Australia’s doctors call for a climate-focused COVID-19 recovery plan
 Medical groups call for a climate-focused COVID-19 recovery plan, https://thenewdaily.com.au/news/2020/08/11/medical-groups-climate-focused-covid-19-recovery/ Dominica Sanda Many of the medical professionals on the frontline of the COVID-19 pandemic are urging the Australian government to also act on another health crisis – climate change.Australia’s peak medical groups representing GPs, emergency doctors, obstetricians and psychiatrists have written to Prime Minister Scott Morrison urging him to make climate change action a part of the COVID-19 economic response.
The letter, co-ordinated by the Doctors for the Environment Australia, notes the COVID-19 pandemic and climate change are two global health emergencies the nation must respond to. make climate change action a part of the COVID-19 economic response. The letter, co-ordinated by the Doctors for the Environment Australia, notes the COVID-19 pandemic and climate change are two global health emergencies the nation must respond to. make climate change action a part of the COVID-19 economic response. The letter, co-ordinated by the Doctors for the Environment Australia, notes the COVID-19 pandemic and climate change are two global health emergencies the nation must respond to. The mental health impacts are likely to linger for decades, the medical groups say. The doctors argue fossil-fuel combustion is a major contributor to air pollution, while water supplies and food-growing capacity are also threatened by climate change. They’ve urged the federal government to take a health-centred approach in its COVID-19 recovery by transitioning away from fossil fuels, coal, and gas and instead turn to renewables, electric vehicles, and public transport powered by electricity. “Redirecting funds from fossil fuel subsidies towards the production of renewable energy would produce cleaner air, significantly reduce emissions and power an economic recovery,” the letter said. “Climate change is a public health emergency. Failing to mitigate and prepare for climate change risks potentially catastrophic health and economic impacts.” The Royal Australasian College of Physicians said it was vital climate change and its impacts on health are central to the COVID-19 recovery plan. “While COVID-19 poses the most immediate threat to our health, the serious and long-term health impacts of climate change still remain,” spokeswoman Associate Professor Linda Selvey said in a statement. The Australasian College for Emergency Medicine noted the lockdowns imposed on communities during the pandemic reduced CO2 emissions significantly. “The net result was remarkable, and it shows that where there is political will, it is possible to reduce emissions,” ACEM Public Health and Disaster Committee chair Dr Lai Heng Foong said. “We need collective action, including government response to reduce our CO2 emissions, transition to renewable energy sources and build community resilience. Our future is at stake, and we need action now.” |
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Four more states ratify Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons, and Australians commemorate anniversary of atomic bombing
The Irish Foreign Minister, Simon Coveney, said: “I am proud that Ireland today ratifies the Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons … It honours the memory of the victims of nuclear weapons and the key role played by survivors in providing living testimony and calling on us as successor generations to eliminate nuclear weapons.”
The Minister of Foreign Affairs of Saint Kitts and Nevis, Mark Brantley, said on Sunday “The bombing of Nagasaki was the apogee of human cruelty and inhumanity. As a small nation committed to global peace, Saint Kitts and Nevis can see no useful purpose for nuclear armaments in today’s world. May all nations work towards peace and mutual respect for all mankind.”
In Australia, the Hiroshima and Nagasaki anniversaries were honoured by activities and events on and off line, with the demand for Australia to join the nuclear weapon ban treaty loud, clear and persistent.
The Irish Foreign Minister, Simon Coveney, said: “I am proud that Ireland today ratifies the Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons … It honours the memory of the victims of nuclear weapons and the key role played by survivors in providing living testimony and calling on us as successor generations to eliminate nuclear weapons.”
The Minister of Foreign Affairs of Saint Kitts and Nevis, Mark Brantley, said on Sunday “The bombing of Nagasaki was the apogee of human cruelty and inhumanity. As a small nation committed to global peace, Saint Kitts and Nevis can see no useful purpose for nuclear armaments in today’s world. May all nations work towards peace and mutual respect for all mankind.”
