Nuclear waste dump on Aboriginal land: a step towards importing the world’s radioactive trash?
Nuclear dump will end heritage links:court The West Australian , NEDA VANOVAC June 12, 2014,An Aboriginal woman who opposes the construction of a nuclear waste dump in the Northern Territory says it’s a stepping stone to Australia storing the world’s waste.
The Federal Court is sitting in Tennant Creek to hear from members of four clans who say they were not properly consulted by the Northern Land Council (NLC) and the Commonwealth, which they say wrongfully acknowledged the Lauder family of the Ngapa clan as traditional owners of the site, 120km north of the town.
The court must sift through the criss-crossing songlines and dreamings of the seven clans who claim land within the 221,000ha Muckaty Station to decide who owns the two square kilometres that would house the facility.
Marlene Bennett told the court on Thursday that if the dump went ahead, the local people would lose their connection to heritage forever. “The world wants to store their nuclear waste somewhere. I have no doubt in my mind that parcel of land will get bigger and bigger. We won’t be able to get there any more, hunt there any more. It’s going to impact on the whole area,” she said.
“The songs, stories, ceremonies, culture, everyone is dispossessed again.”
Her uncle was part of a group of traditional owners taken to see the Lucas Heights storage facility in Sydney in 2006, but Ms Bennett says he thought they were planning to build a rubbish dump to create jobs for the community.
“(His) understanding was a commercial rubbish tip, which is quite different to a nuclear facility,” she said. “To see him so distressed, saying, ‘We agreed to this, but we didn’t understand what it was about’. Obviously they weren’t informed correctly.” She said indigenous people were often too intimidated to speak out in the face of authority.
“I’m concerned about the level of information that was imparted, not just showing the community the dollar signs,” Ms Bennett said.
Whether the federal government and the NLC consulted the community properly is a key element of the case…….https://au.news.yahoo.com/thewest/national/a/24224338/nuclear-dump-will-end-heritage-links-court/
Pacific leaders condemn Tony Abbott’s climate policies
Pacific presidents speak out against Australia’s stand on climate change Australia Network News, Fri 13 Jun 2014, Pacific leaders have criticised Australia’s moves to form a conservative international climate change alliance, saying it will only isolate Australia further in the Pacific.
The comments from the presidents of Kiribati and Marshall Islands came as Australian Prime Minister Tony Abbott met US President Barrack Obama for formal talks in Washington………
Kiribati’s President Anote Tong says climate change is an issue of survival for Pacific Island states, not just economics.
“We’re not talking about the growth GDP, we’re not talking about what it means in terms of profit and losses of the large corporations, we’re talking about our survival,” he told Radio Australia’s Pacific Beat
Australia further isolated in Pacific
Mr Tong also says the Abbott-Harper strategy throws previous regional agreements to which Australia was a signatory into doubt. He says Australia’s stand is also likely to get “some, if not a lot” of attention at next month’s Pacific Island Forum leaders’ meeting in Palau.
Mr Tong says as far as Kiribati is concerned, it now doesn’t matter what Australia or any other country does because it is already too late.
“What will happen in terms of greenhouse gas emissions levels agreed to internationally will not affect us, because our future is already here… we will be underwater,” he said………http://www.abc.net.au/news/2014-06-13/pacific-presidents/5521478
Muckaty nuclear waste case: Commonwealth law may prevail over Aboriginal owners’ wishes
The Commonwealth Radioactive Waste Management Act (2005) states that even if an Aboriginal community or group that might be affected by the proposed nomination has not been consulted and does not consent, the nomination can go ahead.
And even if Justice Anthony North rules that the NLC behaved improperly, the facility might still be built at Muckaty.
Nuclear waste dump may still go ahead https://au.news.yahoo.com/thewest/national/a/24233270/nuclear-waste-dump-may-still-go-ahead/ NEDA VANOVACJune 13, 2014, The news is always a little old at the Tennant Creek newsagency.It takes a while for the papers to be transported to the town, 1000km south of Darwin and about 500km north of Alice Springs in the rocky, semi-arid Barkly tablelands.
