Adam Bandt, The new Australian Greens leader looks to hopeful action on climate catastrophe
“There is no point in telling people there may be jobs in unspecified industries in the future. It is incumbent on us to explain how we will look after people in this transition”. …….
He has opened his period of leadership by talking about a Green New Deal, which he characterises as “a government-led plan of investment and action to build a clean economy and a caring society”.
Adam Bandt: the Greens must provide hope there is an exit strategy from climate catastrophe The new Australian Greens leader says the party has to connect with coal communities if it wants to be taken seriously, Guardian Katharine Murphy Political editor @murpharoo, Fri 7 Feb 2020 For the first time in the party’s history, the leader of the Australian Greens sits in the House of Representatives, not in the Senate. If you have to hold a lower house seat at every election, Adam Bandt says, you have to listen, and you have to be plugged in to the practical concerns of your constituents. Continue reading
Kimba nuclear waste deal makes the “sports rorts” look like petty cash
NEWS “NUCLEAR DIVISION” https://www.thesaturdaypaper.com.au/news/politics/2020/02/08/nuclear-waste-site-selected-sa/15810804009368
The government’s decision to build a nuclear waste facility in Kimba has divided the South Australian town, with detractors questioning the millions spent on building community support. By Royce Kurmelovs.
Last Friday night, Andrew Baldock was putting his kids to bed when his father called from overseas to say he had just spoken to the then federal Resources minister, who had good news.
After five years, Matt Canavan had chosen their 7500-hectare cereal and sheep property near Kimba, South Australia, as the site for a proposed nuclear waste storage facility.
Others might have been devastated; they were thrilled……..
The decision means 160 hectares of the family property, Napandee, will be carved out to build a facility to store low-level and intermediate nuclear waste from 100 sites around the country.
According to Baldock, doing so will save Kimba. The 37-year-old carpenter says the facility will bring steady work, a certain future and millions of dollars to the town of 700 people on South Australia’s Eyre Peninsula.
It will also see the government pay the Baldocks for their property, though neither the family nor the Coalition has disclosed the amount, other than to say the figure will be “four times the land value” but can also be negotiated. For his part, Andrew Baldock is quick to add that this is not about the money, but the spreading drought.
“… I see it as really important for Kimba to diversify its economy where we can make sure we’re not reliant on agriculture.”
The search for a nuclear waste storage facility in Australia began in 1998 with the Howard government, which sought to build one at Woomera, about 450 kilometres north of Adelaide. When that plan went nowhere, the government briefly flirted with putting a facility at Muckaty Station in the Northern Territory, until Indigenous opposition forced a backdown in 2014.
A year later, talk returned to South Australia. While the federal proposal gathered steam, the Labor state government had captured national attention with a plan to build a storage facility that would take in nuclear waste from across the world.
Although the state plan was soundly rejected, the federal proposal remained quietly viable when Kimba’s local Liberal MP, Rowan Ramsey, offered up his farming property as a possible site. Ramsey would be joined by former Liberal senator Grant Chapman, who offered his own land near Hawker, much to the dismay of locals.
Both would later be excluded due to the obvious conflict of interest. Yet while community opposition in Hawker led to the town eventually being removed as an option, the volunteering of properties by the Baldocks and others kept Kimba in contention.
But community support was lacking. To attract that support, French mayors were flown in from Champagne to talk about the nuclear storage facilities that operate there. Interested locals were given tours of the Lucas Heights research reactor in Sydney. Lectures on nuclear science were held.
“There’s no detail about how that [$55 million] has actually been spent. This makes sports rorts look like absolute petty cash.”
Supporters formed the view that Australia’s continued use of nuclear medicine, such as radiotherapy, meant a demand had to be filled. Opponents answered that suggesting people with cancer might not receive treatment without a nuclear waste facility in Kimba was emotional blackmail……..
More serious, however, was the issue of intermediate waste. While much of the focus had been on the “low-level medical” waste – which opponents say didn’t bother them – this other material is many times more potent.
When authorities said they would use Kimba to “temporarily” house higher-grade radioactive waste for several decades “until a more permanent solution can be found”, the plan’s detractors thought it sounded like the facility was the thin end of the wedge.
Once the waste was in Kimba, why not upsize?
Hate mail was sent; bitter arguments broke out at the pub or across the dinner table. Opponents say they were increasingly excluded from social engagements and official processes.