In Australia, the Hiroshima and Nagasaki anniversaries were honoured by activities and events on and off line, with the demand for Australia to join the nuclear weapon ban treaty loud, clear and persistent.
special webinar on Tuesday night titled “Remembering the Atomic Bombs: History, Memory and Politics in Australia, Japan and the Pacific” featuring one of our wonderful board members Dimity Hawkins. Click here for info and registration.
Problematic selection of “community” in decision to site nuclear waste dump at Kimba. South Australia
Kazzi Jai Fight To Stop A Nuclear Waste Dump In South Australia 9 Aug 20
There’s something that has been bothering me for some time…..This is a copy of a table from page 9 of the Phase 1 Document released in April 2016 by the Minister at that time Josh Frydenberg. Even with the “service towns” included for some of them – and of those, some of them DEFINITELY OUTSIDE the so called 50 km radius of the sites….doesn’t it seem interesting that the LEAST POPULATED SITES remained those IN SOUTH AUSTRALIA!
It was ULTIMATELY decided by Matt Canavan, as Minister, that Kimba would only have its Council boundary as the community ballot area, and not have the 50km radius involved at all!
And remember during all of this that the South Australian Royal Commission into the Nuclear Fuel Cycle was running AT THE SAME TIME – March 2015 to May 2016!
No wonder people thought that the nuclear dumps were one in the same! And they had thought it had ALL been dealt with when the Citizen’s Jury came back with an over two-thirds majority (70%) saying NO MEANS NO!https://www.facebook.com/groups/941313402573199/
Why Kalgoorlie-Boulder wants a Malaysian rare earths plant and its radioactive waste
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Why Kalgoorlie-Boulder wants a Malaysian rare earths plant and its radioactive waste https://www.abc.net.au/news/2020-08-10/lynas-building-rare-earth-processing-plant-kalgoorlie/12354150?fbclid=IwAR1P8stcOV05Un8BjuU2zv2fp1W1u3qnVaIvgwZSxJY3MkiIKg2eEfa_0G8
As the saying goes, “One man’s trash is another man’s treasure” — so why is a city in outback Western Australia embracing plans for a multi-million-dollar processing plant that Malaysia wants banned? Key points:
Lynas Corporation produces rare earth minerals, which are essential for technological devices such as smartphones, wind turbines and defence weapons systems. The company mines rare earths at Mount Weld in WA’s northern Goldfields and ships them to Malaysia for processing. The cracking and leaching part of the process creates low-level radioactive waste, a subject of controversy and protests in the Asian nation. In February, the Malaysian Government renewed Lynas’s operating licence with some key conditions, including that it must build a cracking and leaching plant elsewhere by mid-2023. Lynas would then be banned from importing materials containing naturally occurring radioactive material; the company still plans to use Malaysia for later stages of its processing. Race is on to build Kalgoorlie plantWhen the City of Kalgoorlie-Boulder heard Lynas was looking for a new site, it pursued the company and convinced it to move to the region. City chief executive John Walker said the plant would be a “game changer” for Kalgoorlie and help diversify the local economy, which was reliant on gold mining. Lynas has committed to using a residential workforce instead of fly-in fly-out workers, creating about 500 jobs in the construction phase and about 100 permanent roles.
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David Noonan: a new Submission to Senate Environment Inquiry – on BHP Olympic Dam
David Noonan, Independent Environment Campaigner and Consultant, has provided a “BHP Olympic Dam 
Case Study” submission to a federal parliament JSCNA Inquiry, which has now made public by the Committee: “A case study on BHP Olympic Dam mine in SA under the Prime Minister’s ‘fast track’ EPBC Act mine expansion Assessment and Approvals“.
FYI – This submission includes a Joint ENGO Briefing Paper “BHP LEGAL PRIVILEGES IN THE OLYMPIC DAM INDENTURE ACT 1982 OVERRIDE SA LAWS” (June 2019) and refers to the Joint ENO Recommendations & Submission to federal government on Olympic Dam mine in Dec 2019.
David Noonan will be variously distributing this submission over the weekend – welcome to discuss any related matter if and as may suit & as raised in the sub.
