Farmer Jeff Baldock excited at prospect of nuclear waste dump on his land. Other nearby farmers not impressed
Lobbyists get ready to fight site approval, Stock Journal , Vanessa Binks, 28 Aug 2020 AFTER more than six years of deliberation, a regional radioactive waste storage site is less than 60 days away from potential approval and the site’s owner believes the long road has been “worth it”. The site at Napandee, near Kimba, was selected for final approval by federal Resources Minister Keith Pitt earlier this month.Landowner and mixed farmer Jeff Baldock said the approval of the site could save the town, and found the announcement of further consultation “frustrating”. The 158-hectare property is less than 2 per cent of Mr Baldock’s arable farming land [this figure is disputed] and the development is expected to provide a $8.5-million benefit to the community.”There is nothing else to consult about. The proposal has already survived two Senate inquiries and been scrutinised by a Parliamentary Committee and through a court process,” he said.”There has already been multiple rounds of consultation and another one will just cause delays.” Mr Baldock said offering his land to store radioactive waste was “not about money”…….. “Country towns are diminishing and Kimba has an opportunity to invest in its future and keep families or attract more residents,” Mr Baldock said. Site construction could begin by 2024. Lobbyists get ready to fight site approval A DIVISION within the Kimba community about whether or not a local radioactive waste site should be approved has spearheaded a response from the No Radioactive Waste on Agricultural Land in Kimba group to challenge the final approval in a judicial review process. The committee will be meeting in the coming weeks to discuss the next stages after the recently announced further 60-day consultation period has lapsed. Lobby group president Peter Woolford said all options would be examined going forward.”We are another step closer to SA becoming a dumping ground and one step closer to another court case,” he said. Mr Woolford was pleased about the announcement of further consultation and hoped those who disapproved of the site would voice their concerns.”I hope that people outside of the Kimba District Council are allowed to have their say this time – particularly neighbouring councils at Cleve and Wudinna who are also affected,” he said. Mr Woolford also said agriculture’s economic benefit to the region far exceeded the benefit from the development.”About $60 million worth of income is generated from agriculture in the district each year – this development will not even come close to that and it could impact agriculture’s future in the area as well,” he said.”The risk is too unknown. |
Need to investigate ANSTO’s tax-payer funded, loss-making, unnecessary nuclear medicine production
Australian government watcher, 28 Aug 21, The production of isotopes for medical purposes by nuclear reactors is a declining industry due to its inherently dangerous and risky nature and its extremely high manufacturing costs
These isotopes are being replaced by cyclotron produced isotopes which are practically and completely free of any risk to the patients and can be produced by relatively easier and safer means at a greatly reduced costs
The only reason that isotopes produced by nuclear reactors are used for medical purposes is that their manufacture is highly and unrealistically subsidised by government grants as is the case with ANSTO in Australia
The rapid growth in the international use of cyclotron isotopes for medical therapies is making the production of isotopes by nuclear reactors obsolete
As a result the continued production of isotopes for medical purposes by ANSTO at Lucas Heights could be stopped
immediately with huge savings in government expenditure and no effect on the provision of medical therapies
There were also arguments within ANSTO against the proposed corporatising of the medical isotopes production since this would expose all of its problems including its obsolete and outdated status and the extremely high production costs
In addition there are concerns both externally and within ANSTO internally about the cost and marketing difficulties with the Synroc technology which is far from the initially promoted commercial success and has been overtaken in many countries by their own developed alternatives to reduce the volume of nuclear waste and treat it to make it suitable for long-term storage and eventual disposal
In view of this it is essential for a full and proper independent inquiry and investigation into ANSTO to determine the true situation and make practical and hopefully cost saving recommendations as to its future operations
Australian Labor Party backs bills to de-register most political parties
Australian Labor Party backs bills to de-register most political parties, WSWS, Mike Head, 25 August 2021 In a nakedly anti-democratic and self-serving move, the Labor Party’s parliamentary caucus this week agreed to assist the Liberal-National Coalition government push four far-reaching electoral bills through parliament with breakneck speed.
