Antinuclear

Australian news, and some related international items

Radio 3CR interviews Dave Sweeney, on matters nuclear

City Limits   Interview with Dave Sweeney, Radio 3CR  12 Aug 20   (incomplete notes from this interview.)

Dave Sweeney.  on Hiroshima/Nagasaki anniversary. There have been many nuclear  bombs dropped, for testing, causing health and environmental problems, and two dropped on city populations.  The 75th anniversary of atomic bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, is more than a commemoration.. This anniversary is one for looking ahead –  as  four more nations have ratified the Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons  – that will put increased pressure on nuclear states.
There have been  recent strong criticisms of the reasons put forward for the atomic bombing.
There’s also scrutiny on  the deterrence theory- the logic of MAD –  Mutually Assured Destruction .   This  is not a logical or safe method of national security –  there are so many dangers – risks of accidents, of inept political leadership. Nuclear weapons cause a state of uncertainty,  and  haemorrhage tax-payers money away from human needs. Nuclear weapons dramatically undermine security.  They are an existential threat. These weapons and humans cannot coexist.
Here’s the good thing about the Treaty – for the first time, a U.N. treaty gives the same choice to non nuclear states –  they are given as much say as USA or China, as the nuclear weapons states.  Nuclear weapons are not a necessary security tool, but a global danger.
When 50 nations have ratified this Treaty, it will become international law.
Australia is playing an enabler role, and faces the question-  do  we want to be a supporter of the rogue nuclear weapons states?  There is growing parliamentary support from the Labor Party ALP and Greens, and even at least one Liberal, for Australia to sign up to the Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons
We need to ramp up the  pressure on the Australian government .
We can have a highly developed military alliance with U.S. and still adhere to this Treaty
If USA did give up nuclear weapons, there are ways to do this –    one option is to downblend weapons material for nuclear reactors. Or the fuel can be securely stored.
Last week the USA approved  $80 billion yearly  towards extra nuclear weapons.

There are 15000 nuclear weapons globally – most of them under the control of authoritarians –   Putin and Trump  The sabre-rattling as  the USA election approaches is deeply concerning.

The delegitimising these weapons is not a discussion on geopolitical topics, but a realisation that we risk losing everything.  We need to de-escalate the dangerous nuclear race – the Treaty provides a pathway to de-escalation.
About the  Ohio nuclear scandal. Money allegedly flowed to bail out nuclear reactors, in state where wind power is proving better and cheaper.
The company, FirstEnergy is shrinking.  Their old nuclear reactors need retiring. Money was poured into political campaigns – especially to the House  speaker, Larry Householder, who then blocked moves for citizens who wanted to overturn the law favouring propping up nuclear power. The democratic process was skewed – in a wicked lack of concern for public opinion, for the public good   Householder and his offsider are charged with racketeering. It’s about subsidies to failing nuclear reactors –  the  push to suck from public purse -it’s  happening in Ohio Southern Carolina, California, New York.
If it were a community desire question, a technical question – nuclear power would be closed down.
But the political pressure is on.  – in the USA a new agency is set up –  pushing a mass of public money – explicitly linking nuclear energy to national security.
Politics remains in USA a lot like politics in Australia – trapped in  hostage to dirty energy industries.
On Australia’s radioactive waste –  now the focus is on the Kimba area, South Australia: a Senate Inquiry is now considering it. The new amendment would select Napandee and prevent any legal challenge . Minister Keith Pitt is keen to close the door on any legal review. An  Aboriginal group was excluded from the decision
“Native Title”gives no right to say no. That needs to be changed.  ACF and  environmentalists are pushing to prevent this Act amendment  being passed.
On  Rio Tinto’s blowing up of heritage Aboriginal sites. The laws that permit this should be changed, to protect Aboriginal heritage.
About strategic minerals – these are rare earths,  linked to much modern technology. China dominates much of this trade. Australia is being seen as a steady provider of rarecearth elements and lithium
Renewables are seen as clean energy. Interest, investment in lithium has surged beyond uranium.   None of this is without challenge, and that needs to be addressed.   It can’t go ahead with the profit driver being the sole driver for renewable energy.
On “green tape”. The Mantra of deregulation remains very strong.  For example, there’s  a review of environmental constraints by the Productivity Commission, and the Review of the Environment Protection and Biodiversity Conservation (EPBC) Act.  There’s a prevailing  mood to return to exploitation at any cost – as part of post-Covid recovery –  a free market private profit nightmare. An ugly scenario that people do not need.  Interview on international nukes, dirty vs clean energy and environmental laws

