Kakadu Traditional Owners pay their respects to Malcolm Fraser
Kakadu Traditional Owners pay their respects to Malcolm Fraser The Mirarr people, whose lands include parts of Kakadu National Park as well as the Ranger and Jabiluka uranium deposits, are saddened by the news of Mr Malcolm Fraser’s passing. More than thirty years ago, as Prime Minister, Mr Fraser declared the first stage of Kakadu National Park and oversaw the enactment of the Aboriginal Land Rights (Northern Territory) Act.
These visionary decisions continue to have significant impacts on the lives of many Aboriginal people across the Northern Territory. While the passage of the Land Rights Act imposed the Ranger Uranium Mine on Mirarr country it also delivered real property rights to Mirarr and other Aboriginal people across the Northern Territory and remains the high water mark of Aboriginal Land Rights in Australia.
In more recent times, Mr Fraser has been an advocate for justice and decency for Aboriginal communities from within the conservative side of politics. Yvonne Margarula, Mirarr Senior Traditional Owner said: “I want to pay respect to Mr Fraser, who was an important leader. With Mr Gough Whitlam, Mr Fraser ensured that our land rights were acknowledged and granted to us and other Bininj (Aboriginal) people in the Territory.
“He has been a friend to Aboriginal people over a long period. “We also respect that he became Ambassador for Children’s Ground, one of our important partnerships in Kakadu and West Arnhem, to change the future for our people. We are thinking of his family at this time,” Ms Margarula concluded.
Examining the full chain proposed by Australia’s (and USA & Canada’s) nuclear lobby
What does the nuclear lobby want, for South Australia?, Online Opinion,
| By Noel Wauchope 19 March 2015 “….It is difficult to work out exactly what is planned in nuclear industry expansion for South Australia. The plans involve some or all of these industries: uranium enrichment, nuclear power, importation and storage of nuclear wastes, 4th Generation nuclear reactors, and expansion of uranium mining. However, we can be grateful to ABC Radio’s Ockham’s Razor programme, as it provided the nuclear lobby with a platform for setting out succinctly their intentions. Oscar Archer, a well -known voice for the nuclear industry, explains…… Australia should get a fleet of PRISM small nuclear reprocessing reactors – Archer’s plan is for “IFS+IFR: Intermediate Fuel Storage and Integral Fast Reactor, namely the commercially offered PRISM breeder reactor from General Electric Hitachi.” What he means here is the Power Reactor Innovative Small Module Archer then sets out the sequence of events that would lead to the establishment of this fleet. In Archer’s words “it goes like this. Australia establishes the world’s first multinational repository for used fuel – what’s often called nuclear waste” However, he notes that “This is established on the ironclad commitment [my emphasis] to develop a fleet of integral fast reactors to demonstrate the recycling of the used nuclear fuel”…… the sting in the tale of his plan is really exactly what he calls the first step – the overturning or weakening of Federal and State laws. The Federal Act protects against nuclear reprocessing and expanded nuclear industries. ARPANSA sets safety standards for exposure to ionising radiation. South Australian State Law would have to be overturned, too – under the Nuclear Waste Storage Facility (Prohibition) Act 2000 The central premise of Oscar Archer’s promotion of this nuclear chain of events is that Australia should go out on a limb – be the first country in the world to import nuclear wastes and to order a mass purchase of PRISM reactors….. The PRISM reactor exists only on paper and its development is decades away from completion. David Biello, in Scientific American comments “Ultimately, however, the core problem may be that such new reactors don’t eliminate the nuclear waste that has piled up so much as transmute it. Even with a fleet of such fast reactors, nations would nonetheless require an ultimate home for radioactive waste, one reason that a 2010 M.I.T. report on spent nuclear fuel dismissed such fast reactors.”
The PRISM can’t melt down in the way that conventional nuclear reactors can. However, its essential use of plutonium entails hazardous transport – vulnerability to terrorism and use as a “dirty” bomb. And – finally the PRISM reactor itself becomes radioactive waste requiring security and burial. There is another, underlying premise here that needs to be examined. This is the premise that it is OK for Australia and the world to continue to consume energy endlessly…….