As a result of Labor’s complicity, the bills could be rammed through both houses of parliament and become law within days. In fact, the three main bills were rushed through the House of Representatives yesterday.There has been virtually no public discussion or media coverage on this historic attack, unveiled suddenly last week on the eve of the next federal election, which is due by May next year.
The bills contain a host of measures to suppress alternative political parties and the basic rights of voters. Neither the Morrison government nor Labor has offered any explanation as to why these bills have been brought forward now, seemingly out of the blue……..
The most sweeping provision in the bills seeks to strip party registration from every party not currently represented in parliament. It would compel parties to provide lists and details of 1,500 members—triple the existing requirement—within three months of the laws passing, all in the middle of widespread lockdowns.
Without party registration, federal election candidates for the Socialist Equality Party (SEP) and 35 other currently registered parties would be prevented from having their names and thus identifying their political affiliations on ballot papers. Their candidates would have to stand without any party name, or as undifferentiated and unexplained “independents.”
…….. Predictably, the existing parliamentary parties would continue to be exempt from any membership requirement whatsoever. They could well have difficulty nominating 1,500 members, unless they could count MPs, staffers, trade union officials and other office holders.
……… The only provision that Labor will not support is the lowering of “political campaigner” financial disclosure obligations for advocacy, welfare, environmental and other groups that participate in election campaigns.
…………. The same bipartisan front has been formed on every attack on fundamental democratic rights over the past two decades. This includes the repeated tightening of police-state “terrorism” laws, the “foreign interference” legislation to potentially outlaw links to international or overseas parties, and the 2017–2018 expulsion of members of parliament who were possibly entitled to dual citizenship, effectively disqualifying millions of people with immigrant backgrounds from even nominating for election.https://www.wsws.org/en/articles/2021/08/26/elea-a26.html
Murdoch’s THE AUSTRALIAN grudgingly admits that nuclear power has no future in Australia
Uncharted waters leave little room for nuclear option, THE AUSTRALIAN, GRAHAM LLOYD AUGUST 25, 2021 The proposals being put forward are not necessarily geared to supporting any one option. ………..
Generation is not the only problem raised by the lower-emissions transition. The ESB makes it clear that massive investments are still needed in grid infrastructure to accommodate an electricity system more dependent on intermittent sources of power…..
It favours the creation of renewable energy zones to give the benefit of economies of scale to the infrastructure investment.
Individual states will also be given greater powers to make decisions to safeguard their own interests within the national market.
The ESB is probably correct that community concerns about the impact of fossil fuel generation on carbon emissions, together with the declining financial viability of thermal coal generation, leaves little interest or commercial appetite for future investment in thermal coal generation.
Supporters of the nuclear option have little to cheer about in this transition road map.
The big focus on renewables backed up by batteries from electric cars and sophisticated management systems and minimal gas leaves little room for a return on investment for a [nuclear] technology…..
Stock Journal poll found that the overwhelming majority wanted more consultation on the government’s plan for Kimba nuclear waste dump
Is more nuclear consultation needed? | POLL
20 Aug 2021,
YES 74.8%
NO no 25.2%
Political bribes beat the planet as gas fracking gets public hand-outs
Beetaloo Boondoggle: political bribes beat the planet as gas fracking gets public hand-outs, Michael West Media, Michael West| August 26, 2021
As a block, the two major parties voted to give our money, public money, to corporations to drill for coal seam gas in the Northern Territory, to open up a gigantic new territory, the Beetaloo Basin, for fracking.
The latest capitulation to corporate profits came yesterday morning as both the Coalition and Labor opposed a disallowance motion in Parliament to prevent $50m in public grants going to gas explorers in the Northern Territory. It was yet another political capitulation for corporate bribery, gas company donations.
And so it was that they voted to wreck the planet for their own financial gain. They even voted for money over common sense; because Australia is the world’s biggest gas exporter already. We don’t need more gas, that’s a myth peddled by Australia’s most powerful lobby groups such as APPEA, in turn controlled by foreign fossil fuel corporations such as Shell and Exxon.