August 13, 2020 Posted by | AUSTRALIA - NATIONAL, politics | Leave a comment

Australia must place climate action at centre of coronavirus recovery, chief UN economist says

August 13, 2020 Posted by | AUSTRALIA - NATIONAL, climate change - global warming, politics | Leave a comment

Kimba area locals point out the unsolved problems of nuclear waste transport to Napandee

Kazzi Jai Fight To Stop A Nuclear Waste Dump In South Australia, 11 Aug 20

You know what “fails the pub test”? The concern by AECOM that the nuclear waste might actually go through Kimba! Too bad the other towns it WILL go through!

Noted disadvantages are that waste might pass close to Kimba … (after actually coming through a number of other locations)

Katrina Bohr The Napandee site is referred to as central South Australia. Got that wrong for starters. This assessment indicates that the proposal is for ILW to be either shipped or transported by rail from the east. The Maritime Workers Union have stated opposition to transporting nuclear waste.
Jenny Bourne If they rail to Port Augusta they’d have to unload by crane in the middle of town!! Right outside many homes. Certainly both road and rail would involve transporting through Port Augusta.
  • Annette Ellen Skipworth Thats a lot of road to upgrade to take the weight of the canisters ..
    Loads of Murray water..
    Who is paying to upgrade the roads..
    Government or local council and the maintenance of said roads.. 100 years i believe to dump will operate..
    Roni Skipworth Criterion 2 what hogwash to rail the Waste from Port Lincoln. Still has to go to Kimba Silos as we don’t have a RAILWAY SYSTEM ANYMORE being closed down by Viterra last year n all grain movement is trucked along our 3 local highways on dirt roads all over EP.
    Looks like no one has worked out the transport side of things yet and why should we the locals who like using these dirt roads to get from A to B put up with these Trucks fucking them up so we can’t use or then not allowed cos of the Dump

August 11, 2020 Posted by | Federal nuclear waste dump, South Australia | Leave a comment

Australia’s doctors call for a climate-focused COVID-19 recovery plan

August 11, 2020 Posted by | AUSTRALIA - NATIONAL, climate change - global warming, health | Leave a comment

Hiroshima, Nagasaki week – nuclear, climate news

75 years on, the inhumanity, racism, and sheer immorality of the nuclear bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki is becoming recognised.  Was the bombing of Nagasaki necessary, or more likely, done as a statement of threat to Russia? A Hiroshima survivor explains why 75 years of radiation research is so important.  On the Hiroshima anniversary, four  States ratify the U.N. Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons, bringing the number up to 43 ratifications, near to the required 50, to make it law.  This is a significant Treaty, making it clear that,  like chemical and biological weapons, nuclear weapons are not respectable, not justifiable.

The coronavirus, and climate change have their worst effects on underprivileged people, and regions at war harder hit by climate change.

AUSTRALIA

Links between Trump administration, Falun Gong, and Australia’s government.   Another Hiroshima is Coming…Unless We Stop It Now

NUCLEAR.

Australia’s ICAN and Conservation Council of Western Australia commemorate Hiroshima Day.

Australia’s nuclear lobby targets young people, using Facebook and Instagram.

Nuclear waste dump plan for Kimba, South Australia:

CLIMATE.  Labor’s carbon price proves effective climate policy is possible, Julia Gillard says.  CEFC backs ‘climate transition’ linked green bonds with $60m investment.

Why Kalgoorlie-Boulder wants a Malaysian rare earths plant and its radioactive waste.

RENEWABLE ENERGY– Rooftop solar’s stunning surge to new records, as Australia installs reach 2.5 million.    ACT Labor promises zero interest loans for solar and batteries, as election looms.  Hung out to dry: The dark side of big solar.

INTERNATIONAL

A doctor who is a hibakusha speaks out for the Treaty on Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons.  Nuclear bomb devastation killed over 90% of the doctors and nurses in Hiroshima.  Hiroshima survivor Koko Kondo met the man who dropped that atomic bomb.  Untrue: claims that the nuclear bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki ended World War 2.  The nuclear bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki did NOT save lives and shorten World War 2.     Racism in nuclear bomb testing, bombing of Japanese people, and nuclear waste dumping.

