South Australia’s premier says buying nuclear submarines directly from US would degrade Australian shipbuilding
Proposal to fast-track submarines by having them produced by US ‘would not be acceptable’, Peter Malinauskas says
Guardian Sarah Martin, @msmartoSun 25 Sep 2022
The South Australian premier, Peter Malinauskas, has criticised a proposal for Australia to buy nuclear submarines directly from the US, saying it would “not be acceptable” for his state to miss out on promised submarine manufacturing jobs.
A report in the Wall Street Journal on Saturday suggested the Biden administration was considering a plan with the UK and Australia to fast-track nuclear-powered submarines for Australia by the mid-2030s by producing the first few submarines in the US.
However, given existing production constraints at US shipyards, the deal would depend on Australia making a financial commitment to expand the US’s submarine-production capacity to ensure it could also meet its domestic demands.……………………………………….
When asked if it would be acceptable for the Australian government to purchase submarines from the US without training an Australian workforce as part of the deal, Malinuaskas was clear.
“No, that would not be acceptable from the state government’s perspective, because that would represent a degradation of what has been promised, and that is that these subs are being built in Australia,” he said.
“It all depends on the pathway, and that detail really matters here – not just for the economic interests of the state, but also from our sovereign submarine-building capacity, which is such a central tenet of de-risking Australia’s security position.”
How Australia intends to fill the capability gap between its existing Collins Class fleet and the new fleet of up to 12 nuclear-powered submarines is the subject of a federal government review that is due to report by March next year.
On Sunday the defence minister, Richard Marles, said the review, being undertaken by former defence minister Stephen Smith and former Australian defence force chief Angus Houston, would consider how best to fill the capability gap that would otherwise see Australia wait until the mid-2040s for new submarines……………………………………………………………
In a joint statement released last week to mark one year of the Aukus pact, the leaders of Australia, the UK and the US said that the group had made significant progress towards Australia acquiring conventionally armed, nuclear-powered submarines.
“We are steadfast in our commitment to Australia acquiring this capability at the earliest possible date,” the statement said. https://www.theguardian.com/world/2022/sep/25/sa-premier-says-buying-nuclear-submarines-directly-from-us-would-degrade-australian-shipbuilding
Kimba community groups need to pose these hard questions to Ministers Madeleine King and Ed Husic, and to ANSTO ARWA and ARPANSA
In order to establish fully and properly the breaches by the federal government as to its Kimba nuclear installation, community group opposing the installation proposals need to immediately send out this formal request to the various persons and organisations listed below
KIMBA COMMUNITY
Formal requests for Kimba proposals:
- What are the earthworks being carried out or planned in connection with
the government’s proposed nuclear waste facility - Are these earthworks confined to the Napandee farm site
- If not what other land in the Kimba region is affected by the earthworks
- How much actual physical work has been carried
- By whom and how was this work authorised
- Was any licence issued by ARPANSA for his work
- If not and why not as is required by the guidance codes and standards of
IAEA - Was a progressive safety case started for these earthworks
- If not how was the work justified without community consultation and
involvement - How have the environmental aspects of these earthworks been dealt with
- Have there been any environmental studies done
- Has the community generally been consulted on the environmental studies
or referrals - Will the community be involved by consultation as to all aspects of the
earthworks as to the environmental implications
PLEASE immediately provide:
• the plans and other details for for the earthworks
• the environmental studies and assessments for this work
• any licences or applications for licences
• a full copy of the environmental referral
This list of requests should given to:
Hon. Madeleine King Hon. Ed Husic as the responsible ministers
The chief executive officers of ARWA ANSTO and ARPANSA
Meghan Quinn PSM as the Secretary of the Department of Industry, Science,
Energy and Resources
Andrew Metcalfe AO as the Secretary of the Department of Agriculture, Water
and the Environment
One legal win for Aboriginal people in South Australia gives hope to the Barngarla people who are fighting the Kimba nuclear waste dump plan
Nuclear waste site in spotlight following Barngarla court win, Traditional Owners say they fear the destruction that an accident at the waste dump could cause to Country.
By Keira Jenkins, Source: The Point,, 6 SEP 2022,
Barngarla Traditional Owners are fighting for access to a number of federal government documents regarding the proposed nuclear waste facility near Kimba, South Australia.
The Barngarla Determination Aboriginal Corporation (BDAC) and its lawyers have requested the documents that the federal government relied on to choose the 900 hectare site more than 400 kilometres north-west of Adelaide
The argument over the documents is part of a federal court challenge launched by Barngarla people.