The plan purports to reduce greenhouse emissions by means of thousands of little reactors, (and big ones) – but their development is so many decades away that it would be too late for climate change action. We are left with a plan that looks suspiciously as if the troubled nuclear industries of USA, Canada and UK have selected Australia as the guinea pig for a plan to reverse their industries’ present decline.
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Family First Senator Bob Day gets Senate support for SA nuclear commission
Senate backs SA nuclear commission http://www.heraldsun.com.au/news/breaking-news/senate-backs-sa-nuclear-commission/story-fni0xqi4-1227268345280 AAP MARCH 18, 2015
THE Senate has backed South Australia’s royal commission into expanding the nuclear industry.
SA Premier Jay Weatherill launched a royal commission to investigate if the state, home to world’s largest uranium deposits, should embrace production, enrichment and storage of nuclear power.
SA Family First senator Bob Day won enough Senate support to formally welcome the commission, with his motion passing 34 to 33.
Nuclear Royal Commission will ignore the elephant in the room
| 20 Mar 15, The biggest hole in the nuclear Royal Commission isn’t the proposed open cut pit at Olympic Dam, but rather the omission of any consideration as to whether South Australia should be LESS involved in the nuclear industry, rather than MORE involved, according to Greens SA State Parliamentary Leader, Mark Parnell MLC.
“Despite the Premier’s assurance that he has an “open mind”, the most fundamental question of SA’s role in the global nuclear industry won’t be considered at all. The Royal Commission is only charged with considering NEW ADDITIONAL involvement or expanding our existing involvement; it won’t be looking at whether SA should extract itself entirely from the nuclear cycle.” said Mark Parnell. “If you don’t ask all the questions, you won’t get all the answers. “Clearly, there are many South Australians who are opposed to South Australia’s involvement in the nuclear cycle. With our natural advantages and nation-leading performance in wind and solar, South Australians see that the future is to embrace clean renewable energy, rather than flirting with dangerous, dirty and expensive nuclear power. Becoming the nation’s or world’s nuclear waste dump is not most people’s vision for our State’s future or the legacy that we want to leave our children.”
Now that the Royal Commission is underway, the next critical decisions will be around the selection of key staff including “Counsel assisting the Royal Commission” and any technical or other research staff. “Choosing people who are partisan or have vested interests will be seen by the public as evidence of a biased process and the credibility of any findings will be diminished.” The Royal Commission also needs to announce how it intends to conduct its inquiry, including opportunities for personal submissions, public hearings, site visits and how all South Australians can engage with the process. “The Greens will engage with the process, but we won’t hesitate to publicly criticise the Royal Commission if it becomes secretive, biased or otherwise limits the ability of South Australians to have their say on their State’s future.” said Mr Parnell. |
1000 submissions to S. Australia’s Nuclear Royal Commission. Kevin Scarce accused of pro nuclear bias
Nuclear royal commissioner officially appointed, denies bias ABC Radio National PM 19 Mar 15 DAVID MARK: The newly appointed royal commissioner for investigating the nuclear industry in South Australia says he is not biased towards the industry. The former South Australian governor, Kevin Scarce, has been accused of speaking in favour of the industry in the past.
The royal commission officially started today.
Mr Scarce says the commission will hold public hearings around the state. In Adelaide, Natalie Whiting reports.
NATALIE WHITING: In the lead up to the start of South Australia’s royal commission into developing a nuclear industry, there has been some criticism of the man selected to lead it. Some people opposing the inquiry, including Doctor Jim Green from Friends of the Earth Australia, say former governor Kevin Scarce had spoken out in favour of the industry before.
He was officially given the role of commissioner today and has hit back at those suggestions……..
Craig Wilkins from the Conservation Council has welcomed that.
CRAIG WILKINS: We actually do have a significant history already in this industry and it’s really important that if the commission is to do its work properly it considers where we’ve come from as well as where we’re going. So we very strongly welcome the fact that the terms of reference have been broadened to include that history.
