Antinuclear

Australian news, and some related international items

AUDIO: Government’s carbon plan will fail – new independent report

Hear-This-wayReport finds a 300 million tonne shortfall in the government’s carbon plan http://www.abc.net.au/radionational/programs/breakfast/300-million-tonne-shortfall-in-government-carbon-plan-report/5517734 Thursday 12 June 2014

The government has committed to cutting carbon pollution by a minimum of 5 per cent by 2020.

But the first independent report since the budget calculates that the government will fall more than 70 per cent short of it’s promise – potentially buying as little as three million tonnes of carbon abatement every year, if the price it’s willing to pay is $10 a tonne or less.

June 13, 2014 Posted by | Audiovisual, AUSTRALIA - NATIONAL | Leave a comment

Queensland govt to intervene on the side of wind power opponents?

astroturf-windWind farm opponents welcome intervention ABC Rural    By Charlie McKillop, 12 June 14, Queensland Deputy Premier Jeff Seeney will determine the fate of a controversial wind farm proposed on the far north’s Atherton Tableland.

Mr Seeney has informed the Mareeba Council he’s decided to ‘call in’ the development application to establish 75 wind turbines at Mt Emerald, about 100 kilometres west of Cairns.

The move has been welcomed by both the mayor of Mareeba, Tom Gilmore, and opponents of the wind farm, who agree the size and complexity of the assessment is beyond the technical and financial resources of the council.

But Steve Lavis, from the Tablelands Wind Turbine Action Group, admits he has reservations about the decision being taken out of the local community…….http://www.abc.net.au/news/2014-06-12/wind-farm-opponents-hopeful-about-intervention/5519106

June 13, 2014 Posted by | Queensland, wind | Leave a comment

Barack Obama and Tony Abbott at odds over climate change

Obama-and-windClimate change gulf looms between Barack Obama and Tony Abbott, Guardian, 11 June 14,   US president’s call for action in US TV interview stands in stark contrast to the attitude of the Australian prime minister Climate change may be the most significant long-term challenge facing the planet, Barack Obama has said in a newly aired TV interview, emphasising the growing differences with Tony Abbott who insists it is certainly not the most important issue facing the world.

Abbott-fiddling-global-warmAs Obama and Abbott prepare for their first formal meeting in Washington on Thursday, the differences between their positions on global warming are clearer than ever, and according to diplomatic sources the president will not seek to downplay them.

Obama’s remarks in an interview broadcast on US television on Tuesday night come as his administration increases its diplomatic push to achieve a successful new international agreement on greenhouse reduction efforts next year and unveils the detail of tough new rules to force reductions in emissions from US power stations……….

Abbott has downplayed the link between climate change and extreme weather events. For example during severe bushfires last year he said: “Climate change is real, as I’ve often said, and we should take strong action against it … but these fires are certainly not a function of climate change – they’re just a function of life in Australia.” When the executive secretary of the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change, Christiana Figueres, said the fires showed the world is “already paying the price of carbon”, Abbott said “the official in question is talking through her hat”……….

The Coalition’s Direct Action policy is designed to meet only the minimum target of a 5% reduction by 2020 – despite advice from the independent Climate Change Authority that preconditions for a higher target, which previously had bipartisan agreement, have been met. The Coalition has said it will participate in the Paris meeting but has not given any indication of what Australia’s post-2020 target will be, or how it will be determined.

Australia’s policy is entirely voluntary. Companies can choose to bid into a series of “reverse auctions” for government funding. The new US policy requires power generation to reduce emissions by 30%, with states determining the mechanism by which they achieve this. States such as California which have emissions trading schemes will use them to achieve the goal……..http://www.theguardian.com/environment/2014/jun/11/climate-change-gulf-looms-between-barack-obama-and-tony-abbott

June 11, 2014 Posted by | AUSTRALIA - NATIONAL, climate change - global warming, politics international | Leave a comment

Muckaty Aboriginal landowners don’t want money: they want clean non-radioactive land

handsoffMuckaty Station: Traditional owners reject $12 million compensation offer for nuclear waste dump  June 11, 2014, Traditional owners who have opposed a nuclear waste dump on Muckaty Station in the Northern Territory say they had no interest in a $12 million compensation package offered by the Commonwealth……..Traditional Owner Ronald Morrison said current generations were guardians who inherited the land from long family lines.

justice“From our ancestors and our elders, from our elders down to us and from us we’d like to pass it on to our young ones,” Mr Morrison said.
Another traditional owner, Jeannie Sambo, said the money would run out, but the land would be there forever.