All this reached a new climax last Saturday morning, when Matt Canavan issued a press release about his decision……..
Two days later, Canavan resigned his cabinet position to back an ill-fated attempt by Barnaby Joyce to retake the Nationals leadership.
Kimba’s mayor, Dean Johnson, talks numbers. To date, about $55 million has been spent to find a site and build community support. It’ll be another 12 months before construction on the facility starts. There’s other legislation that needs to pass before then, as well as the risk of litigation.
More money has been promised. There is a $31 million Community Benefit Program, $8 million of which will be spent on skills, education and business training. Another $3 million will be used to fund an Indigenous heritage program. Finally, $20 million will be given to a community capital fund. The facility promises 45 full-time jobs, which Johnson insists will not be fly-in, fly-out.
The catch is that the waste dump must be built before the money flows.
“We don’t have the final figures yet, but all told it’s in the vicinity of half a billion dollars,” Johnson says. “That’s a lot of money. Yes, it is. There’s a lot of building. A lot of benefits going for Kimba, the Eyre Peninsula and South Australia. It’s a national facility so the benefits will go nationwide.”
Others, such as Barry Wakelin, aren’t so sure.
“There’s no detail about h“ow that [$55 million] has actually been spent,” he says. “This makes sports rorts look like absolute petty cash.”
Wakelin served as the electorate’s federal Liberal MP for almost 15 years, before he was succeeded by Rowan Ramsey in 2007. For him, coming out against the facility was a “matter of principle”. The decision has seen his party turn on him.
“I didn’t want anything to do with politics when I left,” he says. “I needed this like a hole in the head, but eventually your moral conscience kicks in.
“When we saw the reaction of our friends, we said: ‘What are we doing to these people?’ We have not seen anything like that in our community. The federal government has done everything they can to belt a small community.”
Wakelin is referring to the almost 40 per cent of people in town who voted against the project in late 2019.
Among them was James Shepherdson, 48, who was on his farm when the news broke on Saturday morning. To get reception on his mobile he had to drive to the top of a nearby hill. There he learnt of Canavan’s decision – two days before a planned rally against the proposal.
“I physically started to shake when I heard the news,” Shepherdson says. “Absolute betrayal. That’s the right words, I would say.
“They took a vote – they excluded a lot of people – and only got 61 per cent. This entire time they said they needed what they called ‘broad community support’ where Canavan said that was about 65 per cent.”
Sunday’s rally drew up to 300 people, standing against the facility. While Shepherdson is determined to fight, the shearer turned farmer says he is already thinking about leaving, although not because of the danger posed by radioactive material.
Instead, he says the divide and conquer strategy the government has run to secure community support means he simply doesn’t see a future in Kimba for himself or his two kids.
“Honestly, I don’t think people in favour of this are looking at anything past their lifetime of financial assistance. I call it bribe money,” Shepherdson says. “At the end of the day, money talks.”
This article was first published in the print edition of The Saturday Paper on Feb 8, 2020 as “Nuclear division”.
Know your Federal govt pro nuclear stooges
These are just a few – mentioned in today’s Age:
- Katie Allen inner-city Melbourne Liberal MP
- Ted O’Brien, Queensland LNP MP , Fairfax electorate on the Sunshine Coast
- Trent Zimmerman, from inner-city electorate North Sydney
- Bridget Archer from Bass in northern Tasmania,
- David Gillespie Nationals MP for Lyne
- Rick Wilson MP West Australia
- Keith Pitt, North Queensland Nationals MP , who was this week promoted to cabinet as Resources Minister.
Former deputy prime minister and Nationals leader Barnaby Joyce has also promoted nuclear energy.
Australian Parliament and its coal-smudged deals
Leadership spills and coal-smudged deals, Independent Australia, 
By Michelle Pini | 6 February 2020 Leadership spills aside, we have a Government littered with climate denialists and two major progressive parties effectively acting as their enablers, writes executive editor Michelle Pini.
FIRST, we had a Nats spill brought on by the sports rorts scandal. Then we had a changing of the guard – and definitely not a “spill” – at the Greens, which went largely unnoticed, what with all the drama in the Government. And talk of another Lib spill – despite Morrison’s “miracle” election win – has also been doing the rounds. Again.
But today, we still have McCormack. We still have Morrison. And though we have Bandt, he is heading a party with basically the same old agenda – a self-righteous, if admirable, one – where there is no negotiation, only elaborate demands. Oh and we still have Albanese — who heads a risk-averse Labor Party, which is unlikely to spill much other than their own unelected tears.