NATALIE WHITING: But he says he would have liked the terms to also look at minimising the state’s involvement in the industry. South Australia already mines uranium.
CRAIG WILKINS: Surely any decent investigation of an industry should mean that all options are on the table. If there are concerns, which many people do have concerns already with this industry, surely this commission should be looking at what our appropriate role should be in it and that may well be a reduction rather than an increase.
NATALIE WHITING: Kevin Scarce says that has been ruled out……
Weatherill’s Royal Commission hides the connection between nuclear industry and nuclear weapons
Dennis Matthews, 20 Mar 15 It’s not difficult to find out that the world’s nuclear waste is not neatly segregated into “military” and “non-military”. The processes that create the waste, such as separating out the various isotopes of uranium, chemical processing prior to this separation, and the processing of spent fuel rods from nuclear reactors all occur at facilities that service both the nuclear weapons and the nuclear power industries.
Weatherill’s Royal Commission has been charged with looking into importing nuclear waste but has been explicitly told not to include nuclear use for military or defence purposes. If the Commission doesn’t study the close physical connection between the military and non-military uses then it is closing its mind to one of the reasons why South Australia shouldn’t have anything to do with the nuclear industry.
It’s pretty obvious that Weatherill and the nuclear lobby don’t want to look into this because it would inevitably lead to a result that they don’t want to know about. More the pity for South Australia.
South Australian govt starts Royal Commission into Nuclear (it’s a CHAIN not a CYCLE)
Dennis Matthews 20 Mar 15 The Nuclear Fuel Cycle Royal Commission is full of contradictions and political spin
Surely if there was a fuel cycle then we wouldn’t need a nuclear waste dump. In fact it is a nuclear fuel chain; dig it up, process it, use it, then dump the wastes in some cash-strapped state.
The terms of reference explicitly state that the military use of uranium is excluded. Yet a former high-ranking member of the military who is sympathetic to the nuclear industry is the commissioner.
The commissioner has urged people to keep an open mind but the terms of reference state that the commission can’t do that because it can only look at expanding the nuclear industry and not the opposite.
It is claimed that the commission will not recommend sites for a nuclear dump but it will investigate whether South Australia has suitable geography. So it won’t be in your backyard but it might be in the valley down the road.
The royal commissioner said any consideration of reducing nuclear industry involvement had been ruled out by the SA Government.
Nuclear Fuel Cycle Royal Commission makes formal start in SA ABC News 19 Mar 15 Public hearings in remote Aboriginal communities are expected to be part of a royal commission in South Australia into nuclear energy issues. Governor Hieu Van Le has signed off to mark the official start of the Nuclear Fuel Cycle Royal Commission, which is expected to make its recommendations to the SA Government by May next year.
It will examine a range of issues including whether the state should have a nuclear power station or
nuclear waste dump.
Former governor Kevin Scarce will head the inquiry. Continue reading
India’s government is flogging a nuclear dead horse
More important than all this is the Indian policymakers’-and-shapers’ disconnect from reality and obsession with nuclear technology
Contrary to pet myths, nuclear power is rapidly shrinking worldwide.
India would commit a historic blunder by expanding nuclear power generation
Fukushima, the world’s worst-ever nuclear accident (http://gu.com/p/46fjj/sbl), has probably sounded the death-knell of the global nuclear industry. It brutally exposed the unaffordable nature of nuclear risks even in developed societies, and has made atomic power publicly unacceptable everywhere
Nuclear has nothing going for it—not when wind and solar energy annually grow worldwide at 25% and 40%-plus, when their generation costs fall to those of gas- or coal-based power, and their modularity and flexibility establish their unparalleled versatility.
