Government’s snap decision to close solar rebate scheme will damage this emerging export industry
Australia to Close Renewable Energy Bonus Scheme on June 30 Bloomberg By Jason Scott – Feb 27, 2012 Australia’s Renewable Energy Bonus Scheme, which has provided more than A$320 million in incentives for households to switch to more energy-efficient hot-water systems, will close June 30, the parliamentary secretary for Climate Change and
Energy Efficiency, Mark Dreyfus, said today in a statement.
http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2012-02-28/australia-to-close-renewable-energy-bonus-scheme-on-june-30.html
Solar scheme axed to meet budget: Greens, THE AUSTRALIAN AAP February 29, 2012 THE Australian Greens have accused the Gillard government of closing a household solar rebate scheme to help it deliver a surplus in the May
budget.
The renewable energy bonus scheme, which provided a $1000 rebate for a solar hot water system and $600 for a heat pump, was closed abruptly late yesterday.
While the scheme closes at the end of June, only those who had paid a deposit by yesterday were now eligible for the rebate.
The industry had hoped the scheme would be extended, after the government allocated $24.5 million towards it in budget forward estimates for 2012/13.
Greens Senator Christine Milne accused the government of cutting costs so it could achieve its promised budget surplus. It was “a ridiculous idea” that in order to meet a political imperative, the government was jeopardising local manufacturers who were building export markets in the new low carbon economy.
Senator Milne said the decision would put enormous pressure on manufacturers such as Rheem, which employed about 1200 people around Australia. “They are already under pressure because of the high Australian
dollar,” she told reporters in Canberra. http://www.theaustralian.com.au/news/breaking-news/solar-scheme-axed-to-meet-budget-greens/story-fn3dxity-1226285021321
Australian Labor attempts to sneak nuclear waste dump under the radar
February 27th, 2012. Labor’s attempt to pass widely-opposed nuclear waste dump legislation under the cover of their leadership squabble is cynical and shameless, the Australian Greens said today.
Greens spokesperson for nuclear issues Senator Scott Ludlam said Labor wants to pass the National Radioactive Waste Management Bill behind the fog of the leadership dispute because the law is 
“completely rotten”.
“The Traditional Owners do not want this eternal radioactive waste dump on their country; the locals don’t want it; the Northern Territory government does not want it; and medical experts have criticised the Government’s scheme.
“There is a Federal Court case currently unresolved as to the status of this land, yet the Government pushes on – lead by Martin ferguson, a resources and energy minister obsessed with the nuclear industry. This legislation does not just represent a problem for Muckaty – it places enormous and virtually unchecked power in the hands of that solitary minister.
“Medical experts have argued correctly that we don’t need a reactor to make medical isotopes. This dump is not about ‘low level medical waste’ – but high level waste which is scheduled to land in Australia from the UK and France.
“Last month, in a report to the US Energy Secretary, the Blue Ribbon Commission on America’s Nuclear Future strongly recommended a ‘consent-based approach to siting nuclear waste storage… noting that ‘trying to force such facilities on unwilling states, tribes and communities has not worked’. The Government ignores the lessons of history and blunders on at the behest of the nuclear industry.”
Australian Greens call for uranium to be included in the Mineral Resources Rent Tax (MRRT)
Renewed calls for MRRT to include gold, uranium Mining Weekly, By: Esmarie Swanepoel 23rd February 2012 PERTH – The Australian Green Party has renewed calls to the federal government to include gold and uranium in the mineral resources rent tax (MRRT), in an effort to garner more revenue.
Greens leader Bob Brown said on Thursday that the Treasury needed to reconsider extending the mining tax across gold and uranium, as well as other minerals, while the nexus with royalties should be dropped.
“Australia has the means to adequately fund education, health, transport. It should not have a watered-down mining tax pass into law that fails to collect potential funding sourced from resources that
belong to the nation,” Brown said….
