Antinuclear

Environmental Injustice in Australia – Nuclear Waste, The Stringer,  by Kate O’Callaghan,  May 8th, 2014 Muckaty Station is a small township in the remote Northern Territory, 110km north of Tennant Creek and roughly 800km south of Darwin.  Also known as Marlwanpa, the land is held under Native Title having formally been returned in 2001 to thetraditional owners – the Milwayi, Ngapa, Ngarrka, Wirntiku, Kurrakurraja, Walanypirri and Yapayapa peoples.  Muckaty is also the proposed site of Australia’s first national nuclear waste dump or, as it’s officially called, radioactive waste repository.

Despite the absence of consultation with the broader community, in 2007 the Howard government approved the Muckaty dump site with plans to open the facility in 2011.  After thesecretive deal was negotiated with the NLC, so secretive that some members of the Ngapa clan were not even given a copy, a bitter conflict erupted.  Other clans, environmental groups, unions and the NT Government expressed outrage at the lack of proper consultation with the traditional owners.  Despite ongoing attempts to contact the government, opposing community groups had their meeting requests ignored, correspondence unanswered and were continually ignored.

In 2010, the subsequent Rudd government introduced legislation giving them the ability to override the Northern Territory’s threat to block the construction of the Muckaty dump.  After years of opposition, the Gillard government passed the legislation in 2012. The National Radioactive Waste Management Bill removed community appeal rights, indigenous & environmental protections, and gave the government the ability to override state or territory concerns about environmental impacts.  After her election in 2013, Northern Territory Senator Nova Perris expressed her objection to the Muckaty site, stating it would cause “profound grief, suffering and loss on Aboriginal people.”……..

while there are still disagreements on the best way to deal with nuclear waste, there is consensus that the process must involve a high level of community consultation.  According to a UK report by an expert committee on nuclear waste, “There is a growing recognition that it is not ethically acceptable for a society to impose a radioactive waste facility on an unwilling community.”   It is clear at Muckaty that the Australian government did not engage in meaningful consultation with the community as a whole.  More deplorable than this is the willingness of successive governments to dump this problem on marginalised indigenous communities.  This is in direct conflict with our international obligations under the UN Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples which requires that no disposal takes place on indigenous lands without without “their free, prior and informed consent.”

So what’s next for the people of Muckaty?  After being postponed, the legal battle against the Commonwealth Government and Northern Land Council is expected to commence in the Federal Court in June 2014.  The legal team will include prominent human rights lawyers Julian Burnside and George Newhouse, who will challenge the nomination of the indigenous land for the nuclear dump site.  The case will be an important litmus test for any similar legal challenges in the future.  It is crucial that the government looks toward the responsible and transparent management of radioactive waste and away from the secretive tactics that have defined the past decadehttp://thestringer.com.au/environmental-injustice-in-australia-nuclear-waste/#.U3Er04FdWik.