Arms control, the new arms race, and some reasons for optimism.      The illusion that nuclear weapons are under control.

The longlasting impact of Fukushima nuclear disaster, and nuclear activities world-wide.

Nuclear waste – how to warn people for 10,000 years.

It’s not the energy salvation for the world – nuclear fusion.

 

August 10, 2020 Posted by | AUSTRALIA - NATIONAL, Christina reviews | Leave a comment

Four more states ratify Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons, and Australians commemorate anniversary of atomic bombing

ICAN 10 August 20, As the world commemorated the 75th anniversaries of the bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki in recent days, four countries became states parties to the UN Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons. Ireland, Niue, Nigeria and St Kitts and Nevis completed their ratifications to honour the hibakusha and strengthen the growing international consensus against these abhorrent weapons.

The Irish Foreign Minister, Simon Coveney, said: “I am proud that Ireland today ratifies the Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons … It honours the memory of the victims of nuclear weapons and the key role played by survivors in providing living testimony and calling on us as successor generations to eliminate nuclear weapons.”

The Minister of Foreign Affairs of Saint Kitts and Nevis, Mark Brantley, said on Sunday “The bombing of Nagasaki was the apogee of human cruelty and inhumanity. As a small nation committed to global peace, Saint Kitts and Nevis can see no useful purpose for nuclear armaments in today’s world. May all nations work towards peace and mutual respect for all mankind.”

In Australia, the Hiroshima and Nagasaki anniversaries were honoured by activities and events on and off line, with the demand for Australia to join the nuclear weapon ban treaty loud, clear and persistent.

The Irish Foreign Minister, Simon Coveney, said: “I am proud that Ireland today ratifies the Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons … It honours the memory of the victims of nuclear weapons and the key role played by survivors in providing living testimony and calling on us as successor generations to eliminate nuclear weapons.”

The Minister of Foreign Affairs of Saint Kitts and Nevis, Mark Brantley, said on Sunday “The bombing of Nagasaki was the apogee of human cruelty and inhumanity. As a small nation committed to global peace, Saint Kitts and Nevis can see no useful purpose for nuclear armaments in today’s world. May all nations work towards peace and mutual respect for all mankind.”

In Australia, the Hiroshima and Nagasaki anniversaries were honoured by activities and events on and off line, with the demand for Australia to join the nuclear weapon ban treaty loud, clear and persistent.

special webinar on Tuesday night titled “Remembering the Atomic Bombs: History, Memory and Politics in Australia, Japan and the Pacific” featuring one of our wonderful board members Dimity Hawkins. Click here for info and registration.

August 10, 2020 Posted by | AUSTRALIA - NATIONAL, weapons and war | Leave a comment

Problematic selection of “community” in decision to site nuclear waste dump at Kimba. South Australia

Kazzi Jai  Fight To Stop A Nuclear Waste Dump In South Australia 9 Aug 20 

There’s something that has been bothering me for some time…..This is a copy of a table from page 9 of the Phase 1 Document released in April 2016 by the Minister at that time Josh Frydenberg. Even with the “service towns” included for some of them – and of those, some of them DEFINITELY OUTSIDE the so called 50 km radius of the sites….doesn’t it seem interesting that the LEAST POPULATED SITES remained those IN SOUTH AUSTRALIA!

It was ULTIMATELY decided by Matt Canavan, as Minister, that Kimba would only have its Council boundary as the community ballot area, and not have the 50km radius involved at all!

And remember during all of this that the South Australian Royal Commission into the Nuclear Fuel Cycle was running AT THE SAME TIME – March 2015 to May 2016!

No wonder people thought that the nuclear dumps were one in the same! And they had thought it had ALL been dealt with when the Citizen’s Jury came back with an over two-thirds majority (70%) saying NO MEANS NO!https://www.facebook.com/groups/941313402573199/

 

August 10, 2020 Posted by | AUSTRALIA - NATIONAL, Federal nuclear waste dump | Leave a comment

Why Kalgoorlie-Boulder wants a Malaysian rare earths plant and its radioactive waste

August 10, 2020 Posted by | AUSTRALIA - NATIONAL, rare earths | Leave a comment

David Noonan: a new Submission to Senate Environment Inquiry – on BHP Olympic Dam

David Noonan, Independent Environment Campaigner and Consultant, has  provided a “BHP Olympic Dam Case Study” submission to a federal parliament JSCNA Inquiry, which has now made public by the Committee: “A case study on BHP Olympic Dam mine in SA under the Prime Minister’s ‘fast track’ EPBC Act mine expansion Assessment and Approvals“.