At 283,648 square kilometres, the tablelands are one-fifth of the Northern Territory and bigger than New Zealand. However, even eight years after the battle over the proposed Muckaty waste dump began, this dispute is anything but old news. The Federal Court this week took evidence from locals in what many hope will be a long-awaited resolution to a situation that has split the town.
In 2006, a small patch of land on Muckaty Station, 120km north of Tennant Creek, was put forward by the Northern Land Council (NLC) to the Commonwealth government to become Australia’s national radioactive waste storage facility. The council had the permission of the Lauder family of the Ngapa clan, which it determined were the rightful owners of that spot.
However, seven clans lay claim to land within the 221,000ha station, and all have dreamings and songlines that overlap and intersect, meaning the court will have to untangle what it can to determine which group can claim to the roughly two square kilometres that would house the facility if it goes ahead.
The case is arguably the biggest of its kind since the Jabiluka mine blockades of the 1990s. Continue reading
VIDEO: Aboriginal clans determined in their fight against nuclear waste dumping on their land
VIDEO : Muckaty Traditional Owners maintain rage about plans to build nuclear waste dump http://www.abc.net.au/news/2014-06-13/muckaty-traditional-owners-maintain-rage-about/5523490 Alyssa Betts Fri 13 Jun 2014
Traditional Owners of Muckaty Station are maintaining the rage about plans to build a nuclear waste dump there.
Some are fighting for it, many others are fighting against it.
The legalities of which clans own what parts of the station and whether the Northern Land Council has done the right thing in nominating the dump site is being fought in court.
Renewable energy in France soon to be cheaper than nuclear electricity
French nuclear more costly than renewables by 2020 – Greenpeace PARIS, June 12 Thu Jun 12, 2014 (Reuters) – Electricity produced by onshore wind and solar plants may become more competitive with power generated by upgraded nuclear plants in France by the end of this decade, a study by environmental group Greenpeace showed on Thursday.
The study comes a week before Energy Minister Segolene Royal presents the broad lines of a much-delayed framework energy law that aims to spell out how France will cut the share of atomic energy to 50 percent from the current 75 percent by 2025.
The rising cost of France’s nuclear energy is a concern and the government should set up independent expert institutions to help it plan long-term energy investments, a parliamentary committee said in a report published on Tuesday.
According to the Greenpeace study, the investment needed to upgrade French utility EDF’s 58 nuclear reactors to bring them close to the safety level of a new-generation EPR reactor would raise median production costs to 133 euros ($180) per megawatt-hour (MWh). That estimate, based on an extension of the lifespan of current reactors by 10 years to 50 years and 4.4 billion euros worth of work per reactor, would make nuclear energy less competitive than onshore wind power around 2015, the study said.
Greenpeace also sees the cost of photovoltaic power falling to less than 134 euros/MWh around 2019 from more than 250 euros/MWh today, making it competitive with the renovated French nuclear plants by that time……
French regulator ASN is expected to give a first opinion on whether reactors can be granted life extensions in 2015 and decide reactor by reactor in 2018-2019. ($1 = 0.7345 Euros) (Reporting by Michel Rose; Editing by James Macharia, Larry King) http://in.reuters.com/article/2014/06/12/france-nuclear-idINL5N0OT2LN20140612
Maningrida’s Aboriginal landowners fight plans for offshore fracking
Offshore fracking fight washes up on the pristine shores of Arnhem Land, Guardian, 13 June 14, As a US gas company eyes the potential in the shallows around Maningrida, the traditional owners have vowed to protect their ancestral land – and they’re prepared to go to the high court The first Alice Eather knew of Paltar Petroleum’s plans for her ancestral land was when she read a square-inch notice buried in the back pages of the NT News. The August 2012 announcement detailed an application by the US giant for a license for exploratory oil and gas drilling. If successful, it planned to carry out hydraulic fracturing, or fracking, around the coastline of Maningrida in West Arnhem Land.