South Australian government framed laws for BHP Billiton’s uranium mining, not for the people
Commercial vested interests of uranium mining companies are writing the script for Australia’s uranium sales deals under both Liberal and now ALP federal governments…….
South Australia should come to its senses and recognise our society’s responsibilities to get out of the uranium trade and not be made complicit in nuclear risks for BHP Billiton’s vested interests.
Our uranium fuelled Fukushima, David Noonan, The Guardian, 22 Feb 12 “……..How did the SA government perform in exercising their responsibilities after Fukushima? Indigenous people bear a disproportionate burden of impacts from uranium mining and this will certainly continue to be the case in SA
under the Roxby Indenture deal “negotiated” by the state with BHP Billiton that is being pushed through Parliament with bi-partisan support.
BHP Billiton is not bound by the Aboriginal Heritage Act 1988 in the “Stuart Shelf Area” of some 1.5 percent of the area of SA around the Olympic Dam mine.
Aboriginal heritage obligations that apply to every other miner or developer do not apply to the Big Australian for the 70-year extended period of the Roxby Indenture, and the state further agreed that this can only be changed in future with the agreement of the company. Continue reading
South Australia, the Uranium State, moves further away from clean energy
Labor pulls plug on energy role, by:Belinda Willis , The Advertiser , February 21, 2012 THE State Government has ended Renewable Energy Commissioner Tim O’Loughlin’s position more than a year before his contract was due to expire. Mr O’Loughlin was appointed in mid-2009 with some fanfare by then Premier Mike Rann. His contract was meant to run until 2013.
A spokesman for Energy Minister Tom Koutsantonis said he would not be replaced. Yesterday’s Budget and Finance select committee heard Mr O’Loughlin’s job ends about 18 months short of his contract by “mutual agreement”, and that there had been a payout……
The move follows a budget decision late last year to scrap the $11.7 million remaining in the $20 million Renewable Energy Fund. This fund was overseen by RenewablesSA, and industry said there were now no state funding support avenues available for renewable energy.
The South Australian branch of the Australian Solar Energy Society and the Australian Geothermal Energy Association have raised concerns that the State Government had lost interest in renewable energy.
“It makes a complete mockery of the fact that in the last week of Rann being premier, he released a new renewable statement for South Australia,” said Mr Marshall. “It’s clear the new Premier has no interest in this sector whatsoever.” http://www.adelaidenow.com.au/business/labor-pulls-plug-on-energy-role/story-e6frede3-1226276364284
Paul Howes, the nuclear lobby’s man aiming for Canberra?
Until very recently, both Liberal and Labor parties in New South Wales opposed uranium mining in that State.
Now the Liberal Party in government will allow uranium exploration, and no doubt permission for uranium mining will follow. Why else would uranium mining companies bother to dig?
New South Wales Labor opposition opposes the new move towards uranium mining.
But it’s interesting to see how forthright is Paul Howes, a very prominent union leader, with his eye on apolitical career, presumably in the Labor Party – in his enthusiasm for the nuclear industry. Ziggy, and Barry, and the rest of the Nuclear Push must be thrilled to bits, with this little union go getter.
Paul Howes is quoted in today’s Cowra Community News, as saying that ” uranium exploration
is a step in the right direction, particularly as Australia looks to develop cleaner energy sources into the future.”
“cleaner?” – Paul – you’ll have to think of a more sophisticated term that that. Nobody believes in “clean” nuclear any more.
Look out, New South Wales, the uranium economic downward plunge beckons!
Look out – New South Wales residents! You thought coal seam gas exploration was a threat? And it probably is.
But now, your government, in its unwisdom, is going to allow uranium exploration.
The yellow area shows the area of uranium mineralisation in New South Wales.
Very handy, I suppose, to where some of Ziggy Switkowski’s 50 nuclear reactors will supposedly be positioned.