Jason Bilney is the chair of the BDAC. He told NITV Barngarla people were not properly consulted about the facility, and were excluded from a community ballot.
“It’s very disrespectful, very hurtful to my people as a community and to my past and present Elders,” he said.
“It’s a disgrace.”
After the Supreme Court overturned authorisation to drill on South Australia’s Lake Torrens last week, Barngarla people are hopeful their fight can lead to protection for the Kimba site as well.
Mr Bilney is joined in the fight against the facility by Lez and Dawn Taylor, who grew up in Kimba.
Standing at the site, which has been fenced off, Dawn Taylor said she’s deeply upset that nuclear waste could be stored on this Country……………………………..
Government officials didn’t talk to the Barngarla people for the study.
Barngarla Elder Harry Dare said the Traditional Owners of the Country should have been involved in this study.
“We know what’s on our Country, they choose not to let us go and have a look at that Country but we already know what’s out there,” he said.
‘I still feel strong’
But regardless of what has occurred up to this point, Jason Bilney said Barngarla people will continue to fight for their Country.
“[The government] think they’re going to put [the facility] there, they’ve still got a long drawn out process and for any government, it doesn’t look good to go against First Nations people,” he said.
“I still feel strong, I still feel proud to keep up this fight for our people, being up there and doing it for our community.
“It has taken its toll for a lot of our family. It’s sad but we’ve got to keep going.”
Barngarla woman Linda Dare said she hopes this fight means the voices of her people will be heard.
“We want them to stop what they’re doing, we want them to listen to us and hear us, take the time to sit down and listen and talk to us not disrespect us and put waste up on our Country,” she said.
Nuclear bomb tests at Emu Field remain obscured by Maralinga and the mists of time
https://www.abc.net.au/news/2022-08-24/nuclear-testing-at-emu-field-featured-in-new-book/101329172 ABC Radio Adelaide / By Daniel Keane, 22 Aug 22,
In hindsight, Michael Parkinson’s TV talk show hardly seems the likeliest forum for sober reflection on nuclear annihilation.
But in 1971, the celebrity interviewer welcomed onto his celebrated stage journalist James Cameron, a man who had, 18 years earlier, witnessed the first atomic blast at Emu Field in outback South Australia.
Nuclear weapons, he told Parkinson, were “the ultimate punctuation mark” in humanity’s “progress towards perdition”.
The words echoed his front-page report for The Age on October 16, 1953 — the day after the test:
“The familiar mushroom column climbed unsteadily for 15,000 feet, leaned and dropped, and the world stumbled one more step towards the twilight.”
Codenamed Totem, the two Emu Field bomb tests have, in the view of James Cook University author Elizabeth Tynan, been regarded for too long as mere precursors to the more notorious detonations at Maralinga.
Her new book seeks to correct this by establishing Operation Totem as a portentous episode in its own right.
“The tests there pre-dated Maralinga by three years and they caused enormous difficulty and disruption and tragedy to the Aboriginal people of the Western Desert,” Dr Tynan said.
The Secret of Emu Field is the product of extensive archival excavation, including in the United Kingdom.
Amid Cold War hardships and anxieties, British officials were desperate to develop an affordable nuclear arsenal for their new fleet of jet bombers.
“They were looking to create a workable weapon; I call it the austerity bomb,” Dr Tynan said.
“They wanted to do it quickly because they had the V bombers coming, they had a number of political pressures and geopolitical pressures as well.”
Among several remarkable occurrences at Emu Field was the flight of a Royal Air Force Canberra bomber through the Totem 1 mushroom cloud barely six minutes after detonation.
“In colour it was a dark red-brown,” Wing Commander Geoffrey Dhenin, who enthusiastically piloted the plane, later wrote.
“Until just before we emerged, the forces on the elevators increased to such an extent that I thought I might lose control.”
One of the aims of that mission was to determine the threat from fallout in atmospheric testing to commercial airline traffic.
In an unforeseen irony, the atomic cloud from Totem 1 — which kept its mushroom shape “for 24 hours because of wind conditions” — was spotted by airline passengers passing over Oodnadatta.
The black mist
Today, it isn’t a cloud but a mist that remains one of the few aspects of the Totem tests to endure in the collective consciousness.
The so-called “black mist” was reported by nearby Aboriginal communities, but it wasn’t until a 1980 report by The Advertiser that it came to public attention.
The 1985 royal commission into British nuclear tests was equivocal on the health effects, but concluded that “Aboriginal people experienced radioactive fallout from Totem 1 in the form of a black mist or cloud at and near Wallatinna”.
