Natalie Wasley, Beyond Nuclear Initiative, 19 June 14 Some fantastic news today- the Commonwealth Government has committed not to pursue plans for a national radioactive waste dump at Muckaty, 120km north of Tennant Creek in the Northern Territory!
Lawyers from Maurice Blackburn Social Justice Practice have just announced the exciting development in Melbourne and a delegation of Muckaty Traditional Owners travelled to Alice Springs for a press conference that has just concluded.
The announcement comes mid-way through the Federal Court trial examining the process under which the nomination of Muckaty was made by the Northern Land Council and accepted by the Commonwealth Government in 2007.
Two weeks of the trial were completed with hearings in Melbourne, Tennant Creek and on country at Muckaty outstation. The Northern Land Council and Commonwealth Government have agreed to settle with the Applicants by committing not to act on the proposal or nomination, so the hearings scheduled for Darwin (June 23-July 4) have been cancelled.
A blog of the court proceedings is online at www.beyondnuclearinitiative.com/blog and photos posted atwww.beyondnuclearinitiative.com/photos
This campaign has followed the successful campaign by the Kupi Piti Kungka Tjuta to stop a nuclear dump in SA and been built from the ground up in Tennant Creek with help from supporters across the NT. Over the last 7 years, the community has marched in Tennant Creek every year, hosted trade union delegations, written songs and poems, made films and toured photo exhibitions. People have travelled tirelessly around the country to build awareness and support, having conversations over cups of tea in regional areas and walking the corridors of Canberra Parliament House to lobby Ministers.
The community used the May 25 rally and media attention on the federal court proceedings to reiterate they would continue campaigning until the dump was stopped- including blocking the road if needed.
So the deadly news is now public – please tell everyone that together we dumped the Muckaty plan! Traditional Owners and the broader community in Tennant Creek are very excited and relieved and looking forward to a big celebration in the coming few weeks.
We will then set about collating photos, footage and other materials from the campaign, so stay tuned for the call out to copy and/or send these to the Arid Lands Environment Centre for archiving.
There is a lot more to say but we are still all a bit shocked and processing the news so will send more updates and reflections in the coming week.
Media release from today is attached.
I was asked to finish this note with a huge thanks to everyone who has been part of this campaign and supported the Muckaty mob to be heard- every action, letter, conversation, trip to Tennant, fundraising gig and movie night has helped bring about this victory!!
Muckaty will be nuclear free!
June 19, 2014
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Muckaty nuclear dump scrapped Land council abandons Muckaty dump push SMH, June 19, 2014 Neda Vanovac”…… the Northern Land Council has decided to abandon its push to locate a national nuclear waste dump on Muckaty Station in the Northern Territory. The NLC announced on Thursday that it had settled with opponents of the dump and that Federal Court proceedings would be dismissed. Settlement talks had been going on since the trial began earlier this month, NLC CEO Joe Morrison said.
Last week, the court travelled from Melbourne to Tennant Creek to take evidence from a number of Aboriginal clans from the Muckaty Land Trust, located 120km north of the town, who said their wishes were overruled by a fifth clan and the NLC, who worked together to nominate the site.
The groups have been battling one another for seven years since Muckaty was formally nominated in 2007……..
Whether a dump would be located on Aboriginal land is up to the Commonwealth and traditional owners, Mr Morrison said…….The $12 million that had been on the table from the federal government as compensation for the community will not be paid, and a second site on Muckaty will not be put forward.
Both sides will pay their own legal costs.
Whether a dump would be located on Aboriginal land is up to the Commonwealth and traditional owners, Mr Morrison said. The federal government has agreed to an NLC request the site no longer be considered, and it will hold discussions to find an alternative, Minister for Industry Ian MacFarlane said in a statement.
“If a suitable site is not identified through these discussions the government will commence a new tender process for nominations for another site.”
Lawyers for the traditional land owners at Muckaty Station said their clients were overjoyed with the outcome.