They voted to make a US billionaire richer. For, among the prospective winners from this act of political betrayal, is Tamboran Resources, a speculative explorer backed by a US shale-oil billionaire.1
That company, incredibly, is threatening to sue Michael West Media and gas analyst Bruce Robertson from IEEFA, for defamation. So, effectively, Parliament has voted to give money to a US billionaire threatening to sue a small independent journalism business in Australia for exercising free speech, threatening to soak up the time in the Australian courts attempting to muzzle journalists with the menace of making them bankrupt.
Another winner from the escapade is senior Liberal Party figure Paul Espie, whose Empire Energy is slated to get half of the $50m in funding from his Beetaloo Cooperative Drilling grant program.
This is not just a case of our politicians being bought off yet again by corporations, bribed to push through a policy which wrecks the planet, it is a case of them using our money, public funds to pay foreign interests to poison the water tables of the world’s driest continent, to contaminate our most precious resource.
Meanwhile, 2700 kilometres south-east at Narrabri in NSW, Santos has won its long battle against farmers and the local community to frack for gas.
Santos is a large political donor to both major parties……….. https://www.michaelwest.com.au/beetaloo-boondoggle-political-bribes-beat-the-planet-as-gas-fracking-gets-public-hand-outs/
Canberra Extinction Rebellion members convicted by ACT Magistrates Court for crimes during protests
Canberra Extinction Rebellion members convicted by ACT Magistrates Court for crimes during protests
Climate activists who admitted to offending during various protests earlier this month said they did so after exhausting legal avenues to avert the “already looming” threat of climate change that if not addressed would “kill the future of our children”.
Tasmania: Liberals vote down Greens climate emergency motion with Premier claiming it ‘frightens’ children
Tasmania
Liberals vote down Greens climate emergency motion with Premier claiming it ‘frightens’ children
Premier Peter Gutwein has accused the Greens of “frightening” children after the party attempted to move a motion declaring a climate emergency based on the findings of the latest Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change report.–
Australia’s nuclear waste is best managed in interim storage at Lucas Heights, with an independent review on permanent disposal.
Australian Conservation Foundation overview comments on ANSTO Iintermediate Level Waste transport, 24 Aug 21,
The movement of long lived intermediate level waste from the reprocessing of spent nuclear fuel via multiple (rail-ship-road) transport platforms and across half the world is a significant logistical exercise with environmental and security risks and the proponent accepts (2.10) that the planned activity is a nuclear action under the EPBC Act.
This is a matter of high public interest and elevated scrutiny is important given that ANSTO is the proponent and not a disinterested party.
ANSTO’s assurances of ‘negligible impact’, a ‘very unlikely’ impact probability and ‘high levels’ of certainty and reliability need to be assessed, not merely accepted.
The proponents commitment to public consultation (1.13) is not consistent with the clear security limitations (1.2) and further places information control with the proponent, without a wider transparency mechanism.
The 2015 shipment of waste saw controversy and allegations of deficiencies in the transport ship (see attachment). ANSTO’s assertion that this will be ‘conducted by an experienced nuclear transport logistics provider’ (1.2) requires further scrutiny and verification. A June 2021 report (see attachment) iby the UK based NFLA (Nuclear Free Local Authorities) found that: The International Maritime Organisation should consider improved regulation on shipping that is transporting nuclear materials as part of other mixed shipments. The level of accidents in this area is alarming, and the NFLA is really concerned a major accident could cause significant and dangerous implications for communities…
ANSTO is not accurate in stating that the proposed action is not part of a staged development or a component of a larger project (1.15). The Australian Radioactive Waste Management Framework (April, 2018) confirms that the Commonwealth is the only jurisdiction in which spent fuel is managed. Clearly this ILW is a key component of the federal government’s current, and contested, National Radioactive Waste Management Project and should be seen in this wider framework.