Bruce Lennon was a young boy at the time and likened the impact to “having a really bad flu”.
“We were close to Emu Field; dad was a contractor, we did a lot of moving around,” he said.
Also in the area, at Mabel Creek station, was the family of Sister Kenise Neill.
“My father at the time of the Emu Field [tests] would have been 22. There’s a story that my grandmother used to tell about him,” she recalled.
“He was out fencing with Aboriginal people around the station and came home covered in a black, slimy, greasy stuff.”
Murray Neill was 24 when he died in 1956.
His daughter said it was now almost impossible to know whether the story told by her grandmother was an account of fallout.
“I didn’t really know about Emu Fields … and because our family had left before the [later] Maralinga testing, it didn’t make sense,” Sister Neill said.
“I presumed the black fallout with my dad wasn’t nuclear.
“It’s really only through reading Elizabeth Tynan’s book that I thought that my dad could have actually died from radiation.”
The persistence of secrets
The black mist may have dissipated, but other mists still cloud the Totem tests.
Dr Tynan said British files she inspected during her research had since been “withdrawn from public view”, and that there were unanswered questions about the second test and the plutonium fuel.
“The Operation Totem tests at Emu Field were intended as a comparative trial to test two different kinds of nuclear fuel,” Dr Tynan said.
I can’t say that I ever got to the bottom of what was happening with Totem 2. From the documents I’ve seen, [it] was a very, very secret weapon.”
By the time of the second test on October 27, James Cameron and the rest of the press pack had long since departed.
But the bomb had left its mark on Cameron’s mind.
In a piece published the day after he died, in the same year as the royal commission into British tests, Cameron reflected on the nuclear age with typical grace and resignation:
“I personally witnessed the explosion of atom bombs, and did nothing about it, and could do nothing except protest, tiresomely and uselessly.”
This article is the second in a two-part series, the first of which focused on the tests at Maralinga.
South Australian Unions stand with Traditional Owners in rejecting nuclear waste dump
South Australian unions have unanimously supported a motion standing with Traditional Owners to reject a proposed nuclear waste dump in Kimba on the Eyre peninsula and have called on the Marshall Government to do the same.
SA Unions Secretary Dale Beasley said the that South Australian labour movement stood shoulder to shoulder with the Barngarla Traditional Owners in their opposition to the Federal Government proposal to build a nuclear waste dump on the Eyre Peninsula.
“South Australian unions are completely united in their support of the Barngarla Traditional Owners and their opposition to the proposed nuclear waste site at Kimba.
“It is simply extraordinary that the Federal Government would seek to impose a nuclear waste dump on South Australia with inadequate consultation, long term planning and against the wishes of Traditional Owners.
“What’s even more astonishing is Steven Marshall’s abject failure to stand up to Canberra, to stand up for the best interests of South Australians and publicly oppose this nuclear waste dump in South Australia.
When asked about the proposal to build a nuclear waste dump in South Australia Mr. Marshall was quoted in 2020 as saying “finally, a decision has been made and we now get on with it.”
“We have in South Australia a shameful legacy of imposing the impact of nuclear technology on aboriginal communities. Decades after the end of British nuclear tests around Maralinga, radioactive particles containing plutonium and uranium still contaminate the landscape.[i] Given that history, we would have expected Steven Marshall to stand up for the Barngarla Traditional Owners.
This is not the first time Steven Marshall has failed South Australian Aboriginal people. In 2018 he remarkably closed off treaty negotiations with Aboriginal groups, saying he had “other priorities”, having described the process as a “cruel hoax.”
“Aside from being fiercely opposed by the Barngarla Traditional Owners, there are very real concerns around the safety and security of the nuclear waste and its transport 1,700km across Australia to be stored at Kimba, SA.
“The potential and associated risks attached to the transportation and storage of nuclear waste are well documented, yet there has been an absence of consultation with the communities through which this waste will transit. This is an issue for all South Australians.
“The plan to store the nuclear waste, which must be isolated from the environment for a minimum of 10,000 years, will see serious consequences for South Australians for many generations to come.
“South Australian unions join with the Traditional Owners and the South Australian Community in complete opposition to the dangerous proposal and call on the Marshall Government act in the best interests of our state and publicly state its opposition.”
The Kimba nuclear waste dump was NEVER about the supply of nuclear medicine.