“Every step of the process was opposed by people on the ground, and that may be one reason why they’ve decided to no longer rely on litigation,” Maurice Blackburn lawyer Elizabeth O’Shea told reporters in Melbourne. http://news.smh.com.au/breaking-news-national/muckaty-nuclear-dump-scrapped-20140619-3af4c.html
June 19, 2014
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Muckaty Court Case heads to Darwin http://caama.com.au/muckaty-court-case 17 June 14 Damian Williams The federal court case on the planned Muckaty nuclear waste dump has now adjourned. Paddy Gibson for the Jumbunna Indigenous House of Learning is following the trial:
The court is now adjourned. The last sitting was on Saturday. The judge travelled again out to Muckaty. Aboriginal people thanked the court judge for coming to Muckaty out-station coming to country to hear from the elders directly and other Aboriginal people who are opposing nuclear waste dumping on their land. The case will now move to Darwin to take evidence from Northern Land Council
Crucial day of evidence, we heard from – a very senior man, Dick Foster known as reliable authority on who owns this land. NLC was relying on this man, Dick Foster. In their early nomination they actually used Mr Foster’s name. Whereas Dick has been crystal clear since 2007 that the NLC is wrong The NLC are relying on the wrong idea that a small piece of Muckaty belongs to just on e family group. Not alright for this family to sell one piece of the and made it clear that this was wrong. The anthropology used was not correct. They needed to slow the process down. NLC should have heard from all of the groups on how decisions would be made for that small piece of land. NLC forged ahead in 2007 far too quickly according to Mr Foster. Sold Muckaty out without the consent of Aboriginal owners. Far too much pressure.
Needed to encourage proper discussion on how that should be done. Sold Muckaty out
His evidence crucial. Process was far too rushed.
He made it clear that there was a lot of pressure on senior people like himself. with a number of government people on senior Aborigines,
That evidence was very significant. No one in this case is questioning the cultural knowledge of Mr Foster, though not a traditional owner himself. No question that he is not an authentic witness on Aboriginal culture, and the land around Muckaty
The NLC and government should back off now. They really should listen to these people. People have been saying – “You’ve got it wrong. You’re rushing us”
The other point about the evidence that came out on the country – people have not been told the real story, right back to 2007. Even the individuals who nominated the land were never told. had no idea of the true nature of what was planned. No one was ever told that there could be accidents. Those sorts of question are in the legislation, but this was never explained to the people. People were not told of possibility of drastic accident. People were never properly informed that they may lose their land forever.
The government is trying to say that it’s only for 200 years. But there are provisions sin the legislation, that the government could hold that land forever. Never explained to any traditional owners in the consultation process. That is clear from the evidence which has come out. They’re trying to say that this will be at temporary facility.
Relying on faulty flawed anthropology. Enormous amount of pressure was put on the traditional owners. They were relying on faulty, flawed anthropology. Iy was rushed through inn order to do a deal. Rights systematically stripped away from the traditional owners. Very strong case coming out now from the people who are opposed to the nuclear waste dump.. Quite shocking to learn how the government and NLC have treated these people, through this process.
Evidence is now wound up in Tennant Creek and Muckaty
Next is a trip to Darwin. The focus now will be on the NLC and the Commonwealth. They will be subject to the same cross examination that the Aboriginal people had to go through.
The Aboriginal people are happy and proud with what they have achieved. They have been so strong, so articulate.- that they have stood up to these non indigenous very highly paid, highly educated barristers for the Land Council and government attacking them in the witness stand. Some of the Aboriginal witnesses were cross examined for 3 hours – with lawyers for the government and NLC trying to trick them trap them The truth has come out on how this nomination came about back in 2007. Evidence is now wound up
We’ve had to go through 7 years of heartache, pain, stress sickness, and many people have died. A lot of people not alive now to give evidence on how they were treated. A very sad stressful thing that has happened to this community. In Darwin the pressure will be on the NLC and Government.
June 18, 2014
Posted by Christina Macpherson |
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AUDIO Report on Day 8 of Muckaty nuclear waste dump court case. http://caama.com.au/wp-content/uploads/2014/06/Muckaty-Day-8.mp3
The Muckaty mob have been so strong in this court-room. It’s an intimidating system. Gladys Brown – strong indigenous woman, grilled by white men in an intimidating manner. Australian govt and NLC didn’t want the court case to come to Muckaty and Northern Territory. Awful to watch the NRC lawyer denigrating the cultural knowledge of these Aboriginal women. Trying to trip them up all the time – about their dreaming stories. But these witnesses are holding their ground, sticking to their guns. That the Land council anf govt did not listen to them A very disturbing process to watch.
