AUDIO: Report on Day 8 of Muckaty Nuclear waste Dump Court Case
AUDIO Report on Day 8 of Muckaty nuclear waste dump court case. http://caama.com.au/wp-content/uploads/2014/06/Muckaty-Day-8.mp3
The Muckaty mob have been so strong in this court-room. It’s an intimidating system. Gladys Brown – strong indigenous woman, grilled by white men in an intimidating manner. Australian govt and NLC didn’t want the court case to come to Muckaty and Northern Territory. Awful to watch the NRC lawyer denigrating the cultural knowledge of these Aboriginal women. Trying to trip them up all the time – about their dreaming stories. But these witnesses are holding their ground, sticking to their guns. That the Land council anf govt did not listen to them A very disturbing process to watch.
Confronting for these women to be surrounded by white men – challenging their cultural knowledge.
White law is given absolute upper hand, through these whole proceedings.. It’s the Aboriginal women who are on trial. These women being put through the ringer. No acknowledgement of the strength of the law and knowledge in this area.
So much is being revealed about the consultation process.
One of the darkest aspects – The government and lawyers always emphasise the low level waste – medical equipment etc. They never talk the spent nuclear fuel – from Lucas Heights, currently overseas, but coming back as its the most dangerous industrial waste of all. It is never discussed in detail
Very obvious that in the early consultations – the people were not told a true account of what nuclear waste is. None of this contained a genuine discussion about the spent nuclear fuel rods.
As soon as the traditional owners started to get information, from the Environment Centre, they started action against the dump. From Day one it should have been explained. It was never brought up by the Northern Land Council. The NLC claim the protest comes from outsiders. Not so.
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of the week – Disrupting War & Militarism in Oceania. Active solidarity. Radical practice.
Antinuclear 
Little has changed from the days when the Federal Government tried to locate the dump in SA.
They denied it was a dump, it was a “repository”. We won that battle.
They claimed it was for only low level waste. We won that battle by publicly asking them where the short-lived intermediate waste was going to go, Nick Minchin unashamedly admitted that it was going in the low level dump. The reporter doing the interview was noticeably taken aback by that admission.
They kept stressing volumes rather than amount of ionising radiation. We stressed that it’s not the volume or mass of the waste that is dangerous it’s the amount of ionising radiation.
The Kupa Piti Kunga Tjuta were so strong and got both Australian and International awards for their determination in the face of attacks by the Government-industry complex. The Kunga-Tjuta had experience with ionising radiation through the fallout from the British nuclear weapons tests at Maralinga.
The anti-dump campaign stressed that the waste should be left where it is and looked after by the experts at Lucas Heights – if those experts didn’t want it there then they shouldn’t make it in the first place.
Those who benefit most from Lucas Heights want the costs picked up by those who benefit least.
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