“It was the most horrible day of my life,” says 24-year-old Eather. “No one was told a thing. There had been no consultation and the ad said we would be given two months to object.”
Objections from the region’s myriad Aboriginal clans and some 13 language groups have since been vocal and persistent. Almost two years on, leaders from the Protect Arnhem Land campaign say they will take their battle as far as the high court if necessary.
“I had never done any of this in my life,” says Queensland-raised Eather, whose mother is from the Kunibidji people of Maningrida. “But our job is to protect country. If we don’t do this, we are not doing our duty.” The 10-million hectares of Arnhem Land represent a fraction of the some 80% of the Northern Territory which is currently under application for unconventional oil and gas exploration. But the local campaign to halt fracking by Paltar highlights the complexity of trying to protect land in this resource-rich territory.
The town, whose name derives from the phrase “where the dreaming changed shape”, sits on an estuary at the mouth of the Liverpool river and is home to around 2,600, many of whom live on its some 30 homeland centres or “outstations”………
Most of Arnhem Land falls under the 1976 Aboriginal Land Rights Act that grants inalienable freehold title to traditional owners under federal law. This includes the right to veto applications for development or exploration. However the jurisdiction of the Act ends at the low-tide mark and therefore gives no clear rights over sea activity like the seismic and acoustic sampling proposed by Paltar in the shallows around Maningrida….
“The Land Rights Act does not give Aboriginal people a lot of chance to say no to production,” says Stuart Blanch, an environmental lawyer and director of the Environment Centre NT who is advocating for the campaign. “Even if they refuse a license to explore, every five years the developer has a chance to come back and reapply. If they say yes to exploration, they can’t have a change of heart.”
As Blanch notes, this has led investors to offer strong incentives for traditional owners to license their initial applications in the form of generous royalty payments. The Northern Land Council (NLC), the body responsible for mediating applications, has also been accused of keeping traditional owners offside in development negotiations. Where local clan members often have little access to the technicalities of proposals or related legislation in their own language, the remunerative rewards of $10,000-20,000 per owner for granting a license can be alluring.
“The NLC is a creation of the white man under federal law. It survives financially by facilitating developments on Aboriginal land that are recognised under the Act.” he says. “The history is that traditional owners are under pressure to say yes to exploration.”……
Paltar’s application for now remains in limbo in the hands of the NT government who hold the power to approve an offshore exploration license. State bureaucrats have given reassurances that they will take account of traditional owners’ claims, but Eather and others remain sceptical that Paltar will relinquish their plans. Nonetheless, she says the grassroots nature of the Protect Arnhem Land campaign has afforded local clans some agency in what is often an arcane and unnavigable legislative sphere.
“I don’t think Paltar will budge. But the most vital thing is that [the campaign] is community-driven,” she says.
Blackfellas have always felt like they are kept in the dark, that it is the ballandar [white people] who have all the law and all the knowledge. We can make a big change to that.”……http://www.theguardian.com/world/2014/jun/13/offshore-fracking-fight-washes-up-arnhem-land
Darkinjung Local Aboriginal Land Council stopped proposed Wallarah 2 longwall coal mine
Darkinjung Local Aboriginal Land Council did what the O’Farrell and Baird Governments were averse to doing – it stopped the proposed Wallarah 2 longwall coal mine in its tracks, North Coast Voices, 13 June 14 Early in 2014 the Darkinjung Local Aboriginal Land Council took Wyong Coal Pty Ltd (First Respondent), Minister for Planning and Infrastructure (Second Respondent),Planning Assessment Commission NSW (Third Respondent) and NSW Aboriginal Land Council (Fourth Respondent) to the NSW Land & Environment Court.
The judgment does not appear to have been published yet.
However, The Daily Telegraph reported on 13 June 2014:
THE controversial Wallarah 2 coal mine, which ICAC target Nick Di Girolamo lobbied for on behalf of Korean mining company Kores, has been put on hold and may never go ahead after a Land and Environment Court decision.