“Our land is more important than the money that we live on because as aboriginal people we have more food than buying things from the shop.”
Bunny Nabarula, a Milwayi woman, earlier described the compensation package as “dirty money”, telling the special sitting on country that she was passionate about keeping her land pristine. https://au.news.yahoo.com/a/24209801/muckaty-station-traditional-owners-reject-12-million-compensation-offer-for-nuclear-waste-dump/?source=wan

June 11, 2014 Posted by | aboriginal issues, AUSTRALIA - NATIONAL, legal, Northern Territory | Leave a comment

Northern Land Council threatened Aboriginal opponent of nuclear waste dump?

justiceNLC threats over Muckaty waste dump: court, 9 News 10 June 14
If Aboriginal clans at Muckaty wouldn’t accept a nuclear waste dump on their land, the Northern Land Council threatened to decide for them, the Federal Court has heard.
The court is sitting in Tennant Creek this week to hear evidence from four clans who are against the radioactive waste storage facility being placed on their land, 120km north of Tennant Creek in the Northern Territory.

The clans say their will was overruled by a fifth clan who worked with the NLC to approve it……

Yapa Yapa traditional owner Dianne Stokes told the court on Tuesday that she had had a loud disagreement with Kwementyaye Lauder, who drove the decision to accept the site nomination and has since passed away.

She said the NLC’s principal legal officer Ron Levy threatened to take the decision out of her hands.

“(He) said, ‘if youse don’t do this, we’ll do it for you’,” Ms Stokes said, alleging that Mr Levy said he would sue her for going to the media about the issue…….

Outside court, researcher Paddy Gibson, of the Jumbunna House of Learning at the University of Technology Sydney, called on the federal government to drop the nomination after eight years of struggle.

“The Commonwealth government needs to face up to what it’s done to this community, pushing forward this incredibly divisive proposal, and it needs to back off,” he said.  http://news.ninemsn.com

June 11, 2014 Posted by | aboriginal issues, Northern Territory | Leave a comment

Australian government offering Aboriginals basic services in exchange for hosting radioactive trash?

WASTES-1Nuclear waste dump would ‘dispossess’ Indigenous landowners in NT  Australian Associated Press theguardian.com, Wednesday 11 June 2014  Researcher says commonwealth’s offer of financial help should not be conditional on outcome of court case over proposed site The commonwealth government is dispossessing Indigenous people by seeking to place a radioactive waste storage facility on their land, a researcher says.

justiceThe federal court is sitting in Tennant Creek this week to hear from traditional landowners, who say they were not consulted when the Northern Land Council (NLC) and the commonwealth decided to put forward the site for consideration in 2007.

Four clans from the Muckaty area, 120km north of Tennant Creek in the Northern Territory, say they were cut out of the process in favour of the Lauder family of the Ngapa clan.

The family were paid $200,000 and promised a further financial package of $12 million to pay for a road, educational scholarships and other initiatives benefiting all indigenous groups on Muckaty Station.

Paddy Gibson, a researcher with the Jumbunna House of Learning at the University of Technology Sydney, said the money should be released to the traditional owners regardless of the outcome of the case.

“It’s not money going into people’s back pockets as cash, it’s money they’re saying is going to be spent on basic services,” he told reporters in Tennant Creek on Tuesday.

handsoff“It’s an absolute disgrace that Aboriginal people in this region, who are some of the most impoverished people in the country, are being told they’re not going to be able to access basic services if not for establishing a nuclear waste dump.”……

“Our ancestors passed it to our elders and our elders passed it to us and we want to pass it to our young ones,” said Ronald Morrison of the Milwayi. “The dump would destroy our land and bush tucker for our living and for our next generation. We want to keep it clean for all of us.”…….http://www.theguardian.com/world/2014/jun/11/nuclear-waste-dump-would-dispossess-indigenous-landowners

June 11, 2014 Posted by | aboriginal issues, AUSTRALIA - NATIONAL, legal, Northern Territory | Leave a comment

Aboriginal clans do not want their land poisoned by nuclear waste

justiceNuclear waste will poison land: elder https://au.news.yahoo.com/a/24214130/nuclear-waste-will-poison-land-elder/
NEDA VANOVAC June 11, 2014, The spirit people of Muckaty don’t want “poison” stored on their land in the form of a nuclear waste dump, the Federal Court has heard. The court is sitting in Tennant Creek this week to hear evidence from four clans who are against the radioactive waste storage facility being placed on their land, 120km north of the Northern Territory town.

