Strong opposition to the Labor-Liberal nuclear waste dump legislation
Nuclear dump protesters disrupt Parliament ABC News, http://www.abc.net.au/news/2012-03-13/nuclear-dump-protesters-disrupt-parliament/3886614 March 13, 2012 Anti-nuclear protesters have tried to stop debate in Federal Parliament on legislation for Australia’s first national nuclear waste dump.
The Government’s bill to establish the dump has been passed in the Senate with Opposition support. The Greens and independent senator Nick Xenophon opposed the legislation.
A group in the public gallery disrupted proceedings, calling out for the dump to be stopped. They are concerned it will be built on Aboriginal land at Muckaty Station, near Tennant Creek, in the Northern Territory.
The Government has consistently stated the legislation did not specify a site for the dump. But it has offered to give the Northern Territory $10 million if it accepts the waste dump.
Greens spokesman on nuclear issues Scott Ludlam says he is confident the community will continue to fight any plan to use the Northern Territory site. “That is the unnecessary fight that this Government has picked in a bipartisan consensus with the Opposition who opposed it in the first place,” he said.
“This is the beginning of the campaign to stop Muckaty, not the end.” Mr Ludlam says the Greens will continue to fight the project. “The site is in an earthquake zone, it floods regularly, there are very long transport corridors, there are no jobs being applied and it’s opposed from people on the ground, on the front line from Tennant all the way up to the NT Government and people around the country,” he said.
Donna Jackson, from the Australian Nuclear Free Alliance, says she is shocked the legislation has been passed while there is still a legal challenge before the courts about the ownership of the Muckaty site. “Look I honestly didn’t think that they would have the gall to pass this legislation given that the court case is still happening,” she said. “I’m not sure if it set a precedent but I’m not aware of any other bills passing while there is still a court case in action.” Jimmy Cocking from the Arid Lands Environment Centre says it is a sad day for the Territory and the country. “If all of a sudden this starts happening and they construct a nuclear waste facility north of Tennant Creek, the transport of this radioactive waste across the country is going to be a subject of concern with local councils across the country,” he said.
Apart from Greens amendment Australia’s Nuclear Waste Bill is bad legislation
Nuclear waste dump plans pass Senate SBS World News, 13 March 2012 Legislation to establish Australia’s first national nuclear waste dump has passed the Senate, the ABC reports, paving the way for a dump at Muckaty Station in the Northern
Territory.
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….. Anti-nuclear activist Nat Wasley told the Green Left Weekly she welcomed Greens Senator Scott Ludlam’s amendment that international waste cannot be stored at the facility but said the rest of the legislation ‘Is neither new nor good.
It builds on the mistakes of the Howard era and lacks credibility and consent. There are still many hurdles for the government before a dump is up and running, and this proposal will be challenged every step of the way.’…
A dispute over who owns the land in question continues to complicate affairs – a Federal court case is yet to decide if the indigenous group who signed the deal to put Muckaty station in the running to hold the waste are the true owners.
Resources Minister Martin Ferguson’s reitereated the an earlier pledge not to proceeed until the court case is decided, Fairfax reported. ‘In relation to litigation in the Federal Court concerning the nominated land, the Government will not act on this site until this matter is resolved by the Court’, he said….. Muckaty is the only site nominated under the current proceedings.
http://www.sbs.com.au/news/article/1633901/Nuclear-waste-dump-plans-pass-Senate
Investigative journalism stopped international nuclear waste dump in Mongolia: what about Australia?
the ambassador said she heard of a similar plan in Australia and asked me to provide Mongolia with any information on it, highlighting the Mongolian government’s enthusiasm about overcoming competition with Australia in hosting the disposal facility.
The Mainichi scoop on the secret plan sparked campaigns in Mongolia to demand that the plan on a spent nuclear fuel disposal facility be scrapped and that relevant information be fully disclosed.
Bowing to the opposition, Mongolian President Tsakhiagiin Elbegdorj declared in the U.N. General Assembly session in September last year that the country can never host a radioactive waste disposal facility.
Mainichi scoop on Mongolia’s nuclear plans highlights problems in dealing with waste. Mainichi Daily News, By Haruyuki Aikawa, 13 March 12, Coverage on a secret document detailing an international nuclear waste disposal site that Japan and the United States had planned to build in Mongolia, for which I won the Vaughan-Ueda Memorial Prize for 2011, has highlighted the difficulties in dealing with radioactive waste.
The secret plan surfaced as the crisis at the tsunami-hit Fukushima No. 1 Nuclear Power Plant has stirred controversy over the pros and cons of nuclear power.
I learned that the Japanese Economy, Trade and Industry Ministry and the U.S. Department of Energy had been secretly negotiating the plan with Mongolia since the autumn of 2010 when I interviewed a U.S. nuclear expert on the phone on April 9, 2011.
“Would you please help the Mongolian people who know nothing about the plan. Mongolia is friendly to Japan, Japanese media certainly has influence on the country,” the expert said. Continue reading
Which Australian politician would support a nuclear reactor in their electorate?
We know how to de-commission wind turbines and solar panels at the end of their life, at little cost and with no risk to the community. So, why should taxpayers fund a slow and expensive energy option when alternatives are significantly cheaper and pose less risk? Finally, which elected politician would now support a reactor in their electorate?
A Fukushima end to the nuclear argument Taking responsibility for Australian uranium, Climate Spectator, Ian Lowe, 13 March, 12 We now know that Australian uranium fuelled the Fukushima reactors, so we have some responsibility for the accident and its consequences. It is a reminder that we should have a serious public debate about the mining and export of uranium, rather than simply seeing it as an export earner like gold or diamonds.
The bipartisan agreement in Canberra to allow export of uranium to India, suspending our traditional insistence that importing countries being signatories of the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty, is a real worry. As Robert Milliken wrote 30 years ago in the National Times, whenever our safeguards get in the way of a commercial deal, the safeguards get
watered down.
Still a risky business Continue reading
South Korea’s election may mean a grinding halt to that country’s nuclear plans
Nuclear Power Rises As Campaign Issue, WSJ, March 13, 2012, Next month’s parliamentary election may influence the direction of many parts of the South Korean economy, but few sectors appear to stand quite as much at a fork in the road as the country’s nuclear power industry.
The leader of the main opposition Democratic United Party, Han Myeong-sook, has said that if control of the parliament passes to her party, it will develop policies to lower South Korea’s use of nuclear energy……… There’s more at stake for South Korea in the nuclear power debate than just its own energy needs. In late 2009, South Korea’s main utility and a group of construction firms won a deal to build nuclear power plants in the United Arab Emirates, the first time it had joined the ranks of the U.S., France, Japan and others as an exporter of nuclear technology.
(South Korea has since entered competitions for nuclear-plant construction contracts in Finland, Turkey and Vietnam but no deals have been made.)….. signs that nuclear power-related companies are on guard for a DUP victory that would alter the industry’s direction. “The industry has been making very positive investments and hiring during the last year,” he said. “But that has been slowing down as they anticipate a long, dark age.” http://blogs.wsj.com/korearealtime/2012/03/13/nuclear-power-rises-as-campaign-issue/
1 This month
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