In addition to the 1982 Indenture over riding Aboriginal Heritage and the PM’s ‘fast track’ assessment & approvals to BHP, my submission raises required protection of GAB Springs and associated cultural heritage from BHP water mining and proposed doubling of GAB water extraction for Olympic Dam mine expansion to 50 million litres a day (annual average) for a 25 year period.
See the JSCNA Inquiry Home Page:
https://www.aph.gov.au/Parliamentary_Business/Committees/Joint/Northern_Australia/CavesatJuukanGorge
Submissions:
Submission No.73 Mr David Noonan B.Sc., M.Env.St. (PDF 330 KB)
https://www.aph.gov.au/DocumentStore.ashx?id=f6b111ae-8125-4cb0-8edb-6f64dbd613c2&subId=690802
Australia’s nuclear lobby targets young people, using Facebook and Instagram
Mining lobby pushes young people to embrace nuclear power , Financial Review, Aaron Patrick, 7 Aug 20,The mining industry has been wrestling for years with how to change one of the most entrenched rules in energy policy: a moratorium on nuclear power.Now, based on insights from a market researcher known for its political insights, the Minerals Council of Australia has begun a campaign to win over a group that could lead Australia to a nuclear industry: young people.
On Sunday, a week ago, 17 different ads started appearing on Facebook and Instagram promoting nuclear as safe, reliable and good for the environment.
Produced by the Mineral Council’s own staff, the ads are based on polling by JWS Research, which estimates support for nuclear power is 40 per cent, some 29 per cent of people are neutral or unsure, and women and people aged 18 to 34 are the least informed about nuclear power. Some aren’t even sure there is a connection between nuclear power and uranium, of which Australia is one of the world’s bigger producers.
After conducting focus groups and an online survey last year, JWS Research told the Minerals Council that support could rise to 55 per cent, or even higher, by providing more information to cou nter the reputational damage of the Three Mile Island, Chernobyl and Fukushima accidents.
“There is an obvious opportunity to educate Australians about nuclear power’s credentials,” JWS said in a report for the lobby group. “Low-level concerns about the cost of nuclear could be countered and its reliability and zero-emissions credentials should be promoted.”
The ad campaign isn’t a slick, big-budget production. Six ads, each about 1½ minutes long, contain statistics and information in graphical form set to music. “What are we afraid of,” says nuclear energy is the safest source of baseload electricity based on output, and no one died of radiation poisoning in the Fukushima meltdown in Japan in 2011.
Eleven other ads feature interviews about one minute long with experts and advocates discussing nuclear waste, medicine and reactor design at a nuclear conference in Sydney…….
In December, a parliamentary committee urged the government to legalise modern nuclear reactors, and in May Energy Minister Angus Taylor included nuclear among energy sources the government will study for investment. https://www.afr.com/companies/energy/mining-lobby-pushes-young-people-to-embrace-nuclear-power-20200729-p55gp
Australia’s ICAN and Conservation Council of Western Australia commemorate Hiroshima Day
On August 5th, people from across Australia gathered, via Zoom, to commemorate the nuclear bombing of Hiroshima, and to hear speakers from ICAN Autralia (International Campaign to Abolish Nucleat Weapons).
Medlissa Clarke spoke of the human effects of this catastrophe, and of the efforts over time, towards disarmament. The biggest leap forward in this has been, in 2017, the U.N. Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons. The Treaty now has over 200 nations signed up, with 40 ratifications – not far from the 50 required to make it international law.
Most Australians want a nuclear weapons free world.But Australia’s policy does endorse nuclear weapons. A future Labor government might change that.
Dimity Hawkins described the misery experienced by the Japanese, the agonising stories of the survivors. Since Hiroshima, the nuclear bombs developed are greatly stronger, and have been tested over many years, on the Marshall Islands, on Maralinga, South Australia, and on other Pacific Islands, in nuclear colonialism that has never properly been cleaned up. Australia is part of that nuclear chain. But now,the survivors are speaking out. Red Cross and Red Crescent, the world’s greatest non government emergency service is strongly behind the Treaty movement, and the indigenous people, particularly Australia’s Aboriginals .
Former Senator Scott Ludlam commemorated the Hibakusha, and the impact of the nuclear weapons industry on indigenous people world-wide. He drew attention to the ?proud statement of U.S. Strategic Command – that their nuclear weapons are to be used in a “safe, secure and lethal way”.