This is a complex operation with multiple variables and exposure/risk pathways that requires enhanced attention
- ANSTO is the proponent and its assumptions need to be tested
- The 2015 shipment was dogged with controversy around the credibility and adequacy of the transport ship and this area needs further attention
- The planned activity is part of a wider project – the National Radioactive Waste Management Project
- The high level of public interest and concern is best addressed through increased scrutiny and transparency
- If this ILW transfer occurs this material should remain secured at ANSTO until a credible future management approach is agreed
The best environmental outcomes would be facilitated through enhanced assessment consistent with the environmental protection intent of the EPBC Act. ACF strongly supports an open, wholistic and independent review of Australia’s radioactive waste strategy.
ACF maintains that Australia’s ILW is best managed through extended interim storage at ANSTO, coupled with a dedicated options review into future management options. In the absence of a clear future management pathway there is no radiological or public health rationale for moving this ILW from a facility with high institutional control assets to a less resourced regional facility.
The status of two current federal processes related to radioactive waste and the Kimba plan
(i) In the latest federal budget around $60 million was allocated to ANSTO explicitly to upgrade their storage capacity for ILW. This approach fully aligns with the civil society call for ILW waste to be kept in extended interim storage at Lucas Heights prior to a final decision on future management options. This allocation is the focus of a current review by parliament’s Public Works Committee (see: https://www.aph.gov.au/Parliamentary_Business/Committees/Joint/Public_Works/ANSTOLucasHeights/Submissions ). There is no fixed reporting date but the direction to the Committee is to report “as expeditiously as possible”. The Committee is likely to hold at least one public hearing and to approve the planned expenditure and works will advance.
The Australian Consewrvation Foundation will be calling for this – and any future government – to use the breathing space provided by this extra capacity as the game changing circuit breaker in the waste debate.
(ii) ANSTO have recently made an EPBC Act referral around its plan to bring reprocessed spent nuclear fuel waste back from the UK to Lucas Heights: Referral: EPBC 2021/8998 – Return of Australian Intermediate Level Radioactive Waste from the UK, NSW
This ILW waste would travel by road, rail and ship from the Sellafield nuclear plant in Cumbria in a purpose built 7m long, 3m high transport and storage container. The shipment would take place between December 2021 and July 2022. ACF’s view is that this material should be stored at ANSTO pending a final management option – it should not be double-handled and moved to Kimba in the absence of an agreed further plan.
Kimba nuclear waste dump consultation? WHAT CONSULTATION?
Kazzi Jai Fight to stop a nuclear waste dump in South Australia, 24 Aug 21,
Consultation? What consultation? Right from the very start the whole dump process has been a SHAM! It has been nothing but a PR exercise laced with bribe money singling out South Australia as the dump site for all of ANSTO’s Lucas Heights NSW nuclear waste over 1700 kms away!
This is nuclear waste from industrial production of nuclear isotopes the bulk of which is exported overseas!! – It has nothing to do with loved ones in hospital actually using diagnostic isotopes for which that waste is held on site at the hospital and then officially released into normal waste streams – on a “retain and decay” basis as they are licenced by ARPANSA. This practice will not change with or without a dump!
This current proposal is nothing but a cheapskate attempt by the Feds to shaft nuclear waste onto South Australia so that it solely becomes South Australia’s responsibility, liability and problem! And the proposal is for the PERMANENT DISPOSAL of LOW LEVEL NUCLEAR WASTE in a TOTALLY ALL ABOVE GROUND DUMP!
This is NOT STORAGE. This means the waste is there FOREVER! Should there be leakage or contamination from the waste – too bad – since it’s for PERMANENT DISPOSAL site ANYWAY!The “temporary” tag-a-long Intermediate Level Nuclear Waste will be stored as dry storage – as “temporary” designates “dry storage”.
The “temporary” tag on it certainly has nothing to do with any commitment by the Feds to deal with it anytime going into the future! It will become STRANDED waste which again, will remain solely South Australia’s responsibility, liability and problem!
And this is slap bang in the middle of wheat fields! A place which has NO past or present history with the nuclear industry!
And to add insult to injury, ANSTO relinquishes all responsibility of the waste once it hits SA’s soil! It’s off their books and they effectively wash their hands of it – it is no longer their problem!