The clans say their will was overruled by a fifth clan which worked with the Northern Land Council (NLC) and the Commonwealth government to approve it.

handsoffMilwayi woman Pamela Brown originally agreed to the radioactive waste storage proposal, thinking it would be a rubbish dump that would hold predominantly medical waste. “They said they would put gloves and gowns there from the hospital, that it’s not poisonous,” she told the court on Wednesday.

But her younger sister who was living in Adelaide reminded her of the long-term health effects experienced by Aboriginal people living at Maralinga, near Woomera in South Australia, in the aftermath of the British nuclear weapons tests in the 1950s and 60s. Ms Brown said she was also concerned by the explosion at Chernobyl.

“I don’t want any poison on our country,” she said. “I want my country for the future generations so I can teach them and they can get out there. “If the dump goes ahead, there will be destruction (of the land),” she said. “The spirit is alive. The spirit people don’t want any rubbish put on their country.”

Muckaty Station covers 221,000ha and seven Aboriginal groups claim land within it.

One of the key issues of the case is determining who owns the roughly two square kilometres which would house the dump: the Lauder family of the Ngapa clan have been acknowledged as traditional owners by the NLC, but the Milwayi people say the land is theirs.

Ms Brown told the court that maps used for the successful land rights claim of 1993 showed the Milwayi were traditional owners of the site, but said the maps had since been redrawn.

“All these names got juggled up by the new map the NLC did … they moved the sites around,” she said. “They changed the whole map.”
But the NLC says there was no claim that the land belonged to the Milwayi when the site was first proposed in 2006.

The hearings continue.

June 11, 2014 Posted by | aboriginal issues, legal, Northern Territory | Leave a comment

Queensland Competition Authority finds Renewable Energy Target not causing electricity price rises

CEC: Renewable Energy Target not power price villain: Queensland Competition Authority   http://ecogeneration.com.au/news/cec_renewable_energy_target_not_power_price_villain_queensland_competition_/087591/ Tue, 10 June 2014

The Queensland Competition Authority (QCA) confirmed on Friday what the clean energy industry has been saying for years – that the Renewable Energy Target is not a major factor in rising power prices.

Clean Energy Council media release 2 June 2014

Clean Energy Council Policy Director Russell Marsh said the latest price determination from the QCA showed that in 2014-2015 the cost of the Renewable Energy Target to Queensland households will fall, while all other parts of the average electricity bill will rise.

“In particular, power bills are set to jump due to the increasing cost of gas and the costs of the poles and wires in the electricity network,” Mr Marsh said.

“The Renewable Energy Target makes up less than 3 per cent of the average power bill, supports thousands of jobs and is an insurance policy against the future cost of gas power, which some analysts predict may be the defining energy challenge of this decade.” The Renewable Energy Target is designed to ensure at least 20 per cent of Australia’s electricity comes from renewable energy such as wind, hydro, solar and bioenergy like sugar cane waste by 2020 – at the lowest cost. The policy is currently under review, leading to uncertainty which has frozen investment in the sector until it has been completed.

Mr Marsh said the cost to consumers was a major part of the current review process, and four studies this year had shown that power prices would actually increase slightly if the Renewable Energy Target was removed.

“Removing the Renewable Energy Target would mean that we need to source more power from increasingly expensive gas, driving up costs for energy users such as mums and dads and manufacturers. We have already seen the start of this in Queensland with the latest price determination from the QCA.

“The Australian Industry Group, which represents some 60,000 businesses including many manufacturers, has also recognised that there would be no benefit to consumers if the Renewable Energy Target was reduced.”

June 11, 2014 Posted by | energy, Queensland | Leave a comment

Federal Court hears from determined Aboriginal elders at Muckaty, Northern Territory

justicehandsoffIndigenous elder speaks out at NT nuclear waste dump trial, Guardian, 10 June 14 Bunny Nabarula threatens to ‘block the road and let the truck run us over’ if a waste dump is approved on her traditional land A central Australian Indigenous elder has threatened to throw herself in front of a road train if a proposed radioactive waste management facility is approved to be built on her ancestral lands.

The federal court held a special sitting at the Muckaty community on Monday, 120km north of Tennant Creek in the Northern Territory, to hear the evidence of Milwayi traditional owner Bunny Nabarula, about 84.

Members of the Lauder family of the Ngapa clan laid false claim to the land when they along with the Northern Land Council (NLC) nominated the site for a national nuclear waste storage facility, say members of four other clans who are against it.