The Treaty was an Australian initiative, brought about by the work of, at first, a few, who by-passed official systems, and went out getting signatures, setting up ICAN, which became an international movement.-, – showing that people can do this, have an effect and an influence. As cities will be the places to bear the catastrophe of nuclear annihilation, many Mayors of many have City Councils have signed up to the Treaty. The Treaty shows that no-one can now claim that nuclear weapons are acceptable, in the same way as biological and chemical warfare are unacceptable.
For information on the continuing CCWA webinar series go to http://www.ccwa.org.au/yellowcake_country_webinar_series
Another Hiroshima is Coming…Unless We Stop It Now
Today, an unprecedented campaign of propaganda is shooing us all off like rabbits. We are not meant to question the daily torrent of anti-Chinese rhetoric, which is rapidly overtaking the torrent of anti-Russia rhetoric. Anything Chinese is bad, anathema, a threat: Wuhan …. Huawei. How confusing it is when “our” most reviled leader says so.
The target is China. Today, more than 400 American military bases almost encircle China with missiles, bombers, warships and nuclear weapons. From Australia north through the Pacific to South-East Asia, Japan and Korea and across Eurasia to Afghanistan and India, the bases form, as one US strategist told me, “the perfect noose”.
In the Sydney Morning Herald, tireless China-basher Peter Hartcher described those who spread Chinese influence in Australia as “rats, flies, mosquitoes and sparrows”. Hartcher, who favourably quotes the American demagogue Steve Bannon, likes to interpret the “dreams” of the current Chinese elite, to which he is apparently privy. These are inspired by yearnings for the “Mandate of Heaven” of 2,000 years ago. Ad nausea.
To combat this “mandate”, the Australian government of Scott Morrison has committed one of the most secure countries on earth, whose major trading partner is China, to hundreds of billions of dollars’ worth of American missiles that can be fired at China.
At a quarter past eight on the morning of August 6, 1945, she and her silhouette were burned into the granite.
I stared at the shadow for an hour or more, then I walked down to the river where the survivors still lived in shanties.
I met a man called Yukio, whose chest was etched with the pattern of the shirt he was wearing when the atomic bomb was dropped.
He described a huge flash over the city, “a bluish light, something like an electrical short”, after which wind blew like a tornado and black rain fell. “I was thrown on the ground and noticed only the stalks of my flowers were left. Everything was still and quiet, and when I got up, there were people naked, not saying anything. Some of them had no skin or hair. I was certain I was dead.”
Nine years later, I returned to look for him and he was dead from leukaemia.
“No radioactivity in Hiroshima ruin” said The New York Times front page on 13 September, 1945, a classic of planted disinformation. “General Farrell,” reported William H. Lawrence, “denied categorically that [the atomic bomb] produced a dangerous, lingering radioactivity.”
Only one reporter, Wilfred Burchett, an Australian, had braved the perilous journey to Hiroshima in the immediate aftermath of the atomic bombing, in defiance of the Allied occupation authorities, which controlled the “press pack”.
“I write this as a warning to the world,” reported Burchett in the London Daily Express of September 5,1945. Sitting in the rubble with his Baby Hermes typewriter, he described hospital wards filled with people with no visible injuries who were dying from what he called “an atomic plague”.
For this, his press accreditation was withdrawn, he was pilloried and smeared. His witness to the truth was never forgiven.
The atomic bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki was an act of premeditated mass murder that unleashed a weapon of intrinsic criminality. It was justified by lies that form the bedrock of America’s war propaganda in the 21st century, casting a new enemy, and target – China.
During the 75 years since Hiroshima, the most enduring lie is that the atomic bomb was dropped to end the war in the Pacific and to save lives.
“Even without the atomic bombing attacks,” concluded the United States Strategic Bombing Survey of 1946, “air supremacy over Japan could have exerted sufficient pressure to bring about unconditional surrender and obviate the need for invasion. “Based on a detailed investigation of all the facts, and supported by the testimony of the surviving Japanese leaders involved, it is the Survey’s opinion that … Japan would have surrendered even if the atomic bombs had not been dropped, even if Russia had not entered the war [against Japan] and even if no invasion had been planned or contemplated.”