Now Jeff Baldock may be foolish and naive, but given he has put up THREE pieces of land for this dump, seems more to be chasing the money coming from sale of his land!
This has NOT been an “open and transparent” process by any means!
The OBVIOUS LACK OF CONSULTATION is but one part of this very FLAWED proposal- a proposal which has not changed in FORTY YEARS mind you – and needs to be scrapped and take back to the drawing board – dealing with the Intermediate Level Nuclear Waste first and the Low Level Nuclear Waste can follow that – NO DOUBLE HANDLING! https://www.facebook.com/groups/344452605899556
White Man’s Media: Rupert Murdoch and the US Imperium- Australia is its tool
White Man’s Media: Rupert Murdoch and the US Imperium,
https://www.michaelwest.com.au/white-mans-media-rupert-murdoch-and-the-us-imperium/ By John Menadue|August 24, 2021, Western media, a tool of the political, military and business establishment, have played a part in the killing of millions in Vietnam, Iraq, Afghanistan, Syria and Libya, writes John Menadue. In turn, Australia’s media is a tool of this “US Imperium”. This is the first in White Man’s Media, a series to be published in Menadue’s Pearls and Irritations.
Australia’s media does not just have a problem being dominated by legacy US and UK media. We have a particular problem. Its name is Rupert Murdoch, an American citizen who owns two-thirds of Australia’s metropolitan dailies, a monopoly Pay TV licence in Foxtel, and more.
News Corp was a key supporter of the unmitigated disaster which was the Iraq War. Of the 173 Murdoch papers worldwide only one, the Hobart Mercury, opposed that war, a war sometimes described as ‘the Murdoch War’.
Murdoch told us in 2003, “I think (George W) Bush acted very morally, very correctly. US troops will soon be welcomed as liberators”.
His Foreign Editor on The Australian Greg Sheridan could not contain himself. “The bold eagle of American power is aloft, high above the humble earth. For as it soars and sweeps it sees victory, power and opportunity”.
Sheridan is still in his job. Murdoch prefers loyalty to competence in all those around him, including his family.
Warmongers and profiteers
In wars, Rupert Murdoch and his News Corporation see “victory, power and opportunity” too. Rupert Murdoch himself is still in his job.
Even some of the legacy media apologised for their support of the illegal war in Iraq. But never Rupert Murdoch or, for that matter, former Australian prime minister John Howard.
News Corp in Australia, for well over a decade, has also led the campaign of denial on climate change. This company has become a key part of a US military/business/security complex which has exercised destructive power for generations, and is now demonising China.
As Alex Lo wrote in August, “It has long been known that the Department of Defense in the US and other governments such as the CIA, not only support film and cable production in Hollywood but also actively intervene and manipulate their content”.
And in June, Lo described how a long list of former US security chiefs such as John Brennan and James Clapper joined US media – NBC, MSNBC and CNN.
Australian security heads have been leading the demonisation of China with help from the Five Eyes. But we get a double-whammy when our derivative media draws heavily on US legacy media that in turn is heavily influenced by former US security chiefs with their ‘expert opinions’.
This legacy media frames our view of the world, a view which we accept as almost god-given, a colonial Western media mindset with racist undertones.
We need to break free of that mindset if we are to build a secure future in our region and avoid being drawn into one folly after another by the US Imperium.
This legacy media frames our view of the world, a view which we accept as almost god-given, a colonial Western media mindset with racist undertones.
We need to break free of that mindset if we are to build a secure future in our region and avoid being drawn into one folly after another by the US Imperium.
John was once the top executive for Rupert Murdoch’s News Corporation in Sydney. He has also served as Ambassador to Japan, chief executive of Qantas and the top political adviser to both Malcolm Fraser and Gough Whitlam.
Little chance for genuine community consultation on Napandee nuclear waste dump decision
MY COMMENTS
What is difficult about these legislative provisions is to know what they mean and why are they there
They are probably meaningless for it is only an invitation with no result to a very restricted group of persons.