South Australia is going to go down the economic drain, for its drive for all things nuclear. Meanwhile, what with Paladin Uranium looking like going broke, and the nuclear industry winding down, – Does New South Wales want to join this plunge? – Christina Macpherson
GOVERNMENT TAKES STEP TOWARDS URANIUM MINING Lee Jeloscek, 7 News Sydney February 14, A map drawn up by the government and reported on by 7News shows a large swath of land from north western town of Bourke stretching down past Canberra to the Victorian border could be explored for the resource. http://au.news.yahoo.com/nsw/latest/a/-/newshome/12905605/government-takes-step-towards-uranium-mining/
NSW people don’t want the uranium industry
Opposition lashes O’Farrell’s plan to overturn NSW ban on uranium exploration, THE AUSTRALIAN, AAP, February 15, 2012 THE NSW opposition has criticised a plan to overturn the state’s decades-old ban on uranium exploration….. Opposition Leader John Robertson said voters don’t support the industry. “The people of NSW didn’t vote for it and they don’t want it,” he said in a statement. “Only months ago the Premier categorically ruled out uranium mining and exploration in NSW – now it is on for young and old.”
Greenpeace campaigner Julien Vincent called the expected announcement an “insult”….. “Next month we are marking the first anniversary of nuclear disaster in Fukushima, which is one of the best reasons for not going nuclear,” he added.
Australian Greens nuclear affairs spokesperson Senator Scott Ludlam added: “Australian uranium was used in every reactor at Fukushima. “Why would the O’Farrell government want New South Wales to be complicit in the next disaster?”
Uranium mining is banned in Queensland but allowed in Western Australia and South Australia.
… Just days before that vote Australian Workers’ Union secretary Paul Howes called on states that don’t allow uranium mining to overturn their bans. http://www.theaustralian.com.au/national-affairs/opposition-lashes-ofarrells-plan-to-overturn-nsw-ban-on-uranium-exploration/story-fn59niix-122
Muckaty is not needed for radioactive waste, and the traditional owners will fight on
Medical professionals have called for federal politicians to stop using nuclear medicine as justification for the Muckaty proposal.
Both the NT and Commonwealth governments have systematically stripped back resources for small remote Indigenous communities, placing increased pressure on them to accept long-term and high impact projects like the waste dump.
there is a simple solution: leave the waste where it is produced at the Lucas Heights nuclear research centre .. As Dr Ron Cameron from ANSTO said: “ANSTO is capable of handling and storing wastes for long periods of time. There is no difficulty with that.” Similar views have been expressed by the Commonwealth nuclear regulator, ARPANSA, by the Australian Nuclear Association and even by Martin Ferguson’s own department.
Ferguson’s Dumping Ground Fights Back New Matilda , 13 Feb 12, The Gillard Government is pushing ahead with plans to host a nuclear waste dump at Muckaty in the NT, despite local opposition. Traditional Owners have vowed to fight on, writes Natalie Wasley…. The legislation names Muckaty, 120 kilometres north of Tennant Creek in the Northern Territory, as the only site to remain under active consideration for a national nuclear waste dump.
The proposal is highly contested by the NT Government and is also being challenged in the Federal Court by Traditional Owners. Despite this, the Bill is currently being debated in the Senate — and will likely pass.
Ferguson’s law is a crude cut and paste of the Howard government’s Commonwealth Radioactive Waste Management Act that it purports to replace. It limits the application of federal environmental protection legislation and it curtails appeal rights. The draft legislation overrides the Aboriginal Heritage Protection Act and it sidesteps the Aboriginal Land Rights Act. It allows for the imposition of a dump on Aboriginal land with no consultation with or consent from Traditional Owners. In fact, the Minister can now override any state or territory law that gets in the way of the dump plan. Continue reading
Rural Australia’s economy damaged by stopping wind farms
there have been many credible health studies all over the world and none has ever found that wind turbines can directly cause health problems
wind farms currently proposed in Australia had the potential to generate up to $15 billion worth of investment across the
country and create nearly 10,000 direct jobs.
