Antinuclear

Australia’s nuclear industry exempted from laws on Aboriginal rights: is Warren Mundine unaware of this?

Aboriginal nuclear power promoter, Warren Mundine, was on the job today, with an article in the Financial Review. Mundine praised nuclear energy, and assured readers that the industry is going ahead. He made out that it is necessary for nuclear medicine. Most alarming of all, Mundine advocates the “full nuclear cycle”.  That means Australia not only having nuclear power, but taking in nuclear waste from overseas countries.

We should not be all that surprised at Mundine’s pro nuke spruik.  He has for a long time, been part of Australia’s nuclear lobby – its nuclear ‘spin machine’. – Christina Macpherson

FINANCIAL REVIEW JIM GREEN. 30 MARCH 12,  As a co-convener of the Australian Uranium Association’s Indigenous Dialogue Group, it’s a shame that Warren Mundine turns a blind eye to the crude racism of Australia’s nuclear industry

He ought to have noted that last year’s amendments to the South Australian Roxby Downs Indenture Act 1982 retain exemptions from the SA Aboriginal Heritage Act. Traditional owners were not even consulted. The SA government’s spokesperson in Parliament said: “BHP were satisfied with the current arrangements and insisted on the continuation of these arrangements, and the government did not consult further than that.”

Mundine says that Australia has “a legal framework to negotiate equitably with the traditional owners on whose land many uranium deposits are found”. He ought to have noted that legislation was passed specifically to exempt the Ranger uranium mine in the Northern Territory from the Aboriginal Land Rights Act.

And Mundine ought to have noted that Resources Minister Martin Ferguson’s National Radioactive Waste Management Act overrides the Aboriginal Heritage Act, sidesteps the Aboriginal Land Rights Act and allows for the imposition of a dump on Aboriginal land even in the absence of any consultation with or consent from traditional owners. http://afr.com/p/opinion/our_radioactive_racism_UTpKFLGc40Yd3aBCYAJByM

March 30, 2012 - Posted by Christina Macpherson | aboriginal issues, AUSTRALIA - NATIONAL, spinbuster