I should have thought that if you had a right or interest in the nominated land then you would have been included in the formal nomination
The only persons with a right or interest may be Aboriginal peoples under customary or ancestral ownership
What’s the betting no one in Pitt’s group will have a proper answer or even knows what it means as it is extremely poor drafting
NATIONAL RADIOACTIVE WASTE MANAGEMENT ACT 2012 as amended in 2021
There appear to be only very limited rights for community consultation underthe National Radioactive Waste Management Act 2012 as recently amended despite statements to the contrary
The problem under subsections (5) and (6) of section 10 of this legislation – and replicated for a subsequent situation by subsections (2) and (3) of section 18 – is that there is reference to only persons with a right or interest in the land
Regrettably this is rather vague and on black letter law extremely narrow in its context – what is the right or interest in the land ? with whom and how is the consultation process started ?
These provisions do not encompass or provide for the general community consultations claimed by virtue of the ultimate amendments to the legislation
In fact the community consultation process under the new legislation is extensively restrictive and does no credit to the senators claiming to have achieved a basis for considerable and comprehensive consultations before a ministerial declaration is made under the legislation.
It is certainly not the strong community consultation lauded as having beenachieved by the recently agreed amendments
Added to the seemingly lack of knowledge or simply ignorance of the technicalities and dangerous nature of nuclear waste and its proper management becomes unintentionally a rather toxic combination playing right into the current responsible minister’s hands.
It is unrealistic to rely on the progressive development of the facility for community consultations as obviously the minister will want to rush throughThe the facility’s establishment without any impediments or delays
Section 10(5) of original 2012 legislation reads
Division 4—Procedural fairness in relation to Minister’s declarations and
approvals
10 Procedural fairness in relation to Minister’s declarations and approvals
Section 10
Young people rebel on climate
The Age, Nicola Philp, 20 Aug 21,
Some young Australians are now so desperately unhappy with government inaction they feel being arrested and fined is actually less of a cost than the cost to their future if nothing is done.
”…………….the Geo Coral set sail into the ocean towards the King Island region this week to conduct seismic testing, so clearly our governments cannot be serious about their climate targets.
Such news, following the latest International Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) report, creates ever strengthening ripples of anxiety, particularly among our young people who fear for their future.
Some are now so desperately unhappy with government inaction and the cost on their future they feel being arrested and fined is actually less of a cost than the cost to their future if nothing is done. And so, some took to the water, while others chained themselves to fences and the ship itself.
These protesters want their governments to listen and look beyond the short-term dollar and career stepladder of politics. They are rightfully demanding that the current generations in charge consider what our actions will cost the futures of those still to come………
Governments showing such a broad lack of respect and care is beginning to have very significant consequences for the young and yet-to-be-born generations……….
Some uncomfortable questions for Sam Chard · General Manager, Australian Radioactive Waste Agency.
Why was Manager Chard nearly two years ago referring to Whyalla as a port for the transport of nuclear material?
Was this to pave the way for using Whyalla for transport of nuclear material for the proposed Kimba facility?
Had the Whyalla municipal administration been approached about the possible use of its port for transport of nuclear material?
Has Chard or someone else from the federal government approached or discussed possible transport arrangements for nuclear material with any transport or logistics contractors or consultants?
If so will Chard publicly and fully disclose the extent and details of the approaches or discussions including identifying the contractors or consultants?
Was the Whyalla municipal administration involved in these approaches and discussions?
Did any of the contractors or consultants point out that the transport proposals by the federal government were in breach of international standards and prescriptions and did not follow the recognised best practices with respect to the transport ingredient of those proposals?
In seeking this information Chard should be warned that parts of it are already known and hence she should be careful about the veracity of her responses and waive any claims of confidentiality
Presumably the parties seeking any form of judicial review would be able to seek this information as a pre-trial disclosure
1 This month.
Australians deserve the truth
about
AUKUS – https://aukuspublicinquiry.com/
PETITION – To: Prime Minister Anthony Albanese and the Australian Labor Government
of the week – Australians for War Powers Reform (AWPR)
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