In 2007 the NLC nominated the site to the commonwealth and agreed on a package of $9m to be held in a charitable trust, $2m for a road on Indigenous land and $1m for scholarships over five years. A $200,000 payment was made to a narrow group of Indigenous families, which Nabarula dismissed as dirty money.

She told the court her Milwayi people had principal claim to the land, and that the Ngapa dreaming just passed through it……..http://www.theguardian.com/world/2014/jun/09/indigenous-elder-speaks-out-nuclear-waste-dump-trial

June 10, 2014 Posted by | aboriginal issues, legal, Northern Territory | Leave a comment

Tony Abbott in Canada – setting up an Anti Action on Climate Change Alliance!

Abbott smilesTony Abbott seeks alliance to thwart President Obama on climate change policy , The Age  June 10, 2014 Tony Abbott is seeking a conservative alliance among “like-minded” countries, aiming to dismantle global moves to introduce carbon pricing, and undermine a push by US President Barack Obama to push the case for action through forums such as the G20.

Visiting Ottawa for a full day of talks with the conservative Canadian Prime Minister and close friend Stephen Harper, Mr Abbott flagged intentions to build a new centre-right alliance led by Canada, Britain and Australia along with India and New Zealand………

The combined front would attempt to counter recent moves by the Obama administration to lift the pace of climate change abatement via policies such as a carbon tax or state-based emissions trading……..

The uncompromising attitude of both leaders suggests neither is inclined to yield to pressure from the US to revive the issue of climate change ahead of next years’ climate summit, nor back any international coordination such as additional regulations or a trading scheme…….

US officials have also been pushing Australia – so far unsuccessfully – to include climate change on the agenda for November’s G20 meeting in Brisbane.
……..Opposition Leader Bill Shorten took aim at the Prime Minister’s ”flat-Earth views”, accusing him of being out of touch with Australians and world leaders such as Mr Obama. He told Fairfax Media that climate change was ”not just an environmental issue, it is a security issue and it is absolutely an economic issue”.

But Mr Shorten said that Mr Obama, along with other world leaders, had clearly recognised that clean air, low pollution and new technologies would be good for the global economy and job creation. He said Mr Abbott ”shouldn’t shirk the issue when he meets President Obama later this week, and he shouldn’t shirk the issue at the G20 later this year”.

While mooted as a potential member of Mr Abbott’s new coalition, British Prime Minister David Cameron has been vocal about the need to tackle climate change, describing it in February as ”one of the most serious threats that the world faces”. Britain, through membership of the European Union, and New Zealand both have emissions trading schemes in place.: http://www.smh.com.au/federal-politics/political-news/tony-abbott-seeks-alliance-to-thwart-president-obama-on-climate-change-policy-20140609-39t93.html#ixzz34Ih3hcqc

June 10, 2014 Posted by | AUSTRALIA - NATIONAL, politics international | Leave a comment

Tony Abbott gets it wrong on international carbon policies

Abbott-in-hot-panTony Abbott missing signs of world’s switch to carbon trading, experts say, Tom Arup, Environment editor, The Age June 10, 2014  The world’s two largest economies – China and the US – are increasingly adopting carbon trading to cut greenhouse gas emissions, contrary to suggestions by Prime Minister Tony Abbott that other countries are not introducing schemes.

Speaking in Canada, Mr Abbott said carbon taxes and emissions trading were the wrong way to address climate change.

diagram-carbon-schemes

He said the debate was not about the existence of climate change, but the best approach to respond to it and he backed ”direct action measures” such as improving energy efficiency and planting more trees.

Asked if direct action was preferable to an international emissions trading scheme, Mr Abbott said: ”There is no sign – no sign – that trading schemes are increasingly being adopted. If anything trading schemes are being discarded, not adopted.”

Kobad Bhavnagri, Australian head at analysts Bloomberg New Energy Finance, said it was wrong to claim trading schemes were being discarded. He said China started six regional emissions trading schemes in the past year – building towards a national scheme expected to be in place this decade.

n the US, he said the recently announced emissions limits on coal-fired power plants – expressed as targets imposed on the states by the Environment Protection Agency – would likely lead to more states adopting emissions trading to deliver required cuts.

”Apart from Australia I don’t think any other country has plans to unwind an emissions trading scheme. That assertion they are being discarded is incorrect,” Mr Bhavnagri said.