FYI – This submission includes a Joint ENGO Briefing Paper “BHP LEGAL PRIVILEGES IN THE OLYMPIC DAM INDENTURE ACT 1982 OVERRIDE SA LAWS” (June 2019) and refers to the Joint ENO Recommendations & Submission to federal government on Olympic Dam mine in Dec 2019.

David Noonan will be variously distributing this submission over the weekend – welcome to discuss any related matter if and as may suit & as raised in the sub.

In addition to the 1982 Indenture over riding Aboriginal Heritage and the PM’s ‘fast track’ assessment & approvals to BHP, my submission raises required protection of GAB Springs and associated cultural heritage from BHP water mining and proposed doubling of GAB water extraction for Olympic Dam mine expansion to 50 million litres a day (annual average) for a 25 year period.

See the JSCNA Inquiry Home Page:

https://www.aph.gov.au/Parliamentary_Business/Committees/Joint/Northern_Australia/CavesatJuukanGorge

Submissions:

https://www.aph.gov.au/Parliamentary_Business/Committees/Joint/Northern_Australia/CavesatJuukanGorge/Submissions

Submission  No.73 Mr David Noonan B.Sc., M.Env.St. (PDF 330 KB)

https://www.aph.gov.au/DocumentStore.ashx?id=f6b111ae-8125-4cb0-8edb-6f64dbd613c2&subId=690802

August 8, 2020 Posted by | AUSTRALIA - NATIONAL, environment, politics | Leave a comment

Australia’s nuclear lobby targets young people, using Facebook and Instagram

Mining lobby pushes young people to embrace nuclear power ,  Financial Review, Aaron Patrick, 7 Aug 20,The mining industry has been wrestling for years with how to change one of the most entrenched rules in energy policy: a moratorium on nuclear power.Now, based on insights from a market researcher known for its political insights, the Minerals Council of Australia has begun a campaign to win over a group that could lead Australia to a nuclear industry: young people.

On Sunday, a week ago, 17 different ads started appearing on Facebook and Instagram promoting nuclear as safe, reliable and good for the environment.

Produced by the Mineral Council’s own staff, the ads are based on polling by JWS Research, which estimates support for nuclear power is 40 per cent, some 29 per cent of people are neutral or unsure, and women and people aged 18 to 34 are the least informed about nuclear power. Some aren’t even sure there is a connection between nuclear power and uranium, of which Australia is one of the world’s bigger producers.

After conducting focus groups and an online survey last year, JWS Research told the Minerals Council that support could rise to 55 per cent, or even higher, by providing more information to cou nter the reputational damage of the Three Mile Island, Chernobyl and Fukushima accidents.

“There is an obvious opportunity to educate Australians about nuclear power’s credentials,” JWS said in a report for the lobby group. “Low-level concerns about the cost of nuclear could be countered and its reliability and zero-emissions credentials should be promoted.”

The ad campaign isn’t a slick, big-budget production. Six ads, each about 1½ minutes long, contain statistics and information in graphical form set to music. “What are we afraid of,” says nuclear energy is the safest source of baseload electricity based on output, and no one died of radiation poisoning in the Fukushima meltdown in Japan in 2011.

Eleven other ads feature interviews about one minute long with experts and advocates discussing nuclear waste, medicine and reactor design at a nuclear conference in Sydney…….

In December, a parliamentary committee urged the government to legalise modern nuclear reactors, and in May Energy Minister Angus Taylor included nuclear among energy sources the government will study for investment.  https://www.afr.com/companies/energy/mining-lobby-pushes-young-people-to-embrace-nuclear-power-20200729-p55gp

August 8, 2020 Posted by | AUSTRALIA - NATIONAL, media, spinbuster | Leave a comment

Australia’s ICAN and Conservation Council of Western Australia commemorate Hiroshima Day

On August 5th, people from across Australia gathered, via Zoom, to commemorate the nuclear bombing of Hiroshima, and to hear speakers from ICAN Autralia (International Campaign to Abolish Nucleat Weapons).

Medlissa Clarke spoke of the human effects of this catastrophe, and of the efforts over time, towards disarmament.  The biggest leap forward in this has been, in 2017, the U.N. Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons. The Treaty now has over 200 nations signed up, with 40 ratifications – not far from the 50 required to make it international law.