The decision was a win for the local Aboriginal Land Council, which had fought the mine on its land.
Planning Minister Pru Goward made clear last night she would not intervene in the matter, releasing a statement saying: “I have considered the judgment and I accept the decision of the court.”….
The proposed Wallarah 2 longwall coal mine put forward by the Korean-owned mining company Kores Australia Pty Ltd and, its joint venture partners Catherine Hill Resources Pty Ltd, Kyungdong Australia Pty Ltd, SK Networks Resources Australia (Wyong) Pty Ltd, SK Networks Resources Pty Ltd and progressed by Wyong Coal Pty Ltd (T/A Wyong Areas Coal Joint Venture), had already failed basic environmental and risk management standards as the 4 June 2014 NSW Planning and Assessment Commission Final Report summary indicates:…..http://northcoastvoices.blogspot.com.au/2014/06/darkinjung-local-aboriginal-land.html
Auxstralia’s investments in nuclear weapons, via the Future Fund
Australia One Of Ten Nuclear Horns (Daniel 7:7) June 9, 2014 ~ Andrew the Prophet Australia investing in nuclear arms May 26, 2011 THE federal government’s $74 billion Future Fund is investing Australian taxpayers’ money in foreign companies that make components for nuclear weapons.
Records obtained under freedom of information laws show the fund has $135.4 million invested in 15 companies involved in the design, production and maintenance of nuclear weapons for the United States, Britain, France and India.
About $3.8 million of this is invested in Larsen & Toubro, a Mumbai-based company involved in building a fleet of nuclear-armed submarines for India. The company has also helped test a launch system for India’s nuclear missiles.Any investment involving the production of nuclear weapons for India is particularly controversial because New Delhi is not a signatory to the nuclear non-proliferation treaty.
The Future Fund has also invested taxpayers’ money in global defence industry behemoths Boeing, BAE Systems, Northrop Grumman and Thales, all of which are involved in the manufacture ofnuclear missiles for the US, Britain or France.……..
The Future Fund was set up in 2006 with the proceeds of Telstra’s privatisation to cover the Commonwealth’s superannuation obligations in coming years. Its board is appointed by the Treasurer, but is independent of the government.
Its policy is to invest only in companies ”whose economic activity is legal in Australia and does not contravene international conventions to which Australia is a signatory”……..
But activists from the International Campaign to Abolish Nuclear Weapons claim the investments contravene the fund’s policy because the manufacture of nuclear weapons is illegal in Australia. ”The Future Fund has a policy not to invest in activities that would be illegal in Australia and it’s absolutely clear that it would be illegal in Australia to do what these companies are doing,” the group’s Tim Wright told The Age.
”For the fund to be saying it’s not inconsistent with their investment policy is completely wrong.”
The group also claims the fund might be contravening the Australian law that prohibits assistance to anyone involved in the ”manufacture, production, acquisition or testing” of nuclear devices both inside and outside Australia. And it argues that the investments contravene the spirit of the international convention, which calls on nuclear weapons states to pursue ”good faith” action on disarmament.
”Conducting simulated nuclear tests and building new nuclear-tipped missiles and nuclear-armed submarines, which will mean that nuclear weapons are around for many more decades, are contrary to this good-faith obligation,” he said…….http://andrewtheprophet.wordpress.com/2014/06/09/australia-one-of-ten-nuclear-horns-daniel-77/
Australia’s carbon price has greatly reduced carbon emissions
Fall in greenhouse gas emissions biggest in 24 years, SMH, June 13, 2014 –Peter Hannam Environment Editor, The Sydney Morning Herald Australia posted its biggest annual reduction in greenhouse gas emissions in 24 years of records in 2013 as the carbon tax helped drive a large drop in pollution from the electricity sector.
The latest greenhouse gas inventory, released online without fanfare by the federal government, showed annual emissions excluding changes in land use were estimated at 538.4 million tonnes of carbon-dioxide equivalent in 2013, down 0.8 per cent on the previous year.
