to mining interests, skeptics, the Liberal Party and the Institute of Public Affairs, were first exposed by this author in an investigation in July last year. Their bogus health scare campaign is a classic example of how genuine citizens were duped to disregard the mounting evidence by the large and growing body of evidence (now numbering some 17 reviews) from around the world debunking “Wind Turbine Syndrome”.
Deception is our product Independent Australia 9 Feb 2012, http://www.independentaustralia.net/2012/environment/deception-is-our-product/?utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=IA+Newsletter%3A+PR+astroturfing+-+deception+…&utm_source=YMLP&utm_term=Astroturfing.jpg
Environment editor Sandi Keane exposes the shadowy world of PR, where astroturfing and propaganda is used to coerce the public into sacrificing their own interests for those of big corporations.
Deceiving the public these days is a lucrative industry. Experienced PR practitioners now coerce you through astroturfing and other socially engineered forms of brainwashing to sacrifice your interests for those of their clients – especially those with the biggest war chest – the fossil fuel industry….
Classic examples were Hands Off My Healthcare in the US, and, in Australia, the watering down of tax on miners, the about-turn by the public on the ETS, and the recent success of the Landscape Guardians to stop wind farms replacing coal-fired power in Victoria. Continue reading
Aboriginals’ peaceful protest against extinguishment of native title in Western Australia
The deal, which the government hopes to conclude by the end of the year, would extinguish all future native title claims for the area
Ms Mackay said Mr Barnett was “a coward for running away from us”. “We are never violent. We come and we are loud, but we are peacefully loud,” she said.
Protestors surround Barnett after ‘$1 billion native title whitewash’, SMH February 8, 2012 – Angry Aboriginal protesters have confronted West Australian Premier Colin Barnett in Perth, leading security officers to rush him to the safety of a waiting car.
The protesters delayed the premier’s departure from Fraser’s Restaurant in Kings Park on Wednesday after he addressed Noongar elders about a proposed $1 billion deal to settle native title claims in WA’s southwest.
In a scene reminiscent of the Aboriginal protest in Canberra on Australia Day, around 70 protesters waving placards and Aboriginal flags surrounded Fraser’s, demanding Mr Barnett come out and not hide inside….
No one was hurt in the jostling and police said no arrests were made. Continue reading
BHP might sell Yeelirie uranium project. Fortescue to join Big Uranium Boys
BHP tipped to sell $9.3b worth of assets SMH February 9, 2012 BHP Billiton may consider selling about $US10 billion ($9.3 billion) of aluminum, nickel and coal mines and smelters as it trims its portfolio, Deutsche Bank says….
BHP could also sell its Yeelirrie uranium project in Australia and some petroleum assets, Citigroup said today in a report.
http://www.smh.com.au/business/bhp-tipped-to-sell-93b-worth-of-assets-20120209-1rnn0.html#ixzz1lucfhUlg
FMG pegs swathes of new tenements in major SA copper, gold and uranium districts by: Nick Evans PerthNow, February 07, 2012 FORTESCUE Metals Group has given the clearest sign yet it intends to diversify out of the iron ore and steel supply chain, pegging swathes of new tenements in South Australia’s major copper, gold and uranium districts.
The WA iron ore giant last year applied for 10 exploration licences covering about 4600sq/km of ground, mostly in the Woomera protected area in central South Australia. In its tenement applications, FMG said it was looking for copper, gold
and uranium – a significant departure from its current iron ore business.
According SA Government records, the bulk of FMG’s new tenements sit between OZ Minerals’ Prominent Hill copper-gold mine and BHP Billiton’s massive Olympic Dam project, slated to eventually become one of the biggest copper, gold and uranium mines in the world. …. http://www.perthnow.com.au/business/fmg-pegs-swathes-of-new-tenements-in-major-sa-copper-gold-and-uranium-districts/story-e6frg2qc-1226265102556
1 This month
of the week – Disrupting War & Militarism in Oceania. Active solidarity. Radical practice.
Antinuclear 