A native title claim for a 20,000sq km area in a remote part of the Great Sandy Desert in Western Australia has been won by the Ngurra Kayanta people.
They first applied for native title over the land, which straddles the Shire of East Pilbara and the Shire of Halls Creek, in December 2012.
Federal Court of Australia Justice Michael Barker said none of the claimants now lived permanently in the area but continued to adhere to traditional laws and customs by visiting and maintaining a physical association with the country, and passing on traditional songs, stories and knowledge of sites to children and grandchildren.
“The claimants have maintained a presence in the determination area since the acquisition of British sovereignty,” Justice Barker said. “In addition, evidence of the continuing physical or spiritual involvement of the claimants in the determination area is accepted to conclude that this connection has not been severed.
“Ultimately, the state is satisfied that the material presented is sufficient to evidence the maintenance of connection according to traditional laws and customs.”
The forum was hosted by Jason Downs, of the Consultation and Response Agency set up after the Nuclear Fuel Cycle Royal Commission. It was aimed at gathering informal views from the Aboriginal community on the findings of the commission.
Gregory Waldon, of Wirrabara, said radioactive contamination on the leg of a fly could be a “problem dose” amid the scenario of handling nuclear waste. He said the issue of “risk” should be reserved for the casino. Only about $230 for each resident of South Australia would flow, he said, from development instead of an original estimate of $3300, once the Commonwealth became involved.
“It is not our waste. We should not be taking any risk,” he said.
Enice Marsh, 73, of Gladstone, is an Adnyamathanha indigenous woman who was once a coal-miner at Leigh Creek. Mrs Marsh said she was on Adnyamathanha land and was the only person from this group here at the gathering. “There are lots of Adnyamathanha people living here in Port Pirie and the area,” she said.
“I really got very little notice about this gathering. It is my duty to come here to represent my country.
“We have two uranium mines on our land – Beverley and Honeymoon. “It doesn’t matter whether it is low, intermediate or high-level waste, we are saying ‘no’ from day one.”
Neville Reid, who works in Port Pirie, said that if he were not logged into the “no nuclear” website, he would not have known about the event. He queried why there were only 10 country people on the Citizens’ Jury looking at the nuclear issue when the dump was “going to be in a country area”.
He warned that steel and concrete doors on repositories would “rot away”, leading to “another site then another site” being used during the long radioactive life of the waste.
Leader for engagement with the agency Mr Downs said a private research company had been engaged to report to the next Citizens’ Jury in October followed by a report to Premier Jay Weathefill who would “make decisions” in November based on feedback.
SA native title claims dismissed,Valerina Changarathil, The Advertiser August 10, 2016
THE Federal Court yesterday dismissed three overlapping native title claims near key exploration projects in the state’s mid-north, but the issue is far from resolved with some groups assessing their appeal options.
The claims by the Kokatha, Adnyamanthanha and Barngarla people were over the lands and waters of Lake Torrens — Australia’s second largest salt lake — which is in proximity to OZ Minerals’ proposed Carrapateena copper-gold project, Argonaut Resources’ and Aeris Resources’ jointly proposed Torrens iron-oxide, copper-gold project and BHP Billiton’s Olympic Dam operations.
A native title application is a claim for legal recognition that a group hold rights and interests in an area of land and/or water according to their traditional laws and customs.
Justice J Mansfield yesterday said he was not “persuaded that a determination of native title in favour of any of the three applicants should be made in respect of any part of the claim area”.
“While the archaeological evidence in this matter supports Aboriginal activity and use on and around the western shore of Lake Torrens of considerable antiquity, I have not found the archaeological evidence in this matter persuasive of a particular conclusion directed in favour of one or other of the three applicants,” he said.
He was not satisfied the Kokatha people occupied or possessed the claim area according to their traditional laws and customs at sovereignty and while the ethno-historical records provided some support for the Adnyamathanha (Kuyani) and Barngarla peoples’ connections to part of the claim area, it was difficult to date it back to the time of sovereignty or establish a continual connection to the present time.
South Korea eyes nuclear weapons over North Korea bomb fears, SMH, Peter Hartcher , 9 Aug 16 South Korea will arm itself with nuclear weapons if its rogue neighbour, North Korea, continues to develop the bomb.
This would be a revolutionary step, overturning half a century of opposition to nuclear capability. South Korea has committed to the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty. “It will become a domino effect and even South Korea will become concerned and develop nuclear weapons, and maybe Japan as well,” according to a senior official in the Seoul government.
“This will all lead to a big security threat,” the director-general for reunification policy in the Ministry of Unification, Lee Duk-haeng, told Fairfax Media……..