Wind farm halt would hurt nation, http://www.goulburnpost.com.au/news/local/news/general/wind-farm-halt-would-hurt-nation/2452728.aspx , Goulburn Post13 Feb, 2012 ANY moratorium on wind farm development would drive billions of dollars of investment out of Australia and hurt farmers and regional communities, the renewable energy industry’s peak body says.
The Clean Energy Council said a moratorium on new wind farms, called for by Democratic Labor Party Senator John Madigan and Independent Senator Nick Xenophon in the Senate last week, would hurt rural towns and businesses.
“Wind farms bring investment to regional towns and help farmers diversify to support their businesses and families,” Mr Thornton said. “Placing a moratorium on wind farms would remove this source of support to regional and rural communities. Continue reading
South Australian govt gives uranium company $5 million compensation
SA to compensate Marathon for mining ban, 9 News, 13 Feb 12, Marathon Resources has accepted $5 million in compensation after its hopes of one day mining uranium at Mount Gee were dashed by a proposed ban on mining at the environmentally sensitive Arkaroola area.
The minerals explorer says it is dropping its civil law suit against the South Australian government because months of negotiation had resulted in the goodwill compensation for the ban on exploration and mining at Arkaroola in the northern Flinders Ranges.
The company had its licence to explore a deposit at Mt Gee, one of Australia’s largest undeveloped uranium deposits, renewed before the ban was announced in July 2011.
The plan, still before state parliament, would exclude the Arkaroola area from South Australia’s Mining Act, provide legislated protection for the sanctuary and have it nominated for world heritage listing….
http://news.ninemsn.com.au/national/8418443/sa-to-compensate-marathon-for-mining-ban
Secrecy on reports about the nomination of Muckaty Station as nuclear waste dump
The committee recommended in May 2010 that the bill be passed, acknowledging at the time that it did not have access to key documents and information
I find it a shock, as do many supporters of the Australian Labor Party, that coercive attempts to dump radioactive waste out in terra nullius did not end with the election of the Rudd government but have in fact been picked up and cut and pasted exactly where the former government left off. Our leaders may have changed, but our resources minister effectively has not. I continue to recall and remark that the government opened its first term with an apology and that, if this legislation is allowed to proceed, it will close this term owing another apology to Aboriginal Australians. I think the Legal and Constitutional Affairs Committee missed an important opportunity to right what will be seen, if we entrench it and lock it in, as a historical injustice that should not be allowed to stand.
Report and speech on the evidence provided by the NLC to the legal and constitutional affairs committee inquiry into Muckaty Bill Senator LUDLAM (Western Australia) 8 Feb 2012 ……..This matter is extremely important. A particular community in the Northern Territory has been targeted for a national radioactive waste dump in Australia. We have never had such a facility before. It has been very, very contentious for governments of all kinds, and it is something that has been extremely vexed—an issue that neither Labor nor the conservatives have ever been able to get a grip on.
In this instance, the site has been targeted for a particular cattle station about 120 kilometres north of Tennant Creek, and there is a serious dispute over whether the land should have been nominated from the Northern Land Council to the federal government. It is a site that is explicitly named and targeted in the legislation that is before this chamber. It is not an abstract matter. This is a site that has actually been identified—we had this confirmed again yesterday—as the only site that was in consideration by the federal government. It was named and locked in in the legislation before the parliament, yet the people of that region have taken a very serious dispute to the Federal Court over whether that land should have been forwarded in the first place.
It was up to the Legal and Constitutional Affairs Legislation Committee in examining the bill—which it did with extremely truncated and narrow terms of reference the year before last—to decide whether or not this bill should proceed. It did decide, in the absence of quite a number of very important documents that the Northern Land Council refused to disclose to the committee when they gave evidence, to recommend that the bill be proceeded with. At the time my office forwarded quite a detailed dissenting report saying that, in fact, the committee had not done its job; even within its narrow terms of reference, it simply had not done its job.