WHEN A SPILL ISN’T A SPILL
Deputy Prime Minister McCormack is safe. For now. And by his side is David I’m-Not-A-Scientist Littleproud.
McCormack’s first appearance on national TV, since surviving the well-sharpened knives of his predecessor, was dedicated to the importance of coal and gas….. That the focus was on rocks and other fossil fuels from the leader of the party of dinosaurs pretty much says it all……..
Most Australians want action on climate change, but it’s just not going to happen so long as they also keep voting for the Coalition…….
MORE COAL-SMUDGED DEALS
Meanwhile, it’s business as usual at the Liberal Party.
With his sudden and spectacular fall from public favour as the bushfire crisis escalated, Morrison made a few “climate change is real” noises. But anyone who has actually been listening knows he never committed to doing anything real. He never has and he never will. Not while there’s coal in his fossil fuel-lobbying belly.
A challenge for the leadership will likely bring Dutton the Overlord out of his dark sinister corner, so a Lib spill will only bring more of the same — or maybe even worse outcomes for the climate emergency…..
What we have, in essence, is a Government littered with climate denialists and two major progressive parties effectively acting as their enablers. Because as long as the Greens just lay out their wish list and Labor take refuge in their hidey-hole of inaction, the coal-smudged dinosaurs continue Australia’s fossil fuel rule.
Instead of political posturing, what is needed is the collaboration of all progressive parties. In the first instance, between Labor and the Greens, and then between this partnership and the crossbench.
Those of us on the progressive side of politics need to wake up and smell the acrid smoke of the alternative.https://independentaustralia.net/politics/politics-display/leadership-spills-and-coal-smudged-deals,13568
#ScottyFromMarketing appoints nuclear-coal enthusiast as Australia’s new resources minister
Liberal policy
Pro-coal, pro-nuclear, anti-renewables MP is Australia’s new resources minister, REneweconomy, , Queensland MP Keith Pitt – an outspoken support of coal and nuclear and critic of wind and solar – has been elevated to the federal cabinet and replaces Matt Canavan as the Minister for Resources and Northern Australia, as flagged by RenewEconomy yesterday
Liberal politicians jump on the climate bandwagon to promote nuclear power
Goldstein MP, Tim Wilson and North Sydney MP Trent Zimmerman spoke in favour of nuclear power, commending MP Ted O’Brien for his parliamentary inquiry into the issue, which was tabled in December, and advocating for it to be further explored.
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Coalition MPs clash over climate policy in first party room meeting of 2020
Scott Morrison faces difficult task of repositioning on climate change after assuring voters policies would ‘evolve’ Guardian, Sarah Martin @msmarto, Tue 4 Feb 2020 The prime minister, Scott Morrison, faces a fresh internal row over climate change policy, with MPs clashing over the issue in the first Coalition party room meeting of the year. Continue reading |
Bangarla legal case: voting manipulation brought about “Yes” vote for Kimba nuclear waste dump ballot
Kimba radioactive waste debate hits court as Barngarla community says its concerns have been ‘ignored’
An Aboriginal corporation will launch a fresh legal battle over the Federal Government’s decision to store radioactive waste near Kimba, saying traditional owners’ views were “ignored”. Michelle Etheridge, Regional Reporter, The Advertiser, 4 Feb 2020,
An Aboriginal corporation says it is likely to launch a new legal challenge over the Federal Government’s decision to use farming property Napandee, near Kimba, to store radioactive waste.
It comes as the Barngarla Determination Aboriginal Corporation is already set to return to the Federal Court on February 21.
The organisation, which represents native title holders, is appealing Justice Richard White’s decision in July to dismiss its claim against Kimba Council.
It had argued the council discriminated against native title holders when it decided to exclude those who did not live in the area from a community ballot to gauge support for the radioactive waste storage site.
The Barngarla community conducted its own postal ballot, with all of the 83 traditional landowners who responded rejecting the proposal. It followed the Kimba vote – conducted on the Government’s behalf – finding 62 per cent of respondents were in favour of the facility, which would come with a $31 million community funding package.
In a statement, the Barngarla corporation this week said it would “likely” launch new judicial review proceedings after the results of its ballot were “ignored”.
The Federal Government has maintained that a nuclear waste site must have “broad community support”.