Kazzi Jai Fight to Stop a nuclear waste dump in the Flinders Ranges 4 Mar 22, https://www.facebook.com/groups/941313402573199
“Time is running out, but we’re not going away. Our community is committed to our part in providing surety of supply for nuclear medicine provision for the benefit of every Australian, who, on average, will use nuclear medicine at least once in their lifetime.
The irony that neither federal nor state governments can provide our town and our community with base-level GP and emergency medical access is, quite frankly, unforgiveable and unacceptable to our community…..”* Mayor Dean Johnson opening remarks…
Wow!! So the “promises” are disappearing now Mayor Johnson??
Here’s a heads up – The Nuclear Waste Dump was NEVER about surety of supple of nuclear medicine!!!
Matt Canavan said so…ANSTO said so….DIIS said so – NEVER ABOUT SURETY OF NUCLEAR MEDICINE!
*Transcript excerpt from “General practitioner and related primary health services to outer metropolitan, rural and regional Australians” – Senate Inquiry Whyalla Session March 1st 2022
Uranium miner BHP under criticism for guzzling precious artesian water, and for not keeping its word to Aboriginal native title holders
Environment campaigner and consultant David Noonan, who provided submissions to the Juukan Inquiry, is sceptical of the desalination plant announcement.
Mr Noonan says even if it was built, BHP could be taking GAB water until the end of the decade. He wants to hear a formal commitment about alternative water sources.
Why BHP is facing a minefield, CHRIS MITCHELL, Adelaide Now, 4 Mar 22,
AUSTRALIA’S biggest company and the world’s secondbiggest miner, BHP, may disappoint conservationists and Aboriginal native title holders who had hoped for commitments to reform of heritage issues and underground water use at its Olympic Dam mine before the March 19 state election BHP, the Big Australian, with market capitalisation of $230bn, paid the state government royalties of $136m last year. Its Olympic Dam project 560km north of Adelaide is South Australia’s largest mining venture and the world’s biggest uranium mine, a global top-four copper mine and producer of gold and lead. BHP is powerful in SA.
Premier Steven Marshall is Aboriginal Affairs Minister but it would be fair to say native title holders do not wield the sort of power in Adelaide that big miners do.
Yet BHP has flagged some changes to the way it operates that could reduce its own power over its own asset.
Under the 1982 Roxby Downs (Indenture Ratification) Act signed with former mine owner Western Mining, BHP, which bought the mine in 2005, has almost unprecedented powers over resources and water within its 12,000sq km Stuart Shelf exploration lease.
BHP has been criticised by conservation groups and Aboriginal interests in last year’s report into rival Rio Tinto’s destruction of Juukan Gorge in Western Australia. The report includes criticism from the Arabana tribe of the mine’s heavy reliance on water from the Great Artesian Basin (GAB), and particularly from the so-called “Mound Springs” Aboriginal heritage sites north of the mine.
On February 15, The Advertiser revealed BHP would back a new $15m study, partly funded by state and federal governments, into a Spencer Gulf desalination plant to pump water to SA’s northern mines. But BHP is still far short of publicly committing to end its use of GAB water.
Conservationists say BHP is trying to control the water agenda, to maintain its privileges under the Indenture Act. But some hope it will be pragmatic enough to cut water demand from the GAB if it eventually decides to proceed with its Oak Dam copper-gold-uranium mine 65km southeast of Olympic.
Asked last week if BHP was formally committed to ending GAB water use, a spokesman said: “We continuously monitor and publicly report our water draw under a program approved by the SA government.”
BHP is not just under pressure for environmental reasons.
It is in discussion with three native title groups about the Olympic Dam Agreement it settled in 2008 with the Kokatha, Barngarla and Kuyani.
Of these, only the Kokatha have been granted formal native title over parts of BHP’s Stuart Shelf.
BHP’s problem now is how to balance the very valuable 40-year-old legal rights it has under the indenture with rights found in a native title determination in favour of the Kokatha in 2014……….
The Kokatha fought a long, 18-year battle to win their native title in 2014. Kokatha directors say dealing with BHP on the ODA before and after their native title court win has been challenging.
At this point, they are not receiving mining royalties and are unhappy with employment opportunities for Kokatha people.
Michael Turner, a former Kokatha director and current adviser on the Kokatha Native Title Compensation Settlement and Kokatha Charitable trusts, says he has been dealing with BHP for much of his adult life.
At this point, they are not receiving mining royalties and are unhappy with employment opportunities for Kokatha people………
negotiations on BHP’s Olympic Dam Agreement had been disappointing.
“We have been calling for a review of the ODA for many years and it has constantly been deferred,” he said.