The policy of the South Korean government is opposed to the development of nuclear arms, but the matter is now under lively debate as North Korea persists in its illegal plans.
Like other US allies including Japan and Australia, South Korea enjoys the protection of the US nuclear arsenal, so-called extended nuclear deterrent.
But the US Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump has called this into question.
Mr Trump has said that he is prepared to walk away from the long-standing US alliances with Tokyo and Seoul unless they pay more towards the cost of the US bases on their soil.
He has also said that it might not be a bad thing for South Korea and Japan to develop the bomb, directly contradicting half a century of US non-proliferation policy………
Mr Lee called on all regional governments, including Australia’s, to take a “stern” approach to isolate North Korea over its nuclear development.
Australia has taken recent new sanctions against Pyongyang. And the acting Foreign Affairs Minister, George Brandis, this week announced that “Australia stands ready to list additional individuals and entities associated with the regime’s weapons and missile technology activities”.
In February, South Korea responded to the persistent North Korean nuclear development by opening discussions with the US to install an American missile interception system.
Climate Council urges bigger push towards renewables as community energy projects take off, ABC Radio AM By regional affairs reporter Lucy BarbourThe Climate Council says a growing trend of rural communities setting up their own wind and solar farms could generate thousands of jobs in regional Australia.
Key points:
Community projects will benefit local investors
Twenty community energy projects are already operating in Australia
Many communities are working towards 100 per cent renewable energy
The council’s latest report, on the impact of climate change on rural Australia, says rural communities will continue to be affected by worsening extreme weather events such as bushfires and drought.
But the report’s co-author, Will Steffen, said community-owned energy was one way to adapt.
“You have to have some leaders in your community that can actually get on top of the issue and say, ‘look, forget about federal politics or whatever side you’re on, this is good for our community’,” he said.
There are currently 20 community energy projects operating across the country, but Peter Fraser from Goulburn in southern New South Wales, said there was the potential for many more.
Mr Fraser is part of a group trying to build a $2.6 million community solar farm which, he said, would provide investors with a 5 per cent return on investment.
“It will be 1.2 MW. It will have about 4,000 panels of solar voltaic and it will generate enough electricity to power perhaps 300 to 400 homes in Goulburn,” he said.
Mr Fraser said investors would buy the solar equipment, pay for the connections to the grid and then sell the electricity to those who want it……….
The Climate Council’s report points out that many regional communities are working towards 100 per cent renewable energy goals, and estimates 28,000 jobs could be created if half of Australia’s energy came from renewables by 2030.
South Australia signalling the death of base-load generation, REneweconomy,By Giles Parkinson on 8 August 2016 Tuesday marks the three-month anniversary of the closure of the last coal-fired “base-load generator” in the South Australia electricity market, and despite the best efforts of many in the Coalition and the Murdoch media, there is nothing to suggest that other states will not follow suit, in time.
The fossil fuel industry predicted – and possibly hoped for – “armageddon” from the closure of the last coal plant. But all it got was a big jump in wholesale electricity prices, caused not by renewable energy, as federal and local energy ministers have made clear, but by the soaring cost of gas and constraints on the interconnecter.
If anything, the events of the last few weeks have reinforced the point that the electricity market is in the early stages of an unstoppable transition. Coal-fired plants will soon be a thing of the past, and the role of gas-fired generators may all diminish as battery storage and other renewables take more central roles.
The announcement by AGL on Friday of its plans – supported by the South Australian government and the Australian Renewable Energy Agency – for an array of 1,000 batteries in homes and businesses to create a “virtual power plant” to address demand peaks and grid stability, is a foretaste of what is to come.
Indeed, South Australia’s experiment – as premier Jay Weatherill has described it – in pursuing the world’ highest level of wind and solar generation is rapidly evolving into a whole bunch of world-leading projects.
These include AGL’s (described the world’s biggest virtual power plant), South Australia Power Networks’ commitment to a second “world leading” battery storage project that will likely reduce the need for grid investment, and various proposals for large-scale solar with storage (from SolarReserve,Lyon Infrastructure and others) and the creation of suburban and remote town micro-grids that will reduce the need for centralised power and distribution.
The withdrawal of base-load coal generation from the South Australian grid has sparked predictions of economic collapse and soaring prices, but these have simply replicated what used to happen when the state relied entirely on gas for the balance on power, even before the arrival of wind and solar. Continue reading →
What’s happening in Whyalla? These articles come From February. I hope that Council and the newspaper editor have done their homework on nuclear waste, since then
Acting Whyalla mayor Tom Antonio has said that he is “positive” about nuclear energy’s future in South Australia ahead of his visit to the Lucas Heights nuclear reactor in Sydney next week.