Most Australians want a nuclear weapons free world.But Australia’s policy does endorse nuclear weapons. A future Labor government might change that.

Dimity Hawkins described the misery experienced by the Japanese, the agonising stories of the survivors.  Since Hiroshima, the nuclear bombs developed are greatly stronger, and have  been tested over many years, on the Marshall Islands, on Maralinga, South Australia, and on other Pacific Islands, in nuclear colonialism that has never properly been cleaned up.  Australia is part of that nuclear chain. But now,the survivors are speaking out. Red Cross and Red Crescent,  the world’s greatest non government emergency service is strongly behind the Treaty movement, and the indigenous people, particularly Australia’s Aboriginals .

Former Senator Scott Ludlam commemorated the Hibakusha, and the impact of the nuclear weapons industry on indigenous people world-wide. He drew attention to the ?proud statement of U.S. Strategic Command – that their nuclear weapons are to be used in a “safe, secure and lethal way”.

The Treaty was an Australian initiative, brought about by the work of, at first, a few, who by-passed official systems, and went out getting signatures, setting up ICAN, which became an international movement.-, – showing that people can do this, have an effect and an influence.  As cities will be the places to bear the catastrophe of nuclear annihilation,  many Mayors of many have City Councils have signed up to the Treaty.  The Treaty shows that no-one can now claim that nuclear weapons are acceptable, in the same way as biological and chemical warfare are unacceptable.

For information on the continuing  CCWA webinar series go to  http://www.ccwa.org.au/yellowcake_country_webinar_series

August 7, 2020 Posted by | AUSTRALIA - NATIONAL, weapons and war | Leave a comment

Another Hiroshima is Coming…Unless We Stop It Now 

Today, an unprecedented campaign of propaganda is shooing us all off like rabbits. We are not meant to question the daily torrent of anti-Chinese rhetoric, which is rapidly overtaking the torrent of anti-Russia rhetoric. Anything Chinese is bad, anathema, a threat: Wuhan …. Huawei. How confusing it is when “our” most reviled leader says so.

The target is China. Today, more than 400 American military bases almost encircle China with missiles, bombers, warships and nuclear weapons. From Australia north through the Pacific to South-East Asia, Japan and Korea and across Eurasia to Afghanistan and India, the bases form, as one US strategist told me, “the perfect noose”.

In the Sydney Morning Herald, tireless China-basher Peter Hartcher described those who spread Chinese influence in Australia as “rats, flies, mosquitoes and sparrows”. Hartcher, who favourably quotes the American demagogue Steve Bannon, likes to interpret the “dreams” of the current Chinese elite, to which he is apparently privy. These are inspired by yearnings for the “Mandate of Heaven” of 2,000 years ago. Ad nausea.

To combat this “mandate”, the Australian government of Scott Morrison has committed one of the most secure countries on earth, whose major trading partner is China, to hundreds of billions of dollars’ worth of American missiles that can be fired at China.

Another Hiroshima is Coming…Unless We Stop It Now    https://wordpress.com/read/blogs/5856084/posts/416010

by JOHN PILGER   6 Aug 20, When I first went to Hiroshima in 1967, the shadow on the steps was still there. It was an almost perfect impression of a human being at ease: legs splayed, back bent, one hand by her side as she sat waiting for a bank to open.

At a quarter past eight on the morning of August 6, 1945, she and her silhouette were burned into the granite.

I stared at the shadow for an hour or more, then I walked down to the river where the survivors still lived in shanties.

I met a man called Yukio, whose chest was etched with the pattern of the shirt he was wearing when the atomic bomb was dropped.

He described a huge flash over the city, “a bluish light, something like an electrical short”, after which wind blew like a tornado and black rain fell. “I was thrown on the ground and noticed only the stalks of my flowers were left. Everything was still and quiet, and when I got up, there were people naked, not saying anything. Some of them had no skin or hair. I was certain I was dead.”

Nine years later, I returned to look for him and he was dead from leukaemia.

“No radioactivity in Hiroshima ruin” said The New York Times front page on 13 September, 1945, a classic of planted disinformation. “General Farrell,” reported William H. Lawrence, “denied categorically that [the atomic bomb] produced a dangerous, lingering radioactivity.”

Only one reporter, Wilfred Burchett, an Australian, had braved the perilous journey to Hiroshima in the immediate aftermath of the atomic bombing, in defiance of the Allied occupation authorities, which controlled the “press pack”.