“They’re refusing to move forward. It would be great if BHP could keep to its word and respect the wishes of the Kokatha people and review the ODA for the benefit of generations to come.”…………….
The final report into the May 24, 2020 destruction by Australia’s second-biggest miner, Rio Tinto, of the Juukan Caves in Western Australia’s Pilbara was released in October. In it, Arabana chair Brenda Underwood says: “Unfortunately, our springs are disappearing. The cause … is water taken from the GAB by BHP’s mine at Roxby Downs.”
BHP and the state government believe the springs remain healthy but environmentalists fear a possible expansion to the Oak Dam could take daily GAB water use well beyond 50 million litres a day. BHP says it is averaging 34 million litres a day.
Environment campaigner and consultant David Noonan, who provided submissions to the Juukan Inquiry, is sceptical of the desalination plant announcement.
Mr Noonan says even if it was built, BHP could be taking GAB water until the end of the decade. He wants to hear a formal commitment about alternative water sources.
BHP’s Aboriginal engagement team is mindful expectations have changed across the industry since Juukan and BHP will need to be seen to be engaging seriously with traditional owners. Some believe an ODA negotiated before the Kokatha achieved native title should be written off and a new agreement established………………………………………
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Nuclear Waste Dump Plan for Kimba – Craig Wilkins of Consrvation Council of South Australia
Monday 21st February 2022 on Peter Goers’ program ABC 891 with Conservation Council of South Australia CEO Craig Wilkins to discuss the Nuclear Waste Dump at Kimba.
Also presentation by Greg Bannon Flinders Local Action Group too, and others who contributed to the program. Interesting that Resources MinisterKeith Pitt, Sam Usher CEO · Australian Radioactive Waste Agency and MP Rowan Ramsey were no shows although they were invited to be involved!
The Conservation Council of South Australia has produced a new booklet on Nuclear waste – domestic Australian issues. Craig Wilkins was the prime author, though not the only author’
Transcript of interview. (basically accurate, but not absolutely word perfect)
CRAIG WILKINS: The book asks what is the best solution for Australia’s radioactive wastes. International best practice is to bury it deeply. That’s not the chosen option. Big difference between the low level waste and intermediate level waste.
PETER GOER. Kimba is very divided – hsad 300mm of rain. We had calls from farmers asking what will happen if nuclear waste is buried there.
CRAIG WILKINS: Wallerberdina was rejected for a site because it was recognised as a flood plain area.
PETER GOER. Govts have seized on this idea and pushed through. The benchmark of 65% community agreement was lowered as only 62% agreed. What’s to stop us importing nuclear waste from overseas in the future?
CRAIG WILKINS This is what is called ”project creep”. The rules change over time. People are concerned about this, particularly the Bangarla who were given native title to this region 2015, – this is one of the first true tests, about how seriously we consider that issue of native title. They did ask to be polled. but were deliberately excluded from the vote. They are fighting this legal battle now, in the Supreme Court. They say they weren’t consulted.
PETER GOER. you cite theUN declaration on the rights of indigenous peoples. tates should ensure that no storage of hazardous materials should be sited on indigenous land The former SA govt voted not to have a nuclear dump in SA. SA has not been consulted, only Kimba people have been consulted. Politicians have come on this show and mocked people who don’t live in Kimba, even though it’s a state issue, it’s a national issue surely. This material is either to come by sea, or be trundled through 3 states to get here.
GREG BANNON of Flinders Action Group – This site is in the wrong place. It’s just not scientific.The Whole approach has been to find a swilling community, and then try to make the facility fit the geology there for a nuclear waste site. It’s just not scientific. In the last month, Kimba has received record rain. One of the IAEA guidelines state that a nuclear waste facility should not be sited where you’ve got cross country water flow, or subsoil water, – water table underneath. When the Industry Department had their sites examined by AECOM, they produced 3 reports – the recent floods should be factored in.
Philippa. phoned in – pointing out the success in Canada, marketing radioactive isotopes made not from a nuclear reactor, but from cyclotrons. She mentions the risk of this dump becoming the thin end of the wedge – for importing other countries’ nuclear wastes.
Calls in, especially pointing out the risk to the Eyre Peninsula community region’s clean reputation as an agricultural area.