Confronting for these women to be surrounded by white men – challenging their cultural knowledge.
White law is given absolute upper hand, through these whole proceedings.. It’s the Aboriginal women who are on trial. These women being put through the ringer. No acknowledgement of the strength of the law and knowledge in this area.
So much is being revealed about the consultation process.
One of the darkest aspects – The government and lawyers always emphasise the low level waste – medical equipment etc. They never talk the spent nuclear fuel – from Lucas Heights, currently overseas, but coming back as its the most dangerous industrial waste of all. It is never discussed in detail
Very obvious that in the early consultations – the people were not told a true account of what nuclear waste is. None of this contained a genuine discussion about the spent nuclear fuel rods.
As soon as the traditional owners started to get information, from the Environment Centre, they started action against the dump. From Day one it should have been explained. It was never brought up by the Northern Land Council. The NLC claim the protest comes from outsiders. Not so.
June 16, 2014
Posted by Christina Macpherson |
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Nuclear dump will end heritage links:court The West Australian , NEDA VANOVAC June 12, 2014,An Aboriginal woman who opposes the construction of a nuclear waste dump in the Northern Territory says it’s a stepping stone to Australia storing the world’s waste.
The Federal Court is sitting in Tennant Creek to hear from members of four clans who say they were not properly consulted by the Northern Land Council (NLC) and the Commonwealth, which they say wrongfully acknowledged the Lauder family of the Ngapa clan as traditional owners of the site, 120km north of the town.
The court must sift through the criss-crossing songlines and dreamings of the seven clans who claim land within the 221,000ha Muckaty Station to decide who owns the two square kilometres that would house the facility.
Marlene Bennett told the court on Thursday that if the dump went ahead, the local people would lose their connection to heritage forever. “The world wants to store their nuclear waste somewhere. I have no doubt in my mind that parcel of land will get bigger and bigger. We won’t be able to get there any more, hunt there any more. It’s going to impact on the whole area,” she said.
“The songs, stories, ceremonies, culture, everyone is dispossessed again.”
Her uncle was part of a group of traditional owners taken to see the Lucas Heights storage facility in Sydney in 2006, but Ms Bennett says he thought they were planning to build a rubbish dump to create jobs for the community.
“(His) understanding was a commercial rubbish tip, which is quite different to a nuclear facility,” she said. “To see him so distressed, saying, ‘We agreed to this, but we didn’t understand what it was about’. Obviously they weren’t informed correctly.” She said indigenous people were often too intimidated to speak out in the face of authority.
“I’m concerned about the level of information that was imparted, not just showing the community the dollar signs,” Ms Bennett said.
Whether the federal government and the NLC consulted the community properly is a key element of the case…….https://au.news.yahoo.com/thewest/national/a/24224338/nuclear-dump-will-end-heritage-links-court/
June 14, 2014
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The Commonwealth Radioactive Waste Management Act (2005) states that even if an Aboriginal community or group that might be affected by the proposed nomination has not been consulted and does not consent, the nomination can go ahead.
And even if Justice Anthony North rules that the NLC behaved improperly, the facility might still be built at Muckaty.
Nuclear waste dump may still go ahead https://au.news.yahoo.com/thewest/national/a/24233270/nuclear-waste-dump-may-still-go-ahead/ NEDA VANOVACJune 13, 2014, The news is always a little old at the Tennant Creek newsagency.It takes a while for the papers to be transported to the town, 1000km south of Darwin and about 500km north of Alice Springs in the rocky, semi-arid Barkly tablelands.
At 283,648 square kilometres, the tablelands are one-fifth of the Northern Territory and bigger than New Zealand. However, even eight years after the battle over the proposed Muckaty waste dump began, this dispute is anything but old news. The Federal Court this week took evidence from locals in what many hope will be a long-awaited resolution to a situation that has split the town.
In 2006, a small patch of land on Muckaty Station, 120km north of Tennant Creek, was put forward by the Northern Land Council (NLC) to the Commonwealth government to become Australia’s national radioactive waste storage facility. The council had the permission of the Lauder family of the Ngapa clan, which it determined were the rightful owners of that spot.
However, seven clans lay claim to land within the 221,000ha station, and all have dreamings and songlines that overlap and intersect, meaning the court will have to untangle what it can to determine which group can claim to the roughly two square kilometres that would house the facility if it goes ahead.