“The only reason why there was a yes vote was because Barngarla were excluded, and this has then been used as the justification to allow the facility to be built, entirely ignoring Barngarla’s views,” the Barngarla statement said. “The Barngarla stand with most of the farming industry against this proposal. However, the more important issue now is the fact that voting manipulation has allowed for the decision to occur.”………https://www.adelaidenow.com.au/business/sa-business-journal/kimba-radioactive-waste-debate-hits-court-as-barngarla-community-says-its-concerns-have-been-ignored/news-story/255f1f0cbbc8ccc33aabae7dad03089a
ANSTO Senior Nuclear Officer Admits Admits ANSTO reclassifies High Level Wastes as Intermediate Level.
Note the wastes in question – vitrified – at the top of the list above
Kim Mavromatis No Nuclear Waste Dump Anywhere in South Australia 
shared a link. ANSTO Senior Nuclear Officer Admits Admits – France classifies waste from reprocessed Spent Nuclear Fuel as High Level Nuclear Waste – and when the waste gets shipped back to Aust it is reclassified as Intermediate.
Australians will cringe, when our govt gives its climate-denialist policy in Glascow
The Coalition’s climate policy is an international embarrassment https://independentaustralia.net/politics/politics-display/the-coalitions-climate-policy-is-an-international-embarrassment,13559
AT A RECENT Press Club lunch, Prime Minister Scott Morrison dug deep to defend the Coalition’s response to the national and global climate emergency by defending a policy which is essentially that of former Prime Minister Tony Abbott’s in 2013. Continue reading
Flooding events highlight the danger to proposed uranium mining sites Yeelirrie and Wiluna
K-A Garlick at Nuclear Free WA |
6 Feb 20, In an area where two uranium mines are proposed ~ Yeelirrie and Wiluna, there have been massive rain influx, leading to widespread floods across the Goldfields country.
Toro Energy Wiluna uranium project expands over two lake systems and over 100 kms. The project includes four uranium deposits – Lake Way, Centipede, Millipede and Lake Maitland.
The project proposal includes a high risk inappropriate site to attempt disposal of up to 50 million tonnes of radioactive tailings that would be stored in mined out pits on the edge of Lake Way in a floodplain and in the drainage channel of a creek.
The company’s studies of hydrogeology, hydrology and geochemistry were all heavily criticised in Peer Reviews submitted as part of the environmental assessment. With these floods today, the planned emplacement of 50 million tonnes of long-lived radioactive mine waste in a floodplain poses a very serious risk to the environment and public health.
In 2020 Adelaide City Council to become South Australia’s first carbon neutral local government
Renewable energy to fully power city council, INDAILY , Stephanie Richards, 5 Feb 20,
Adelaide City Council says it will become South Australia’s first carbon neutral local government by the end of this year following the signing of a “landmark” renewable power purchase agreement.
Lord Mayor Sandy Verschoor this morning announced the council had entered into an agreement with Melbourne-based energy retailer Flow Power to source all its electricity from solar and wind power.
The contract means all council-owned infrastructure and buildings – including street lights, libraries, community centres and Town Hall – will be powered by 100 per cent renewable energy from July.
The switch is expected to slash the council’s current carbon emissions – more than half of which are tied to electricity use – by 11,000 tonnes each year.
Verschoor told reporters this morning the agreement would result in a 20 per cent reduction to the council’s electricity costs, however she said she was “not allowed to talk dollars” due to commercial confidentiality.
She said the agreement would mean the council would become carbon neutral-certified by the end of this year, joining the already-certified Brisbane, Sydney and Melbourne city councils.
Carbon neutrality, or having a net-zero carbon footprint, is achieved when the amount of greenhouse gas emissions emitted into the atmosphere is balanced by the amount being removed.
“This partnership will not only save our ratepayers money, it helps cement Adelaide’s international clean and green reputation,” Verschoor said…….. https://indaily.com.au/news/local/2020/02/05/renewable-energy-to-fully-power-city-council/
#ScottyFromMarketing “won’t be bullied” by climate science
Mr Morrison’s comments echoed those of his deputy prime minister during the height of the bushfire crisis.
In November, Mr McCormack attacked those who were linking climate change to the severity of the bushfires, labelling them “inner-city raving lunatics”
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Scott Morrison says he won’t be ‘bullied’ on climate by inner city voters, https://www.sbs.com.au/news/scott-morrison-says-he-won-t-be-bullied-on-climate-by-inner-city-voters Prime Minister Scott Morrison says he “won’t be bullied” into changing his government’s position on climate change as National MPs renew demands for more investment in coal.