The National Archives in Washington contains documented Japanese peace overtures as early as 1943. None was pursued. A cable sent on May 5, 1945 by the German ambassador in Tokyo and intercepted by the US made clear the Japanese were desperate to sue for peace, including “capitulation even if the terms were hard”. Nothing was done.
The US Secretary of War, Henry Stimson, told President Truman he was “fearful” that the US Air Force would have Japan so “bombed out” that the new weapon would not be able “to show its strength”. Stimson later admitted that “no effort was made, and none was seriously considered, to achieve surrender merely in order not to have to use the [atomic] bomb”.
Stimson’s foreign policy colleagues — looking ahead to the post-war era they were then shaping “in our image”, as Cold War planner George Kennan famously put it — made clear they were eager “to browbeat the Russians with the [atomic] bomb held rather ostentatiously on our hip”. General Leslie Groves, director of the Manhattan Project that made the atomic bomb, testified: “There was never any illusion on my part that Russia was our enemy, and that the project was conducted on that basis.”
The day after Hiroshima was obliterated, President Harry Truman voiced his satisfaction with the “overwhelming success” of “the experiment”.
The “experiment” continued long after the war was over. Between 1946 and 1958, the United States exploded 67 nuclear bombs in the Marshall Islands in the Pacific: the equivalent of more than one Hiroshima every day for 12 years. Continue reading
Call for public release of ANSTO Nuclear Waste Reports and ARPANSA’s Response
To: The Secretary, Senate Standing Economics Legislation Committee of Inquiry National Radioactive Waste Management Amendment Bill 2020 economics.sen@aph.gov.au
RE: David Noonan Supplementary Public Submission No.6.1
Call for public release of ANSTO Nuclear Waste Reports & ARPANSA’s Response; the Department fails test of transparency; and Concern over EPBC Act amendments to affect NRWMF assessment
Dear Secretary
Please consider matters raised in this Supplementary Submission, following my Public Submission No.6. in February 2020.
- Important ANSTO ILW nuclear waste reports due to ARPANSA by 30 June must be made public ASAP – along with the ARPANSA response, to provide for proper public scrutiny in this Inquiry.
- The Department has failed the test of transparency in its treatment of public submissions.
Note: Attachment of the Department’s redacted copy of my submission, to show the extent of redactions made, in blacking out over 50 public source quotations, without a proper basis to do so.
- Concern over proposed rushed changes to the EPBC Act to affect assessment & approvals of the NRWMF.
First: There are public interest concerns the scope of EPBC Act “whole of environment” nuclear action assessments will be replaced by new National Standards based on ARPANSA Codes, with limited “graded” assessments and use of pro-nuclear industry standards of IAEA origin.
Second: It should be no surprise that a Bill to amend the EPBC Act transfers EPBC Act assessment and approval of the NRWMF over to ARPANS Act Licensing.
Recommendation of this Supplementary Submission on assessment and approval of the NRWMF:
This Inquiry should investigate and report on the potential impact of pending changes to the EPBC Act on assessment & approval of the NRWMF, as flagged for introduction in a Bill in late August.
The Committee should call for EPBC Act “whole of environment” assessment of the NRWMF to be retained. The Committee should oppose potential transfer of EPBC Act environmental assessment of the NRWMF over to ARAPNS Act Licensing, Codes and Guides and limited “graded” assessment.
In Conclusion: The Committee must at a minimum reject the Bill’s proposal to legislate for specified siting of the NRWMF, and therefore of unnecessary less safe and more insecure imposition of above ground indefinite storage of ILW, at Napandee near Kimba on Eyre Peninsula in South Australia.
Rights to Judicial Review and Procedural Fairness must be retained for public interest reasons.
Please feel free to contact regarding any aspect of this public submission, by Mobile, Text or E-Mail.
Yours sincerely
Mr David J Noonan B.Sc., M.Env.St.