PETER GOER. Also this has divided Kimba. calls in – suggesting that Kimba has been bribed. A struggling rural community – the promise of more and more money, and jobs. Also questions about how the promised jobs might not materialise – larger waste facilities oversea employ fewer people than promised for this facility. Hard for people of Kimba to turn their backs on these ”rivers of gold”
CRAIG WILKINS It has been a disappointing process. The community there, like every other SA community, deserves a decent medical facility, decent services – there’s been a package of support being offered, in return for them accepting this facility.- which contains investments by govt that should be standard for any community. That makes it a very challenging position for the Kimba people – to work out whether to accept it or not. There’s nothing more divisive than this whole question of nuclear facilities. A previously very close-knit community has had this bomb placed in the middle of it and it has really divided them. It is a terrible shame.
PETER GOER.I do feel for the people of Kimba. Soon Kimba is going to be known world-wide as the nuclear dump town, not the town that’s halfway across Australia, not the home of the big galah. …..perhaps the butt of many jokes Kimba. will be known for that one thing.
CRAIG WILKINS. Places associated with nuclear activity very soon get that name, rather than being known as a very successful agricultural region, rural town of the year fantastic people …
PETER GOER. Rowan Ramsey pointed out that the population of Kimbawas very knowledgeable.
CRAIG WILKINS. Queried this – suggested that the truth was stretched.
Many calls in, mainly supporting the Conservation Council’s case
CRAIG WILKINS responding to questions on waste disposal – old mining sites not necessarily a solution – much research has to be done.
Kimba doesn’t have to accept this plan. It is not the solution, and is placing this community at a disadvantage.
The writing is on the wall ‒ Kimba radioactive concerns move to South Australia’s political centre
The controversial federal government plan to dump and store radioactive waste near Kimba on the Eyre Peninsula is the focus of new posters appearing across Adelaide’s central business district this week.
The posters ‒ an initiative of the Don’t Dump on SA (DDSA) network ‒ are part of a growing effort calling on Premier Steven Marshall to support the South Australian law, community and environment and send a clear message of opposition to Canberra ahead of the March 19 state election.
The move comes following last week’s Legislative Council vote where Liberal politicians refused to join SA Green and Labor representatives in condemning the federal waste plan.
“For over two decades there has been bipartisan opposition to federal government plans to make SA the nation’s radioactive waste zone,” said DDSA member Dr. Jim Green. “Last week Premier Marshall walked away from this protection and from the commitment that he made ahead of the last state election that he had “a much greater ambition for our state” than to be a nuclear waste dump.
“A positive outcome of the Legislative Council vote was that the Labor Party reaffirmed its opposition to the proposed nuclear dump. MLC Kyam Maher highlighted Labor’s policy that Traditional Owners should have a right of veto over nuclear projects.”
The federal waste plan at Kimba is facing growing scrutiny following recent extensive flooding of the region and a Federal Court challenge by the Barngarla Traditional Owners.
“Barngarla people have been actively excluded from the area’s community ballot and the wider SA community has not had a say,” said DDSA representative Sister Michele Madigan.
“The federal waste plan poses a very serious and long-lasting risk to people and the environment and demands the highest level of transparency and rigour. Sadly, so far it has been a political football played with moving goalposts. It is time Premier Marshall blew the whistle and demanded an end to this move.”
The posters will remain in 30+ sites around Adelaide until the election and will be complemented with a range of community outreach initiatives in the lead up to the state election.
South Australian Labor supported Greens. motion opposing SA as nuclear waste dump, but Liberals SA Best and Advance SA blocked it.
10 Feb 22, Liberals and crossbench block Greens motion calling for SA to reject Federal Government’s attempt to turn the state into nuclear waste dumping ground
Today, the Liberals along with SA Best and Advance SA voted against a Greens motion condemning the decision by the federal government late last year to dump nuclear waste in Kimba.
“South Australians could not have been clearer. We do not want dangerous radioactive waste being dumped in farming country against the wishes of the Barngarla – the area’s Traditional Owners,” said SA Greens spokesperson for Energy, Robert Simms MLC.
“It is tremendously disappointing that the Liberals, SA Best, and Advance SA have ignored the pleas of the Traditional Owners, and instead given their tick of approval to put a radioactive waste dump in the heart of our food bowl that puts at risk our clean, green reputation and our state’s key grain export industry.
“A wide-ranging parliamentary inquiry must occur to not only consider the implications of the federal government’s decision to dump radioactive waste on Kimba on SA’s Eyre Peninsula, but also hear the concerns of the Barngarla People – and no further action should be taken until that process has concluded, “ Mr Simms said.
The motion moved today by Robert Simms MLC, was only supported by the Greens and SA Labor.