The trip on February 9 will be made by a delegation from the Upper Spencer Gulf Common Purpose Group pending the findings of the Nuclear Fuel Cycle Royal Commission in South Australia….
Huge income and many jobs hinge on a proposal for a nuclear-waste repository in Whyalla in the wake of devastating news about the future of the Arrium steelworks.
Meanwhile, in an exclusive report, The Whyalla News can reveal that Whyalla City Council is close to declaring an interest in hosting a low-level nuclear waste repository…..
The notion that climate science denial is no longer a part of Australian politics was swept away yesterday by One Nation Senator-Elect Malcolm Roberts.
In his inaugural press conference, Roberts claimed that “[t]here’s not one piece of empirical evidence anywhere, anywhere, showing that humans cause, through CO₂ production, climate change”.
He also promoted conspiracy theories that the CSIRO and Bureau of Meteorology are corrupt accomplices in climate conspiracy driven by the United Nations.
His claims conflict with many independent lines of evidence for human-caused global warming. Coincidentally, the University of Queensland is releasing a free online coursethis month examining the psychology and techniques of climate science denial. The very first video lecture addresses Roberts’ central claim, summarising the empirical evidence that humans are causing climate change.
UQx DENIAL101x 1.2.1.1 Consensus of Evidence
Scientists have observed various human fingerprints in recent climate change, documented in many peer-reviewed scientific papers.
Not only do these unique fingerprints confirm humanity’s role in recent climate change, they also rule out other potential natural contributors. If the Sun caused global warming, we would expect to see days warming faster than nights, and summers warming faster than winters.
Instead we observe the opposite: nights are warming faster than days, and winters are warming faster than summers, which is a greenhouse pattern predicted by John Tyndallas long ago as 1859.
Similarly, if global warming were caused by internal variability, we would expect to seeheat shuffling around the climate system with no net build-up. Instead, scientists observe our climate system accumulating heat at a rate of more than four atomic bombs per second.
The scientific consensus on climate change has also been endorsed by many scientific organisations all over the world, including the national science academies of 80 countries
Is it a conspiracy?
How does one dismiss a global scientific consensus built on a robust body of empirical evidence?
There are five characteristics of science denial. These common traits are seen when people reject climate science, the benefits of vaccination, or the research linking smoking to cancer.
The techniques of denial are: fake experts; logical fallacies; impossible expectations; cherrypicking; and conspiracy theories. This is summarised in the acronym FLICC.
UQx DENIAL101x 1.4.3.1 Five Characteristics of Science Denial
Climate science denial and conspiratorial thinking are often found together. A well-known example is that of Donald Trump, who has dismissed climate change by blaming it on a Chinese conspiracy.
Several studies have linked climate science denial and conspiratorial thinking. If a person disagrees with a global scientific consensus, they’ll typically believe that the scientists are all engaging in a conspiracy to deceive them.
Malcolm Roberts’ conspiracy theories have been well documented and were once again on offer in yesterday’s speech. He espouses a conspiracy that encompasses the CSIRO, Bureau of Meteorology, international banking families, the United Nations and Al Gore.
Unfortunately, I am not optimistic that the evidence for human-caused global warming will persuade Malcolm Roberts. The scientific evidence from psychology tells us that scientific evidence is largely ineffective on those who dismiss climate science with conspiracy theories.
My own research found that communicating the science of climate change to those who exhibit conspiratorial thinking can even be counterproductive, activating their distrust of scientists and strengthening their denial of the evidence.
Furthermore, conspiratorial thinking is self-sealing. When conspiracy theorists are presented evidence that there is no conspiracy, they often respond by broadening the conspiracy to include that evidence. In other words, they interpret evidence against a conspiracy as evidence for the conspiracy.
Our course on climate science denial will be much more useful to those who are open to scientific evidence and curious about the research into the causes and impacts of climate change and the psychology of climate science denial.
Join in the solar chorus, says council, as North Melbourne gets on the ball http://www.theage.com.au/victoria/join-in-the-solar-chorus-says-council-as-north-melbourne-gets-on-the-ball-20160807-gqmtz2.html, Clay Lucas Councillor Arron Wood can understand why more businesses don’t put solar panels on their roof.
It’s not because they don’t want to save money. And it’s not because they don’t want to do the right thing. “The biggest barrier to wider uptake [of solar power] is the complexity of going through the process,” says Cr Wood, the chairman of Melbourne City Council’s environment committee.
Which is why, he says, opening North Melbourne Football Club’s new solar panel bank – 800 panels set across the club’s roof and that of the neighbouring council-run recreation centre – is a major breakthrough.