Independent Environment Campaigner and Consultant (ABN Sole Trader)
Napandee nuclear waste dump – potential impact on the neighbouring Pinkawillinie Conservation Park and Gawler Ranges National Park
Kazzi Jai No Nuclear Waste Dump Anywhere in South Australia 5 Aug 20 Not sure if this is relevant or not…but someone (not me, but wish I did) actually accessed FOI regarding the IMPACT or POSSIBLE IMPACT on the neighbouring Pinkawillinie Conservation Park and Gawler Ranges National Park with respect to the proposed Napandee site….and here is the DIIS reply…
Remember that these two parks, although neighbouring in the absolute sense of the definition, were not allowed to put in submissions against the nuclear dump being situated as a neighbour as they are State Owned, and it was decided by DIIS that they could not make a submission.
https://www.environment.sa.gov.au/…/200220-disclosure…
Actually…thinking along those lines…as they are State Owned…shouldn’t the PEOPLE OF SOUTH AUSTRALIA then have a justified say in this dump as VALID DIRECT NEIGHBOURS using the DIIS paradigm? Because these Conservation and National Parks BELONG to the PEOPLE of South Australia!
Oh…that’s right….”Ever Shifting Goalposts”!
https://www.environment.sa.gov.au/…/200220-disclosure… more https://www.facebook.com/groups/1314655315214929/
Labor’s carbon price proves effective climate policy is possible, Julia Gillard says
Labor’s carbon price proves effective climate policy is possible, Julia Gillard says, https://www.sbs.com.au/news/labor-s-carbon-price-proves-effective-climate-policy-is-possible-julia-gillard-says The former prime minister says Australia would be in a different place on climate if the carbon tax had continued.
Former prime minister Julia Gillard doesn’t want climate policy put in the too-hard basket, saying Australia can have a scheme that reduces emissions.
It has been almost 10 years since Ms Gillard’s federal election win, with her minority Labor government introducing a short-lived carbon price scheme that saw emissions drop.
Emissions rose again after the Abbott government repealed the policy.
Ms Gillard says Australia would be in a different place on climate if the scheme had continued.
“One of the frustrations of sliding door moments is, other than in the famous movie, you don’t actually get to go back in time and run the parallel universe,” she told a webinar hosted by the Australia Institute think-tank on Wednesday.
Australia is one of the last developed countries actively considering new coal-fired power stations
“What I hope is remembered from that period and taken forward into the future … is that it’s possible to put in place a scheme in Australia that does reduce our carbon emissions.
“The perceived history is ‘oh we’ve been fighting forever, nothing gets done, it’s all too hard’. I would like us to unpack to the next level: it can get done, it was done.
“We can be informed by past experience and we can get on with the job. So I do want to push back against that sort of received helplessness that it’s all too hard.”
To coincide with the online discussion the Australia Institute released a report mapping where the nation’s emissions would be if the carbon price had remained. “What I hope is remembered from that period and taken forward into the future … is that it’s possible to put in place a scheme in Australia that does reduce our carbon emissions. The think-tank says given the policy reduced emissions by two per cent, levels would be 25 million tonnes lower this year than they are.
Vital questions for Senate Nuclear Waste Committee – on NOMINATIONS, EXPERT EVIDENCE, RADIONUCLIDES, RESET INITIATIVE
The following are some brief extracts from Peter Remta’s Additional submission
HOW DID THE NOMINATIONS COME ABOUT ?……..the government has persistently refused to provide true copies of the nominations claiming personal confidentiality.
This is a puerile excuse as the prescribed nomination form (being attachment B to the government’s own nomination guidelines issued in November 2016) specifically provides that a nominating landowner by its nomination confirms consent to the public disclosure of the nomination
For this reason your committee should request the Department to produce to it for public examination the nominations for Napandee and Lyndhurst and this should quickly establish the veracity of the claims as to the nomination and selection of those sites…..
WHY IS THE SENATE COMMITTEE NOT HEARING EXPERT EXTERNAL EVIDENCE? As it appears that your committee is drawing to the conclusion of its enquiry
I still ask why it has not availed itself of hearing from internationally renowned experts on the management of nuclear waste as I previously suggested………
WHY IS THE COMMITTEE ACCEPTING “EVIDENCE” FROM UNQUALIFIED PERSONS WITHOUT INFORMATION CONFIRMING IT? I am staggered by what was accepted as undisputed evidence by not necessarily qualified persons and without any attempt to gain further information or confirmation.