”In the world’s two biggest economies – and the world’s two biggest emitters – we are seeing quite a deliberate move towards carbon pricing and emissions trading, not away.”………. http://www.smh.com.au/federal-politics/political-news/tony-abbott-missing-signs-of-worlds-switch-to-carbon-trading-experts-say-20140609-39t8q.html#ixzz34IeDi0Z9

 

June 10, 2014 Posted by | AUSTRALIA - NATIONAL, politics international | Leave a comment

Federal Court holds nuclear waste dump dispute hearing at Muckaty – the government’s planned dump site

justicehandsoffMuckaty Station: Federal Court hears Indigenous clan’s cultural stories at proposed nuclear waste dump site, ABC News 10 June 14 By Robert Herrick A traditional land owner has yelled and sworn during a Federal Court hearing examining plans to build a nuclear waste dump in Central Australia. Bunny Nabarula, a Milwayi woman, stood up and cursed before the court as she vented frustration over the kind of legacy a facility for storage of low and intermediate-grade nuclear waste at Muckaty Station, near Tennant Creek, would be for future generations.

She told a special sitting of the court, on country, that she was passionate about keeping her land pristine and a $12 million compensation package was “dirty money”.

The court is holding a rare hearing on country as it considers a challenge to plans to build a nuclear waste storage site on the remote station.

The Northern Land Council nominated the site on behalf of members of the Ngapa group, but four other clans have laid claim to the land and say it is adjacent to a sacred site……..

Traditional owner Kylie Sambo says a hearing on the station gives the Federal Court a real understanding of the land’s cultural significance.”I reckon its very important because they need to see how how we feel about the country and how the country is to us and actually be out here on country and getting the feeling and knowing and understanding that we have,” she said.

Another traditional owner Dick Foster pointed out the culturally significant parts of the site, important for passage to a sacred area where men’s business takes place. Paddy Gibson from the Jumbunna House of Learning says many traditional owners have been given the impression the waste is not very harmful.

“Some of the most dangerous waste in the world is a spent nuclear fuel rod and that’s what from day one has been the issue that’s in contention here, that they want to use this as a dumping ground for some of Australia’s most toxic industrial waste,” he said……http://www.abc.net.au/news/2014-06-09/muckaty-station-federal-court-hearing/5510346

June 10, 2014 Posted by | aboriginal issues, legal, Northern Territory | Leave a comment

CSIRO’s breakthrough Solar Steam technology

sunSupercritical Solar Steam Could Rival Fossil Fuels http://www.energymatters.com.au/index.php?main_page=news_article&article_id=4338 10 June 14 A breakthrough by CSIRO scientists could see solar energy replace fossil fuels in the most advanced power stations in the world.  A research program at the CSIRO Energy Centre in Newcastle focused on using solar power to create supercritical steam – super-hot, pressurised steam – to drive electric turbines in large-scale power plant.

The CSIRO team broke a world record for heating and pressurising steam using only solar thermal power in May. The work has been hailed as a coup for the renewable energy industry. Previously, only coal or gas-fired plants could achieve temperatures high enough generate supercritical steam.

Conventional solar thermal power plants currently generate subcritical steam – but CSIRO believes if these plants could be converted to supercritical steam power, the overall cost of solar electricity would be significantly lowered.  “It’s like breaking the sound barrier; this step change proves solar has the potential to compete with the peak performance capabilities of fossil fuel sources,” said CSIRO Energy Director, Dr Alex Wonhas.

“Instead of relying on burning fossil fuels to produce supercritical steam, this breakthrough demonstrates that the power plants of the future could instead be using the free, zero emission energy of the sun to achieve the same result.”
Researchers used CSIRO’s test solar thermal plant in Newcastle to break the world record for solar steam, reaching temperatures of 570 degrees Celsius, at a pressure of 23.5 megapascals (a measure of force per unit area). It is this combination of enormous pressure and heat that makes the breakthrough such an important milestone for solar technology.

The CSIRO says the breakthrough was made possible through a $5.68 million research program supported by the Australian Renewable Energy Agency (ARENA) and collaboration with researchers from solar thermal giant, Abengoa Solar.
ARENA CEO Ivor Frischknecht said that while work remained before supercritical solar steam technology would rival fossil fuels, “This breakthrough brings solar thermal energy a step closer to cost competitiveness with fossil fuel generated power.”
Source