Kimba and the South Australian government must protect this precious agricutural region from nuclear waste dump’s danger of ground contamination.
Peter Remta, 29 Jan 22, Someone from Kimba should formally request the deputy premier what his government will do to ensure that the nuclear waste management facility at Napandee or anywhere else within the Eyre Peninsula will not lead to any radioactive ground contamination
This is an issue entirely within the constitutional competence and responsibility of the state government and it cannot rely on the federal government to provide a solution
The radioactive contamination of prime rural land within the Kimba district and further afield would be a disastrous outcome for the state’s economy and population with the likelihood of the destruction of its agricultural industry
The satisfaction of the resulting and incalculable claims for compensation due to the contamination would no doubt be completely beyond the state’s financial resources
There is now a strong possibility of radioactive ground contamination due to the significant flooding and the use of an above the ground facility of escape or leakage of the nuclear waste if the facility were established
The risks involved and the safety measures to overcome them are far too uncertain making it completely unacceptable to have the government’s proposed facility at Napandee
The risk will be incapable of elimination by the existing methods of containing the waste without using effective and proper geological burial in a suitable location
This request should be by way of addressing what the deputy premier raised in his letter posted by Karen Gray on Facebook on 13 January 2022
Flooding in South Australia includes Kimba- what about the nuclear dump sit? and what impact on uranium tailings dams?
This Channel 7 video report mentions Kimba as having had record rain. The ABC report mentions several towns with record rain, but does not mention Kimba
I wonder how this obviously flood-prone area could be selected a the nation’s nuclear waste dump site.
I also wonder how Olympic Dam’s huge dams of radioactive tailings are faring in this flood situation.
This Channel 7 video report mentions Kimba as having had record rain. The ABC report mentions several towns with record rain, but does not mention Kimba
I wonder how this obviously flood-prone area could be selected a the nation’s nuclear waste dump site.
Roads destroyed and homes flooded as rain cuts off towns in South Australia’s north | 7NEWS, 23 Jan 22,
Floodwaters submerge parts of outback SA as rain washes away highway and cars, ABC 23 Jan 22,
Key points:
- Emergency crews have rescued people trapped by floodwaters
- A section of the Olympic Dam Highway was washed away, blocking access between Roxby Downs and Woomera
- The bureau said several spots had recorded “all-time” highest rainfall totals over 24 hours
Entire towns in the state’s Far North are cut off after record-breaking rain. The SES has been flat out responding to hundreds of calls for help, as the heavens opened, destroying roads and inundating homes.
Rescue crews have been kept busy by outback floodwaters and record-breaking rains, which have continued to cause havoc in South Australia’s north and west, washing away roads as well as cars.
The weather bureau said some locations had set “all-time records” in terms of rainfall, while social media is awash with photos and videos of inundated highways.
Several people were rescued by the State Emergency Service (SES) after becoming trapped by floodwaters — including one who was swept 80 metres downstream and waited on top of his semi-submerged car for “at least four hours” as crews travelled to his remote location.
An entire section of the Olympic Dam Highway was also eroded between Pimba and Woomera, cutting off access from Roxby Downs…………………………………………. https://www.abc.net.au/news/2022-01-23/sa-rain-and-floods-wash-away-outback-roads/100776030
‘Everything about the Gulf of St. Lawrence was warmer in 2021’: federal scientist
‘Everything about the Gulf of St. Lawrence was warmer in 2021’: federal scientistWarming ocean temperatures — especially in deep water — set more records in the Gulf of St. Lawrence in 2021, according to climate data released Tuesday by the Department of Fisheries and Oceans.
We froze’: What was this 1.3-metre missile doing at an Aboriginal heritage site?
We froze’: What was this 1.3-metre missile doing at an Aboriginal heritage site?
EXCLUSIVE: An unexploded high-tech missile was discovered at a culturally significant Aboriginal heritage site in remote South Australia. Neither the company that is believed to have made it – nor the Department of Defence – have explained how it got there.
SBS, Tuesday 21 December 2021By Steven Trask, Sarah Collard A group of Aboriginal Traditional Owners was inspecting a culturally significant site in remote South Australia when they discovered a high-tech anti-aircraft missile, a joint investigation by SBS News and NITV can reveal.
The 1.32-metre missile is believed to have been built by a subsidiary of Swedish weapons maker Saab and was found at a registered heritage site called Lake Hart West, about 40 kilometres from the small town of Woomera, in January this year.
Woomera is home to one of the largest weapons ranges in the world and the missile appears to be a similar model to those tested by Australia’s Department of Defence near the town in 2019.