Four years after Fukushima, India still flogs a nuclear dead horse http://www.dnaindia.com/analysis/column-four-years-after-fukushima-india-still-
flogs-a-nuclear-dead-horse-2069971 Thursday, 19 March 2015 – It’s a telling comment on the state of the Indian media that most of it blacked out the fourth anniversary of the still-continuing Fukushima nuclear catastrophe, which fell on March 11. The same media reported breathlessly on the Indian government’s plans to triple domestic nuclear power-generation capacity by 2020-21, and on the “breakthrough” achieved on the nuclear liability issue during Barack Obama’s recent visit to India.
In reality, there was no breakthrough—only sleights-of-hand to substitute administrative memoranda for proper laws enacted after prolonged legislative debate. This trick, meant to please US nuclear suppliers at the expense of India’s public, falls foul of Parliament’s intent. But it still won’t work. Westinghouse and GE, now owned by Japanese capital, are unlikely to sell reactors to India so long as an element of liability exists.
As for the projected capacity tripling, it belongs to an established pattern of extravagant promises and poor performance: if the Department of Atomic Energy’s 1967 projection had materialised, India by 2000 would have had 43,500 MW in capacity; it had 2,700 MW! Tripling assumes that 19 reactors would be started and completed in six years, when average global construction time is 10 years. Eight reactors are to be imported, an unlikely prospect given that companies like “nuclear champion” Areva, for which the Jaitapur site is earmarked, are on bankruptcy’s verge. Continue reading
Community groups organise public meetings about Hanford nuclear facility
Environmental groups take control of Hanford nuclear meetings
The community-led program will be held from 9:30 a.m. to noon March 29 at Vancouver’s Marshall Community Center, 1009 E. McLoughlin Blvd. It is free and open to the public.
The Hanford Nuclear Reservation in Eastern Washington was conceived as part of the Manhattan project in World War II and produced material for the bomb dropped on Nagasaki. The government subsequently used the remote desert site to produce material for the nation’s nuclear arsenal.
Today, the nation’s most contaminated nuclear site is subject to a decades-long cleanup under the auspices of the U.S. Department of Energy.
“The health of the Columbia River depends on successful cleanup of the Hanford nuclear site and its dangerous nuclear and chemical pollution. Residents throughout the Pacific Northwest have a huge stake in the cleanup effort at Hanford, and we are reaching out to help give them a greater voice in the process,” said Dan Serres, Conservation Director for Columbia Riverkeeper.
The event is organized by Columbia Riverkeeper, Hanford Challenge, Heart of America and Washington Physicians for Social Responsibility. It is billed as an opportunity to provide input on the Hanford cleanup and for downstream communities to learn more about the issues.
Photos of the Radioactive Man Who Returned To Fukushima To Feed The Animals
Photos: The Radioactive Man Who Returned To Fukushima To Feed The Animals That Everyone Else Left Behind Bored Panda 20 Mar 15 The untold human suffering and property damage left in the wake of the Fukushima disaster in Japan has been well-documented, but there’s another population that suffered greatly that few have discussed – the animals left behind in the radioactive exclusion zone. One man, however, hasn’t forgotten – 55-year-old Naoto Matsumura, a former construction worker who lives in the zone to care for its four-legged survivors.
He is known as the ‘guardian of Fukushima’s animals’ because of the work he does to feed the animals left behind by people in their rush to evacuate the government’s 12.5-mile exclusion zone. He is aware of the radiation he is subject to on a daily basis, but says that he “refuses to worry about it.” He does take steps, however, by only eating food imported into the zone.
See more about his work and what he has seen in the exclusion zone below!…….http://www.boredpanda.com/fukushima-radioactive-disaster-abandoned-animal-guardian-naoto-matsumura/
VIDEO: Greens’ Larissa Waters strongly defends current Renewable Energy Target
Greens savage Labor over RET deal http://media.theage.com.au/news/federal-politics/greens-savage-labor-over-ret-deal-6366253.html A report that shows power companies are the worst polluters underscores the need to retain the renewable energy target in its current form says Greens environment spokesperson Larissa Waters.
Australian Senate votes to back councils’ solar initiatives in western New South Wales.