June 10, 2014 Posted by | New South Wales, solar | Leave a comment

Muckaty Nuclear Waste Plan – Court report Day 4- June 5

justiceCourt report Day 4- Commonwealth and NLC argue for dump even if Traditional Owners have not consented
Beyond Nuclear initiative By Padraic Gibson 6 June 14Dr Donoghue continued submissions for the Commonwealth for most of the morning session. He restated an argument that both the Northern Land Council and Commonwealth have used in the lead up to this trial during Directions Hearings; that the Commonwealth Radioactive Waste Management Act (2005) had been clearly designed to shut down legal avenues for Aboriginal people wanting challenge the nomination of their land for a waste “facility”. handsoffDr Donoghue explained that the Commonwealth had been attempting to establish a remote “facility” since the 1980s in numerous locations. But consistent opposition, including successful litigation, had prevented them from doing so. With this in mind, the Howard Government went out of it’s way to ensure Traditional Aboriginal Owners were explicitly stripped of their rights in the 2005 Act.

Dr Donoghue cited a number of legal avenues explicitly closed to anyone wanting to challenge a national radioactive waste dump, including the exclusion of procedural fairness and a clause allowing nominations on Aboriginal land to remain valid even if a Land Council had not complied with obligations under the Aboriginal Land Rights Act (NT) 1976.

If this argument is accepted by the court, the nomination of Muckaty as a nuclear waste dump will stand even if the Traditional Owners are found never to have consented to the nomination. Or, as Dr Donoghue put it, “the fact of consent being validly given is not legally relevant”.

This line of argument, not to mention the Radioactive Waste Management Act itself, demonstrates the extreme contempt in which the Commonwealth holds the rights of Aboriginal people.

Another attack on Land Rights contained in the Act also became clear in the course of the Commonwealth submissions. So far, arguments in court have focussed on whether the NLC followed proper process in nominating the particular site now earmarked for the waste dump. The quality of consultations with other Traditional Owners, said to hold responsibility for land on Muckaty that is required for transport of the radioactive materials, has also been discussed. But Dr Donoghue made it clear that if the nomination of the waste dump site is allowed to stand, Aboriginal owners of adjacent lands would lose any rights to stop developments on their land needed to facilitate the dump. The Act gives power to the Commonwealth to simply compulsorily acquire any further land that they need to allow the dump to operate…….

three scandals are undeniable. Firstly the Commonwealth held impoverished Aboriginal communities to ransom, withholding funding for essential services unless they accepted a nuclear waste dump. Secondly, as Dr Donoghue made clear yesterday, they did so using legislation which strips Aboriginal people of their actual rights to land. And thirdly, a major Aboriginal Land Council has, from the outset of this case, been hiding behind an argument which says a nuclear waste dump should proceed at Muckaty even if it is found that Traditional Owners do not consent. This is a sad indication of the extent to which Land Rights in Australia were seriously pushed back under the Howard Government. www.beyondnuclearinitiative.com/blog

June 9, 2014 Posted by | AUSTRALIA - NATIONAL, legal | Leave a comment

Bob Hawke happy to have nuclear waste imported, dumped on Aboriginal land

wastesAustralia should be nuclear dumping ground, says Bob Hawke    Dump nuclear waste in Australia says former Prime Minister, Bob Hawke: “The one thing this country ought to do is have the disposal of nuclear waste in remote areas.” Australian Times, By  on 5 June, 2014  In an address to the National Press Club in Canberra on Wednesday, Bob Hawke said Australia’s remote areas should be used as a nuclear dumping ground for the rest of the world.

The former Labor prime minister elaborated on his statement while speaking to members of the Australian Press Club, at an event marking their 50th anniversary. Former Liberal prime minister John Howard also spoke at the event……..

Currently approximately 80% of the waste produced at Lucas Heights, Australia’s only nuclear reactor, comes from the production of nuclear medicine items like containers, gloves, plastic and equipment.

Friends of the Earth (Australia) stated that, “Any used fuel is currently stored in permanent storage facilities in France, the UK and the US but will be returned to Australia in 2015 as intermediate-level waste.

It is argued that Australia has a responsibility to accept waste arising from the processing of uranium exports. However the larger share of the responsibility lies with the countries that make use of Australian uranium,” their statement says.

“Moreover while uranium mining companies arguably ought to take some responsibility for the waste arising from their exports, it is not clear that that responsibility lies with Australia as a whole,” they say, adding that uranium is being mined on Aboriginal land without their consent and that the waste will again be dumped on Aboriginal land. http://www.australiantimes.co.uk/news/news-from-australia/news-in-australia/australia-should-become-nuclear-dumping-ground-says-bob-hawke.htm

June 9, 2014 Posted by | AUSTRALIA - NATIONAL, wastes | Leave a comment