“I write this as a warning to the world,” reported Burchett in the London Daily Express  of September 5,1945. Sitting in the rubble with his Baby Hermes typewriter, he described hospital wards filled with people with no visible injuries who were dying from what he called “an atomic plague”.

For this, his press accreditation was withdrawn, he was pilloried and smeared. His witness to the truth was never forgiven.

The atomic bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki was an act of premeditated mass murder that unleashed a weapon of intrinsic criminality. It was justified by lies that form the bedrock of America’s war propaganda in the 21st century, casting a new enemy, and target – China.

During the 75 years since Hiroshima, the most enduring lie is that the atomic bomb was dropped to end the war in the Pacific and to save lives.

“Even without the atomic bombing attacks,” concluded the United States Strategic Bombing Survey of 1946, “air supremacy over Japan could have exerted sufficient pressure to bring about unconditional surrender and obviate the need for invasion. “Based on a detailed investigation of all the facts, and supported by the testimony of the surviving Japanese leaders involved, it is the Survey’s opinion that … Japan would have surrendered even if the atomic bombs had not been dropped, even if Russia had not entered the war [against Japan] and even if no invasion had been planned or contemplated.”

The National Archives in Washington contains documented Japanese peace overtures as early as 1943. None was pursued. A cable sent on May 5, 1945 by the German ambassador in Tokyo and intercepted by the US made clear the Japanese were desperate to sue for peace, including “capitulation even if the terms were hard”. Nothing was done.

The US Secretary of War, Henry Stimson, told President Truman he was “fearful” that the US Air Force would have Japan so “bombed out” that the new weapon would not be able “to show its strength”. Stimson later admitted that “no effort was made, and none was seriously considered, to achieve surrender merely in order not to have to use the [atomic] bomb”.

Stimson’s foreign policy colleagues — looking ahead to the post-war era they were then shaping “in our image”, as Cold War planner George Kennan famously put it — made clear they were eager “to browbeat the Russians with the [atomic] bomb held rather ostentatiously on our hip”. General Leslie Groves, director of the Manhattan Project that made the atomic bomb, testified: “There was never any illusion on my part that Russia was our enemy, and that the project was conducted on that basis.”

The day after Hiroshima was obliterated, President Harry Truman voiced his satisfaction with the “overwhelming success” of “the experiment”.

The “experiment” continued long after the war was over. Between 1946 and 1958, the United States exploded 67 nuclear bombs in the Marshall Islands in the Pacific: the equivalent of more than one Hiroshima every day for 12 years. Continue reading →

August 6, 2020 Posted by | AUSTRALIA - NATIONAL, politics international, weapons and war | Leave a comment

Call for public release of ANSTO Nuclear Waste Reports and ARPANSA’s Response

To: The Secretary, Senate Standing Economics Legislation Committee of Inquiry  National Radioactive Waste Management Amendment Bill 2020   economics.sen@aph.gov.au

RE: David Noonan Supplementary Public Submission No.6.1

Call for public release of ANSTO Nuclear Waste Reports & ARPANSA’s Response; the Department fails test of transparency; and Concern over EPBC Act amendments to affect NRWMF assessment

Dear Secretary

Please consider matters raised in this Supplementary Submission, following my Public Submission No.6. in February 2020.

  1. Important ANSTO ILW nuclear waste reports due to ARPANSA by 30 June must be made public ASAP – along with the ARPANSA response, to provide for proper public scrutiny in this Inquiry.
  2. The Department has failed the test of transparency in its treatment of public submissions.

Note: Attachment of the Department’s redacted copy of my submission, to show the extent of redactions made, in blacking out over 50 public source quotations, without a proper basis to do so.

  1. Concern over proposed rushed changes to the EPBC Act to affect assessment & approvals of the NRWMF.

First: There are public interest concerns the scope of EPBC Act “whole of environment” nuclear action assessments will be replaced by new National Standards based on ARPANSA Codes, with limited “graded” assessments and use of pro-nuclear industry standards of IAEA origin.

Second: It should be no surprise that a Bill to amend the EPBC Act transfers EPBC Act assessment and approval of the NRWMF over to ARPANS Act Licensing.

Recommendation of this Supplementary Submission on assessment and approval of the NRWMF:

This Inquiry should investigate and report on the potential impact of pending changes to the EPBC Act on assessment & approval of the NRWMF, as flagged for introduction in a Bill in late August.

