Antinuclear

In March 2011 people all around the world held our breath as the Fukushima nuclear disaster played out on our screens.Later as the headlines, albeit not the radiation levels faded, it was confirmed that Australian uranium directly fuelled Fukushima. Rocks dug in Kakadu and northern South Australia were the source of the radioactive fallout threatening Japan and well beyond.

The line of connection was made clearly from a failed reactor complex on Japan’s East coast to the back of a big yellow truck at an Australian mine-site.

This week the man who steered Japan through the critical early days of the continuing crisis is touring Australia with a simple message: there can be no nuclear ‘business as usual’ in the shadow of Fukushima.

Mr Naoto Kan was the Japanese Prime Minister at the time the Fukushima nuclear crisis started in March 2011 after a powerful earthquake and tsunami caused chaos across Japan……..

Against a context of domestic nuclear promotion with Bob Hawke urging Australia to become the world’s radioactive waste dump and PM Abbott cutting treaty corners and hawking uranium sales to India on a visit there early next month, Mr Kans cautionary tale is timely.

Mr Kan has already spoken in Darwin and visited the embattled Ranger uranium mine in Kakadu where he met with the regions Mirarr Traditional Owners. The Mirarr have the longest lived experience of uranium mining of any Aboriginal people in Australia.

This experience was previously summed up by Mirarr leader Yvonne Margarula with the potent phrase, ‘None of the promises last – but the problems always do.”

Following the Fukushima meltdown the Mirarr leader wrote a powerful note to UN Secretary General Ban Ki Moon stating, “Given the long history between Japanese nuclear companies and Australian uranium miners, it is likely that the radiation problems at Fukushima are, at least in part, fuelled by uranium derived from our traditional lands. This makes us feel very sad”.

Along with the sadness was a desire for scrutiny, a view shared by Ban Ki Moon when he formally called in September 2011 for Australia to conduct ‘an in-depth assessment of the net cost impact of the impacts of mining fissionable material (uranium) on local communities and ecosystems’.

Sadly, and culpably, to date there has been no meaningful response from any Australian government, uranium company, uranium industry body or regulator to the fact that Australian uranium fuelled Fukushima…….Let’s hope that this week Mr Kan’s clear message is heard and heeded: Fukushima is a game changer with Australian fingerprints and our shared energy future must be renewable, not radioactive.https://newmatilda.com/2014/08/29/fukushima-australia%E2%80%99s-radioactive-rocks-and-responsibility