Lake Hart West is important to the Kokatha people of the Western Desert region of South Australia; it is scattered with artefacts, historic shelters and tool-making sites.
“It startled us. There were four of us and we froze about five metres away from it,” says Kokatha man Andrew Starkey, who registered Lake Hart West as a heritage site with the South Australian government in the early 2000s.
“We were worried that there could be other missiles covered by the sand and in the bushes.
“There are over 20 heritage features all within a one-kilometre radius. There are rock engravings only a couple of kilometres away – it’s only through luck that that was not destroyed.”
The conservation of Aboriginal heritage sites has been under intense scrutiny since mining company Rio Tinto blew up the 46,000-year-old Juukan Gorge caves in Western Australia in May 2020.
An inquiry into the disaster found that existing state and Commonwealth laws were failing to protect Aboriginal heritage areas.
The Defence Department maintains it does not test weapons at culturally significant Aboriginal sites. But neither the department nor Saab have addressed questions over why the missile was found at Lake Hart West………………………………………
Human rights lawyer John Podgorelec has been representing the Starkeys as they pursue a complaint under OECD guidelines that govern “responsible business conduct” by foreign companies operating in Australia.
The Australian National Contact Point, which runs the process, said a complaint had been received against an “Australian-based enterprise” in the “defence sector”.
SBS News and NITV have confirmed the complaint relates to Saab.
An entry on the OECD complaint database reads: “Specifically, the issues relate to the discovery of an unexploded ordinance in South Australia by the Starkey Traditional Owners, resulting in risk to personal safety and artefacts of cultural significance.”………… https://www.sbs.com.au/news/we-froze-what-was-this-1-3-metre-missile-doing-at-an-aboriginal-heritage-site/3c67ce10-15ed-442c-b735-cea3673e5caa
Proposed National Radioactive Waste Facility: Implications and Options for South Australia
Proposed National Radioactive Waste Facility: Implications and Options for SA, https://www.conservationsa.org.au/kimba_report, After a controversial process that has torn apart the previously close-knit Kimba community, Federal Resources Minister Keith Pitt (Liberal National Party – Qld) has formally declared the Napandee area near Kimba in the Eyre Peninsula grain belt as the proposed site for Australia’s first dedicated national radioactive waste facility – the National Radioactive Waste Management Facility (NRWMF).
The planned facility is not consistent with international best practice, and waste will be placed in temporary storage without a plan for what happens next.
The government says this will take decades while the federal nuclear regulator says it could take a century. Yet, there is a safer and cheaper alternative: keep the waste where most is currently stored at the Australian Nuclear Science and Technology Organisation’s (ANSTO) Lucas Heights facility south of Sydney, and only move it once a long-term site to house Australia’s long-lived intermediate-level waste is identified.
It simply does not make sense for the waste to be sent on a temporary basis to SA. Especially as it is fiercely opposed by the Aboriginal Traditional Owners – the Barngarla people and many regional grain producers. Further, the federal plan is illegal under SA law.
1.This month
International Uranium Film Festival Berlin 2022 Friday, October 7th 2022 – Zeiss Large Planetarium
8.30 p.m TOTEM & ORE
Australia, 2019, Director & Producer: John Mandelberg, Executive Producer: Bozic Wongar,Actress and speaker: Ursula Yovich, documentary, with German subtitles, 97 min.
German premiereThe film begins in 1945 with the atomic annihilation of Hiroshima and ends with the Fukushima meltdown in 2011. It examines the aftermath of atomic bombs, nuclear weapons tests and the Fukushima reactor accident. Radioactive fallout from the British nuclear tests in the 1950s and 1960s at Emu Field and Maralinga in South Australia not only contaminated large parts of the Australian outback. Radioactive rain also reached cities like Adelaide. Above all, however, the Aborigines have suffered from this to this day.
“Totem & Ore” tells the historical tragedies and fears from the point of view of witnesses of the atomic bombing and atomic bomb tests. Indigenous people, activists, filmmakers, artists, actors, writers, composers, doctors and professors all have their say. Ursula Yovich, a Native American actress, appeals: “There must be no more place in the world for nuclear weapons!”
Totem & Ore received a special recognition from the 2022 International Uranium Film Festival
National anti-AUKUS Coalition website
https://antiaukuscoalition.org/ National day of action planned for September 16
FIFTY SHADES OF TRUTH – the Grayzone
Max Blumenthal & Aaron Mate slam corporate media disinfo at Collision Toronto
Antinuclear 