The Committee should call for EPBC Act “whole of environment” assessment of the NRWMF to be retained. The Committee should oppose potential transfer of EPBC Act environmental assessment of the NRWMF over to ARAPNS Act Licensing, Codes and Guides and limited “graded” assessment.

In Conclusion: The Committee must at a minimum reject the Bill’s proposal to legislate for specified siting of the NRWMF, and therefore of unnecessary less safe and more insecure imposition of above ground indefinite storage of ILW, at Napandee near Kimba on Eyre Peninsula in South Australia.

Rights to Judicial Review and Procedural Fairness must be retained for public interest reasons.

Please feel free to contact regarding any aspect of this public submission, by Mobile, Text or E-Mail.

Yours sincerely

Mr David J Noonan B.Sc., M.Env.St.

Independent Environment Campaigner and Consultant (ABN Sole Trader)

davidnoonanxs1@yahoo.com.au

 

August 6, 2020 Posted by | AUSTRALIA - NATIONAL, Federal nuclear waste dump | Leave a comment

Napandee nuclear waste dump – potential impact on the neighbouring Pinkawillinie Conservation Park and Gawler Ranges National Park


Kazzi Jai  No Nuclear Waste Dump Anywhere in South Australia 5 Aug 20  Not sure if this is relevant or not…but someone (not me, but wish I did) actually accessed FOI regarding the IMPACT or POSSIBLE IMPACT on the neighbouring Pinkawillinie Conservation Park and Gawler Ranges National Park with respect to the proposed Napandee site….and here is the DIIS reply…

Remember that these two parks, although neighbouring in the absolute sense of the definition, were not allowed to put in submissions against the nuclear dump being situated as a neighbour as they are State Owned, and it was decided by DIIS that they could not make a submission.

https://www.environment.sa.gov.au/…/200220-disclosure…
Actually…thinking along those lines…as they are State Owned…shouldn’t the PEOPLE OF SOUTH AUSTRALIA then have a justified say in this dump as VALID DIRECT NEIGHBOURS using the DIIS paradigm? Because these Conservation and National Parks BELONG to the PEOPLE of South Australia!

Oh…that’s right….”Ever Shifting Goalposts”!
https://www.environment.sa.gov.au/…/200220-disclosure…  more  https://www.facebook.com/groups/1314655315214929/

August 6, 2020 Posted by | AUSTRALIA - NATIONAL, Federal nuclear waste dump | Leave a comment

Labor’s carbon price proves effective climate policy is possible, Julia Gillard says

Labor’s carbon price proves effective climate policy is possible, Julia Gillard says,   https://www.sbs.com.au/news/labor-s-carbon-price-proves-effective-climate-policy-is-possible-julia-gillard-says  The former prime minister says Australia would be in a different place on climate if the carbon tax had continued.

Former prime minister Julia Gillard doesn’t want climate policy put in the too-hard basket, saying Australia can have a scheme that reduces emissions.

It has been almost 10 years since Ms Gillard’s federal election win, with her minority Labor government introducing a short-lived carbon price scheme that saw emissions drop.

Emissions rose again after the Abbott government repealed the policy.

Ms Gillard says Australia would be in a different place on climate if the scheme had continued.

“One of the frustrations of sliding door moments is, other than in the famous movie, you don’t actually get to go back in time and run the parallel universe,” she told a webinar hosted by the Australia Institute think-tank on Wednesday.

Australia is one of the last developed countries actively considering new coal-fired power stations

“What I hope is remembered from that period and taken forward into the future … is that it’s possible to put in place a scheme in Australia that does reduce our carbon emissions.

“The perceived history is ‘oh we’ve been fighting forever, nothing gets done, it’s all too hard’. I would like us to unpack to the next level: it can get done, it was done.

“We can be informed by past experience and we can get on with the job. So I do want to push back against that sort of received helplessness that it’s all too hard.”

To coincide with the online discussion the Australia Institute released a report mapping where the nation’s emissions would be if the carbon price had remained.   “What I hope is remembered from that period and taken forward into the future … is that it’s possible to put in place a scheme in Australia that does reduce our carbon emissions.  The think-tank says given the policy reduced emissions by two per cent, levels would be 25 million tonnes lower this year than they are.

August 6, 2020 Posted by | AUSTRALIA - NATIONAL, climate change - global warming, politics | Leave a comment

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