“There’s this sense that footy speaks to all parts of life in Melbourne, so partnering with … North Melbourne footy club might drive others to think ‘Maybe this is something we can do’,” he says.
The panels on the club’s roof will produce enough electricity per year to run 70 average Melbourne homes. North Melbourne’s chief executive Carl Dilena said the club expected to cut its energy use by almost a quarter as a result of installing the solar panels.
But as many Melbourne home owners know, solar does not always come cheap, at least initially. The system cost almost half a million dollars to install, and was partly financed by the council, via the Clean Energy Finance Corporation. The club contributed about $67,000 of the funding, with the rest coming from the city council.
It is the first partnership the council has undertaken with an outside party – all other installations it has done have been on council-owned building rooftops.
The council is working with Sustainability Victoria to find businesses interested in reducing either emissions or energy bills that have previously considered going solar.
“The driver for a lot of businesses isn’t saving the environment, it’s to save dollars and that’s completely fine,” says Cr Wood.
Solar could be game changer for rural communities going off the grid, ABC News By Kathryn Diss , 7 Aug 16 For decades, farmers in Western Australia’s south have put up with the most unreliable electricity supply in the state, now they are about to find out if they can live off-grid, surviving on solar power instead.
Key points:
Farmers in Western Australia are investigating using stand-alone solar power systems
Solar battery technology is making this more easily achieved, and the State Government will pay for it
Power-supply to south west WA has been unreliable, a problem in other regional areas
Ros and Bernie Giles are part of a handful of farming families giving the technology a crack after living through years of frustration at their farm in West River, 500 kilometres south of Perth.
“Summer is our worst time, we seem to have more fluctuations then,” Ms Giles said……
Power problems span farmland across nation
WA’s south west grid spans more than 250,000 square kilometres, an area the size of the United Kingdom, yet it only services a 50th of the population, making it unreliable and expensive to maintain.
But the power problems faced by the people of West River are hardly unique.
Matthew Warren heads up the Australian Energy Council, which formed earlier this year to respond to the world’s rapidly changing energy market.
He said most edge-of-grid communities around the nation suffered the same problems……….
Renewable energy reaches tipping point
The move by WA’s Liberal-National Government to invest in the technology is seen as a step towards a greener future.
Carteret climate refugees seek homeA grassroots group in Bougainville is scrambling to relocate the Carteret Islanders before rising sea levels swallow their land forever. ABC News 7 Aug 16 By Lauren Beldi for Pacific BeatAt only 1.5 metres above sea level at their highest point, the Carteret Islands are some of the first to succumb to the rising ocean tides.
The grassroots Tulele Peisa group, which means “sailing the waves on our own” in the local Halia language, is hoping to relocate more than half of the population by 2020. They have secured land for new homes on the main island of the Autonomous Region of Bougainville, to the east of mainland Papua New Guinea.
Tulele Peisa formed in late 2006 after the Council of Elders on the islands decided to establish their own relocation program. The group’s chief executive, Ursula Rakova, says the encroaching tides on the islands have a major impact on people’s health. “We’re beginning to get more requests for people wanting to move because of the situation and the dire need for food,” she says.
The storm surges not only wash away houses, but also vegetable gardens, which are critical for the islanders’ survival.
With no cash economy on the Carterets, the only source of food is what people are able to grow for themselves……
Tulele Peisa has also provided thousands of mangrove seedlings to prevent the erosion of the coastline, and helped to build raised garden beds. But this will only stave off the inevitable for so long.
“Those are adaptation strategies, they aren’t really long-term solutions to containing the islands, because we know the islands are going, but we are looking at supporting our families,” Ms Rakova says.
She says the islanders want to maintain their independent way of living but that the international community should provide more support.
“The islanders on the Carterets are victims of what other people have caused and the international community needs to aid and support the work that we are doing,” she says.
Will the SA legislative prohibitions on nuclear waste dumps be included?
“SIMPLIFY DAY
The Premier has announced that the first ‘Simplify Day’ will be held on 15 November, 2016 to repeal out-dated and redundant legislation that impacts on the Government’s ability to deliver on its 10 Economic Priorities.
In the lead-up to Simplify Day a consultation process is being held to seek the views of businesses and the community on how red tape can be removed for businesses, including any legislation that may be outdated or unnecessary.
Should you wish to know more about this initiative or make a submission visit the YourSAY website at www.yoursay.sa.gov.au. The consultation period is open until 13 August, 2016.”
THE Federal Court yesterday dismissed three overlapping native title claims near key exploration projects in the state’s mid-north, but the issue is far from resolved with some groups assessing their appeal options.
Antinuclear 