About agriculture The first of these is how the establishment of the facility at Napandee will give rise to agricultural and scientific research locally without any information to support that claim.
This becomes even more nonsensical when viewed in the light of the most recent protests by agricultural communities in European countries as to the presence of nuclear waste production and disposal……
About jobs. The other is the number of jobs arising through the establishment of the facility and now the new agency based in Adelaide as the numbers suggested are completely outside of the realm of reality.,,,,
WHY NO AUTHORITATIVE AGENCY LIKE AMERICA’s RESET INITIATIVE? While there are several examples that your committee should have studied perhaps the most apt at present is the United States of America initiative and experience known as the Reset of America’s Nuclear Waste Management – Strategies and Policies but for brevity is referred to as the Reset Initiative…… Reset is an effort to untangle the technical, administrative and public concerns in such a way that important issues can be identified,understood and addressed”………….
none of this has occurred with the selection of Napandee……
WHY THE SILENCE ON RADIONUCLIDES? Through a safety case, an implementer reveals its understanding of the management and repository site and how it expects the radionuclides to behave in the repository over long periods of time…………. One important aspect of the risk and safety of storage and disposal of nuclear waste included in the Reset relates to the radionuclides activity of the waste.
Again and despite my raising it previously there has been pointed silence in both the submissions and the personal evidence to your committee of the radionuclides inventories in the intermediate level waste which rather strangely is not known to ARPANSA.
Th Reset Initiative explains that most of the radionuclides in nuclear waste will decay away during the first 1,000 years of management but some will persist for tens of thousands to over one million years…….
It is therefore very difficult to understand how the government has chosen Napandee for its facility before and without any study of the site with regard to the radionuclides and the type of waste as this is the most preliminary and important factor in seeking a suitable location.
The results of the study should also determine the style and nature of the storage and disposal of the nuclear waste.
NEED FOR AN INTERNATIONALLY ACCEPTED PLAN FIRST – NOT “SUBSEQUENT PLANNING” This is something that cannot be cured by so-called subsequent planning and engineering and according to the expert advice should be a determining factor in rejecting the ultimate licence applications for Napandee………
In conclusion the importance and relevance of the Reset Initiative are best gauged by the suggestions that the Reset will be adopted with appropriate variations by IAEA as a principal part of its standards and codes relating to nuclear waste management which by treaty obligations would then become Australia’s prescribed standards.
Senate committee to report by August 31 re Kimba Nuclear Waste Dump plan
[Ed. According to some reports – “Woomera has nothing to worry about, Defence say no, so they are safe.”]
Nuclear waste push for Woomera over Kimba ‘fails pub test’, local mayor says , Michelle Etheridge, Regional Reporter, The Advertiser
A push to swap Kimba for Woomera as the site of a new radioactive waste storage site is disrespectful and “fails the pub test” following years of consultation, the local mayor says.
Kimba Mayor Dean Johnson on Monday told a Senate committee that after much debate, the district was “the best informed community in Australia when it comes to radioactive waste and how it’s handled”.
His comments follow Senator Patrick’s suggestion that the contentious storage facility, planned for farming property Napandee, near Kimba, be built at Woomera instead.
“Our community has engaged and invested in the process for a really long time and to throw it in another location now, like Woomera, is just disrespectful on so many levels,” Mr Johnson said.
“It’s a bad idea that fails the pub test and the common sense test.”
Senator Patrick has said Federal Parliament should be given a choice to build the dump in the remote and highly-secure Woomera Protection area, where low and intermediate level waste has been stored for decades. However, Defence has argued building the facility at Woomera would “not align with Australia’s strategic interests”.
Kimba stands to receive a $31 million funding package under the plans.
Mr Johnson said the facility would deliver a new industry for the Eyre Peninsula town, and help the area “not just survive, but thrive”.