While the final figures may be revised, the annual drop is likely to exceed the only two other years of emissions falls – in 2009 and 2010 – since the tally began in 1990.
The electricity sector reported emissions fell 5 per cent last year, with all but one other sector showing an increase. The carbon tax has its most direct impact on power generators, which account for about one-third of Australia’s emissions outside changes to forest cover.
The carbon price, now at $24.15 a tonne, will rise to $25.40 a tonne from next month and will apply until its likely scrapping when the new Senate votes on the Abbott government’s repeal bills, expected soon after July 1.
The government’s climate policies have been in the spotlight as Prime Minister Tony Abbott headed to Washington this week, soon after President Barack Obama introduced the most ambitious emissions cuts in US history – forcing power plants to slash 2005-level emissions 30 per cent by 2030.
Mr Abbott, forced to defend the government’s alternative policy to a carbon tax based on paying polluters to curb emissions, said he would avoid climate action that would “clobber the economy”.
But Greens leader Christine Milne said: “The price on pollution is working and it is time Prime Minister Tony Abbott and Environment Minister Greg Hunt stopped lying to Australia and the world.
“The government is trying to hide the fact that the price on pollution is the cheapest and most effective way to do something about global warming, and mitigate the future extreme storms, droughts and floods that will ravage Australia over the coming decades.”……..
John Connor, chief executive of the Climate Institute, said the drop in 2013 emissions indicated existing policies were doing the intended job.
“We have a stable, set-and-forget default mechanism, that’s going to work,” Mr Connor said.
By contrast, the government was “ripping away” at other policies curbing emissions, with plans to scrap the Australian Renewable Energy Agency, the Clean Energy Finance Corp, and energy efficiency programs.
Any weakening of the Renewable Energy Target, now under review by a government-appointed panel led by climate change doubter Dick Warburton, would also undermine emissions reduction efforts, Mr Connor said. On current settings, the mandatory clean energy goal will cut emissions by another 70 million tonnes by 2020, he said………http://www.smh.com.au/environment/climate-change/fall-in-greenhouse-gas-emissions-biggest-in-24-years-20140613-zs7be.html
Never mind federal and state govts – Melbourne City is set for zero carbon emissiosn
City of Melbourne aims to become carbon neutral leader June 12, 2014 SMH, Tom Arup and Aisha Dow As the conversation turns to the death of Melbourne’s trees the city’s influential head planner, Professor Rob Adams, chokes up. He takes a moment, then continues. “The evidence is so obvious,” he declares, “You don’t have to go to the scientists, you just have to look at the trees in Melbourne.”
Adams is talking about climate change. And despite its wealth and culture Melbourne’s city heart is not immune to its impacts. Nor is its contribution to the problem insignificant.
In response Melbourne City Council has set perhaps the most ambitious climate change goal in Australia – to produce zero net emissions from the CBD and surrounding suburbs under its oversight by 2020.
Needless to say it is a level of ambition not matched by state and federal governments.
In fact Adams – credited with revitalising the CBD over recent decades – is upset about what he describes as the federal government’s retreat on the issue.
“Why don’t I get depressed, when I look at my little grand daughter who is eight months old?” he says.
“I think they are going to be shamed into action, I think it is going to be so embarrassing to be in the space they are in, with the assets and the ability they have got, they’ll have to move out of that space and back into the real world.”
“And I feel that strongly. We see it. The reason we have an urban forest strategy is I watched our trees dying. And, and …”
Without intervention 27 per cent of Melbourne city trees are expected to be lost in 10 years due to heat, disease and old age. But they are not the only element of city life threatened by a warming planet.
Council research on the impact of January’s record-breaking heatwave – which scientists project will occur more frequently as climate change worsens – found city retailers lost $37 million over four days as shoppers stayed out of the 40-plus degree heat. Last year flood modelling, based on end of century sea-level rise of 0.8 metres, found average annual inundation bills in Southbank could alone rise from $3 million in 2011 to $20 million by 2100 if prevention is not taken.