5 Feb 20, BY TOM STAYNER
Prime Minister Scott Morrison has declared he won’t be “bullied” by inner-city voters as he downplayed concerns of a fresh climate war inside the Coalition. Continue reading
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Adani about to receive criminal conviction over false documents
Adani agrees to plead guilty to giving ‘false or misleading documents to an administering authority’, may be fined up to $3m
Key points:
- The company’s Australian arm, Adani Mining Pty Ltd, is listed for sentencing in the Brisbane Magistrates Court
- It belatedly declared clearing land on its mine site after environmentalists complained to the government
- The company says it has been prosecuted for an “an administrative error”
Adani has agreed to plead guilty to giving “false or misleading documents to an administering authority”, according to the court file and sources familiar with the case.
The company’s Australian arm, Adani Mining Pty Ltd, is listed for sentencing today in the Brisbane Magistrates Court.
It faces a fine of up to $3 million if convicted under the Environmental Protection Act.
According to notes in the court file made by Magistrate Stephen Courtney and seen by the ABC, the matter is “to be [a] plea of guilty”.
In court papers, the Department of Environment and Science (DES) says Adani filed its annual return in March 2018 with a graph declaring it cleared no land on the Carmichael mine site, north-west of Clermont, in 2017-18.
The DES alleged it became aware of the offence six months later. It alleged Adani “knew or ought reasonably to have known [the document] was false or misleading” because it had planned and carried out land clearing before and during the reporting period.
On September 6, 2018, conservation group Coast and Country raised land clearing allegations with the State Government, citing satellite imagery.
State and federal environment department officials then inspected the site within days……..https://www.abc.net.au/news/2020-02-06/adani-to-plead-guilty-court-qld/11932640
Greens leader Adam Bandt vows to hold torch to Coalition on climate
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Greens leader Adam Bandt vows to hold torch to Coalition on climate, The New Daily, 3 Feb 20, Adam Bandt has been elected unopposed as Greens leader following the surprise resignation of Richard Di Natale
The only Greens member in the lower house, Mr Bandt was formally endorsed by his federal party room colleagues in Canberra on Tuesday morning. He has promised to pursue a “Green New Deal” focused on including dental treatment in Medicare, making education free by abolishing public school fees, and replacing fossil fuels with renewable energy. Mr Bandt aims to win the balance of power in the upper and lower houses of federal parliament at the next election. In the meantime, he intends to pressure the Morrison government to take stronger action on climate change. Mr Bandt labelled the Coalition government “criminal” for abolishing the carbon price under Tony Abbott and argued climate inaction was fanning the ongoing bushfire crisis. He also claimed big businesses were “killing people” by contributing to a “climate catastrophe”. Mr Bandt said the Greens would provide “real opposition” and hold the government to account He said the major parties were “singing from the same song sheet” on coal mining. “I’m not one of those people who says that Labor and the Liberals are the same,” he said, shortly after his election to the leadership. “But when it comes to coal, Labor is now using exactly the same terminology as the Liberals.” Queensland senator Larissa Waters will remain co-deputy of the party and will share the role with Tasmanian senator Nick McKim. Senator Waters will also be the Greens leader in the Senate……https://thenewdaily.com.au/news/politics/australian-politics/2020/02/04/adam-bandt-greens-leader/ |
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A reminder to South Australian govt that nuclear waste dumping is illegal there
Our laws are clear, there are ten year imprisonment penalties and multi million dollar fines for offences relating to planning and promotion and establishment and operation of a nuclear waste dump in South Australia – these are very serious penalties, in accord with the gravity of the threat.
These laws have been breached by recent bribery and deception activities … and there are clear public statements of intention to breach these laws further in the near future, recently moving from conspiring to breach the importation prohibition, to specifying a precise place where an illegal dump is planned, on farm land in the middle of a large area of precious farm land.
Please act to fight this evil criminal activity.
As specified in the legislation, this is a matter of acting “to protect the health, safety and welfare of the people of South Australia and to protect the environment in which they live by prohibiting the establishment of certain nuclear waste storage facilities in this State.”
(Nuclear Waste Storage Facility (Prohibition) Act 2000 https://www.legislation.sa.gov.au/…/NUCLEAR%20WASTE… )
Best wishes
from
Brett Stokes
resident of Willaston 5118
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 