The Barngarla Determination Aboriginal Corporation have opposed the legislation on the basis that it removes the organisation’s right to seek a judicial review of the Government’s decision to go ahead with the site.
Its chairman Jason Bilney asked the committee to consider the impacts of a decision to go ahead as planned, despite traditional landowners objecting.
“What does that say to indigenous people – we’ve won our country but we still don’t have a right to say what we need to about our country? It’s very disrespectful to the community and our elders,” he said.
Kimba Council last year ran a poll on whether locals supported the waste plan, but traditional landowners not living in the area were excluded.
Meantime, No Radioactive Waste on Agricultural Land in Kimba or SA president Peter Woolford said the waste site should be built somewhere it posed no risk to agriculture. “The sad thing that’s been forgotten here is the impact on people – people are thinking about whether they’re going to move out because of their mental health,” he said.
“We’re (also) trying to stand up for people outside of Kimba that have been denied a say.”
The Senate committee will report back by August 31.
Links between Trump administration, Falun Gong, and Australia’s government
Propaganda Wars: US state department funds anti-China news outlet in Australia https://www.michaelwest.com.au/propaganda-wars-us-state-department-funds-anti-china-news-outlet-in-australia/
by Marcus Reubenstein | Aug 4, 2020 Office bearers of US-backed Chinese language news service Decode China are linked with Falun Gong, the spiritual group that has spent millions backing Donald Trump through fake social media accounts. The same people are on the board of the National Foundation for Australia China Relations, raising scepticism about its ability to repair fractured relationships. Marcus Reubenstein investigates US state funding of anti-China media in Australia and links to global arms dealers via ASPI.
The US State Department is quietly funding a Chinese-language news service in Australia, a move more typically associated with China’s state media propagandists.
And two of the three office bearers of the news service, Decode China, are members of a taxpayer-funded independent board advising the Australian government on engagement with China.
Corporate records show Dr Wai Ling Yeung and Maree Ma became secretary and director, respectively, of Decode China Pty Ltd just eight weeks before Foreign Minister Marise Payne appointed them to the board of the National Foundation for Australia China Relations. The NFACR replaced the Australia China Council (ACC), which was set up by the Fraser government in 1978 and later chaired by former prime minister Gough Whitlam.
The retired Curtin University academic Dr Yeung is a vocal critic of the Chinese government, while Ma is the general manager of the Falun Gong-aligned, largely anti-Chinese government Vision Times newspaper. According to journalist and former Australian Falun Gong practitioner Ben Hurley, Vision Times is part of the apparatus of Falun Gong media in Australia, led by The Epoch Times and New Tang Dynasty Television.
The spiritual group Falun Gong is banned in China and there is substantial evidence that its mainland Chinese followers are harshly persecuted by the Chinese government.
However, former practitioners say it’s a dangerous cult, whose leaders claim to have the power of levitation and tell followers that aliens from other planets are responsible for interracial marriage and mixed-race children.
Falun Gong-aligned media affiliates in the US have been accused of pouring millions of dollars into fake social media accounts and Facebook advertising, since banned, supporting Donald Trump. A recent investigation by the ABC’s Foreign Correspondent and Background Briefing programs revealed Falun Gong-affiliated media in the US have spent more than US$11.5 million in social media advertising to promote Trump.
ASPI lurking in the background Continue reading
Brief note on today’s Senate Committee hearing about the Nuclear Waste Bill, including a damaging admission
The hearing ended early
1 This month
Chernobyl: The Lost Tapes – A good documentary on Chernobyl on SBS available On Demand for the next 3 weeks– https://www.sbs.com.au/ondemand/tv-program/chernobyl-the-lost-tapes/235274195556
21 April Webinar: No Nuclear Weapons in Australia
Start: 2026-04-21 18:00:00 UTC Canberra, Melbourne, Sydney (GMT+10:00)
End: 2026-04-21 19:30:00 UTC Canberra, Melbourne, Sydney (GMT+10:00)
Event Type: Virtual
A virtual link will be communicated before the event.
Host Contact Info: australia@icanw.org
of the week – Australians for War Powers Reform (AWPR)
To see nuclear-related stories in greater depth and intensity
Antinuclear 