Senate shines a light on bright solar initiative in western NSW http://www.abc.net.au/news/2015-03-18/senate-solar/6327952 The Senate has passed a motion calling on all levels of government to back a solar powered initiative in western New South Wales.
The Greens put forward the motion in the Upper House yesterday about the solar energy exchange initiative which involves 24 council areas throughout the state’s west.
The program is also known as SEXI. Each council is installing photo-voltaic panels as part of the initiative.
Greens Senator Lee Rhiannon said the motion was a significant show of support in the project and its ambition to provide cleaner energy. “There is nothing binding on this motion on anybody,” the Senator said. “However it clearly carries weight when the national parliament of the country comes behind a project in one specific region.”
Senator Rhiannon said the project set an example for other councils around the nation to follow.
“To have the support of the Senate clearly adds weight to this important project for solar energy in western New South Wales,” she said. The councils involved in the initiative include Balranald, Bourke, Mid-Western and Narrabri.
“Bad taste” to mention climate change and Vanuatu devastateded by cyclone
Vanuatu Devastated, Just Don’t Mention The Climate Change New Matilda 18 Mar 15 While Cyclone Pam was bearing down on the tiny island nation, its president was at a conference in Japan, pleading for action on climate change. Richard Hil explains.
What are we to make of the gargantuan elephant in the ABC studio that failed to get a mention?
Despite breathing down the neck of ABC’s 7.30 anchor, Leigh Sales on Monday night, no reference was made to it during an interview with Joe Natuman, Prime Minister of cyclone ravaged Pacific Island nation, Vanuatu.
Perhaps Sales was being sensitive to the Prime Minister’s distressed state. He had, after all, experienced firsthand a category 5 cyclone and had seen his nation turned into rubble, with the death toll still rising.
The Prime Minister said that the last time his country was devastated by a cyclone was during the 1980s, but that was a modest category three system.
The nature and scale of the destruction wrought by Cyclone Pam, packing winds of over 250 kilometres per hour and waves several metres high, was in his words, unprecedented.
Despite the unusual ferocity of this event, Sales studiously avoided the unmentionable – anthropogenic climate change. Instead, the questions dealt with the emergency response, food and shelter requirements and the aid sought from and provided by Australia.
Sales was not alone in her reluctance to bring up the matter of human-induced climate change. Despite widespread and heartfelt declarations of support and sympathy there appeared to be an unspoken media censorship on this issue. Continue reading
Iran nuclear talks: success or failure will have big consequences
Deal or no deal? What happens next after Iran nuclear talks climax Guardian, Julian Borger and Chris Fenn, 19 Mar 15 This weekend marks the moment when negotiators attempt to finalise an accord that could launch a new era between Tehran and the west. It’s D-day for multinational talks on Iran’s atomic ambitions, as negotiators descend on Lausanne to try to finalise agreement on what nuclear technology Iran may pursue and what is beyond the pale.The difference between success and failure could not be more stark. So what happens next if there’s a deal – and what would transpire if the talks failed?……. http://www.theguardian.com/world/2015/mar/19/what-happens-next-after-iran-nuclear-talks-climax
Protest against Western Australian native title deal
Protest held against WA native title deal http://www.watoday.com.au/wa-news/protest-held-against-wa-native-title-deal-20150318-1m29df.html March 18, 2015 Aboriginal protesters have demonstrated outside the West Australian parliament against a $1.3 billion native title deal.
The agreement was finalised in November last year after five years of negotiations between the state and the South West Aboriginal Land and Sea Council.
It offers the Noongar people land, finance and benefits in exchange for the surrender of native title rights in the region.
The Noongar community is currently considering the deal, but some members have accused those who support it of being sell-outs. Speaker Avril Dean told the crowd that SWALSC has “dangled a bit of money” above the Noongar people’s heads.
“This land is so much about us and what’s in our hearts, and we come here today to protest the giving away of our land,” she said on Wednesday.
“The government wants to take away… everything that’s so special to us
1 This month
of the week – Disrupting War & Militarism in Oceania. Active solidarity. Radical practice.
Antinuclear 