The case is arguably the biggest of its kind since the Jabiluka mine blockades of the 1990s. Continue reading →
June 14, 2014
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The judgment does not appear to have been published yet.
However, The Daily Telegraph reported on 13 June 2014:
THE controversial Wallarah 2 coal mine, which ICAC target Nick Di Girolamo lobbied for on behalf of Korean mining company Kores, has been put on hold and may never go ahead after a Land and Environment Court decision.
The decision was a win for the local Aboriginal Land Council, which had fought the mine on its land.
Planning Minister Pru Goward made clear last night she would not intervene in the matter, releasing a statement saying: “I have considered the judgment and I accept the decision of the court.”….
The proposed Wallarah 2 longwall coal mine put forward by the Korean-owned mining company Kores Australia Pty Ltd and, its joint venture partners Catherine Hill Resources Pty Ltd, Kyungdong Australia Pty Ltd, SK Networks Resources Australia (Wyong) Pty Ltd, SK Networks Resources Pty Ltd and progressed by Wyong Coal Pty Ltd (T/A Wyong Areas Coal Joint Venture), had already failed basic environmental and risk management standards as the 4 June 2014 NSW Planning and Assessment Commission Final Report summary indicates:…..http://northcoastvoices.blogspot.com.au/2014/06/darkinjung-local-aboriginal-land.html
June 14, 2014
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Muckaty 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.
“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
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Nuclear 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.
The 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.
“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
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Nuclear 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.
Milwayi 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
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Indigenous 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
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Muckaty 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
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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”. Dr 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
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Muckaty Court report Day 3- June 4 when is a dump not a dump? By Padraic Gibson Beyond Nuclear Initiative, 5 June 14 “…...Mr Merkel handed up to the court two anthropologist reports completed by the NLC specifically for the waste dump nomination in 2006. Mr Merkel argued there were differences between the first report, prepared exclusively by the NLC anthropologists, and the second, which had been both “heavily edited” and “rewritten” by NLC principal lawyer Ron Levy, despite his signature being absent…….
More significant than an argument about who has primary responsibility however, is the emphasis in the original report on shared responsibility for sites across Muckaty by all clan groups. Mr Yarrow argued that this fundamental principle that underpins the land grant had been abandoned by the NLC in their nomination of the site on Muckaty……
Despite the focus of the legal proceedings on the alleged misconduct of the NLC, from the perspective of the campaign against the Muckaty dump, the Commonwealth submissions provided an important reminder that the central problem here is the discriminatory actions of the government in targeting impoverished Aboriginal communities for some of Australia’s most toxic industrial waste.
The genesis of the Muckaty dump nomination is the Commonwealth push to establish a waste dump on Aboriginal land. The court heard evidence of Commonwealth representatives starting to attend full council meetings of the Northern Land Council in late 2005, to pitch the idea of a dump to Aboriginal land owners……..
As Traditional Owners have consistently pointed out – if this stuff is so safe, why do you want to put it so far away from the cities?
The second ideological argument put strongly by the Commonwealth, both in their submissions to court and in their presentations to Traditional Owners during consultations, is that the waste dump is needed to allow for the continued operation of nuclear medicine in Australia. This argument has been comprehensively rebuffed by health professionals, such as Dr Michael Fonda from the Public Health Association, who has highlighted the cruelty of making Traditional Owners, who live in communities that suffer from developing world health conditions, feel guilty that somehow their opposition to a waste dump would be an impediment to others receiving health care.
See for example the short video: Nuclear Furphies and Political Follies……..
No mention was made about provisions in the 2005 Radioactive Waste Management Act which stipulate that the Commonwealth will not hand back any land that had been contaminated. This also ignores the fact that the “low level” waste is set be buried, with no intention of recovery.
The nature of the waste dump then, is shaping up to be a central issue in the case……..
In my discussions with Muckaty Traditional owners over the last seven years, key witnesses relied upon by the Commonwealth have strongly rejected the assertion that they ever consented to the waste dump, or ever said the decision should rest with the narrow family group in question. Next week they will have a chance to be heard directly, as the court relocates to the Northern Territory for hearings both at Muckaty itself and in Tennant Creek http://beyondnuclearinitiative.com/muckaty-court-report-day-3-june-4/
June 6, 2014
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Dr 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.
Antinuclear 