With high stakes and high ambition city council this year updated its plan for the zero emissions goal. It is a document of many concrete measures, plenty of promises and the occasional motherhood statement. An implementation plan is due later this year.
Chair of Melbourne’s environment portfolio, Cr Arron Wood, says one option to meet the target would see Melbourne switch to 50 per cent renewable energy. Most of that power would be fed into the city from large solar and wind farms located in regional Victoria, he says.
About 1500 megawatts of renewable energy would have to be generated, enough for 480,000 average homes. To do this it would take 15 massive solar plants of the type currently being built on 250 hectares of farming land near Nyngan in regional NSW.
It is Cr Wood’s goal to eventually have some of the city’s biggest energy users – hospitals, universities and sporting precincts – directly powered by renewable energy farms located far beyond the city edge. A much smaller amount of energy, enough to power 10,000 houses, could be generated from solar panels on warehouses and commercial buildings inside the municipality of Melbourne………. http://www.smh.com.au/environment/climate-change/city-of-melbourne-aims-to-become-carbon-neutral-leader-20140613-zs5xy.html
Signs that a big El Nino is on the way
Third warmest May in satellite record might portend record-setting El Niño Science Daily June 13, 2014
Source:
Solar energy a winner for homes in Caloundra and Iswich, Queensland
Caloundra and Ipswich tops for solar: Energex Tony Moore BRISBANETIMES.COM.AU SENIOR REPORTER, 13 June 14 The retirees, holiday makers and young families of Caloundra and the working class city of Ipswich have Southeast Queensland’s highest proportion of solar systems according to a breakdown of Energex data.
The breakdown from Energex figures shows some remarkable variations from conventional thinking.
There are fewer solar systems in West End (295), Highgate Hill (210) and South Brisbane (70), than in Inala (982) or Durack (645).
There are more in Carindale (1523) and Rochedale South (1465) than in Premier Campbell Newman’s home suburb of Ashgrove (691).
Queensland Treasurer Tim Nicholls sparked a massive outcry last week when he described some solar energy users as part of the “champagne sippers and the latte set.”
Jeremy Rich, from one of Australia’s longest-running solar energy companies, Energy Matters, said Mr Nicholls’ comments were simply wrong. “It is obvious those statements are emotional statements, without looking at the data,” Mr Rich said. “Because when you look at the data it shows that it is totally the opposite,” he said. “It is the low to middle income areas of Australia that are hurting the most.”
Their company data is similar to the Energex breakdown, showing a major interest in solar energy in Ipswich, Capalaba, Browns Plains and Cleveland in four of the top five spots.
Central Ipswich – home to Swanbank power station – has 50 per cent solar energy penetration, Mr Rich said.
Ipswich homes under the postcode of 4305 – including the suburbs from Raceview through to Brassall – have 5197 solar installations.
Caloundra’s postcode of 4551 – including Caloundra, Caloundra West, Currimundi and Dickey Beach – has 6311 solar installations up to May 2014………
A quick top 10 of Energex’s solar hot spots and their postcodes are:
1: Caloundra 4551: 6311 solar installations
2: Ipswich central east 4305: 5197 solar installations from Raceview to Brassall
3: Advancetown/Gold Coast hinterland 4211: solar 4941 installations
4: Buderim 4556: 4379 solar installations
5: Beenleigh 4207: 4363 solar installations
6: Bray Park 4500: 3931 solar installations
7: Ipswich south-west 4300: Goodna/Camira to Springfield: 3930 solar installations
8: Amberley, Barellan Point and Blacksoil 4306: 3910 solar installations
9: Mt Cotton and Redland Bay 4165: 3810 solar installations
10: Gympie and its surrounds 4570: 3678 solar installations. http://www.brisbanetimes.com.au/queensland/caloundra-and-ipswich-tops-for-solar-energex-20140612-zs66n.html#ixzz34fZsRL6G
1 This month
of the week – Disrupting War & Militarism in Oceania. Active solidarity. Radical practice.
Antinuclear 