It had not sought the requisite information to allow it to properly fulfil its function, and it has done so again. Continue reading
Senator Scullion’s Northern Territory deal – $10 million for a radioactive waste dump
Senator Nigel Scullion (Country Liberal Party) – South Australia refused, as a Territory we didn’t have the capacity to refuse…. Territorians generally feel that this should not have gone in the Northern Territory
Senator Scott Ludlum (Australian Greens) – I think it’s totally inappropriate that the Bill is before the Senate while the Government doesn’t yet know whose land they are dealing with…. I find it offensive that in the middle of that court action the Senate’s going to be debating a bill that explicitly names and targets that site.
the doctors and the medical professionals over the last couple of months who’ve come out and said please stop using medical technology as an excuse for producing this waste, because there are other ways of providing for radio pharmaceuticals that don’t result in these long-lived carcinogenic wastes.
Transcript ABC Radio National breakfast, 08-February-2012
FRAN KELLY:
Well more than twenty years after the search started for a nuclear waste dump Labor’s Radioactive Waste Management Bill is listed for debate in the Senate today. The Bill has already gone through the House of Reps, and with Coalition support it will also pass in the upper house, giving the green light to development of Australia’s low- and intermediate-level nuclear waste facility at Muckaty Station in the Northern Territory. This is despite bitter opposition from various Indigenous and environmental groups and from the Northern Territory Government itself. West Australian Greens Senator Scott Ludlam will try to delay a vote on the Bill, and the Country Liberal Party Senator for the Northern Territory, Nigel Scullion, wants an extra $10 million for the Territory. Both join me from Canberra this morning. Senators, good morning. Welcome to breakfast.
FRAN KELLY:
Senator Scullion, let’s begin with you. You once bitterly opposed a nuclear waste dump in the Northern Territory. In fact back in 2005 you said, “there’s not going to be a nuclear waste dump in the Northern Territory. The people of the Northern Territory don’t want anybody else’s nuclear waste. I represent them, so not on my watch”. Continue reading
Australian government bribes Northern Territory – a cancer ward for a nuclear waste dump
United Voice NT secretary Matthew Gardiner said: “There is still a Federal Court case hearing whether Muckaty Station can be used as the site, yet we have politicians bickering over what filthy lucre they can get.
“The waste will affect every Territorian, as it will be in our ports, on our trains and on our roads. “Every major town in the NT will see Australia’s lethal waste being transported past their offices, schools and homes.”
“Territorians pay taxes and deserve those facilities because we’re Australians, not because we sign up to a waste dump.”
Muckaty gets mucked up http://www.ntnews.com.au/article/2012/02/09/287821_ntnews.html NT News, NIGEL ADLAM | February 9th, 2012 THE Territory is to charge “rent” for storing radioactive waste. Payments will be put into a special fund and spent on the cancer ward at Royal Darwin Hospital.
Only the NT and federal governments will be allowed to send low-level waste to the Muckaty dump near Tennant Creek free of charge. Canberra will kick off the fund with a $10 million payment. But that money will be taken back out of rent money from states and territories using the dump.
The fund is expected to collect several millions of dollars a year. Territory Senator Nigel Scullion used the fund as the price for the Coalition allowing the National Radioactive Waste Management Bill to be passed by the Senate. Continue reading
Australia’s New National Radioactive Waste Bill targets Muckaty Station, on Aboriginal land
Natalie Wasley, 8 Feb 12, David Wroe’s opinion piece in the Age on February 8 “First radioactive dump gets the green light” omits a numbers of key issues in the current battle to build the Northern Territory nuclear waste dump. NT Country Liberal Senator Scullion’s amendment to proposed legislation would provide a $10 million cash injection to the Territory as compensation (quite insignificant when you consider this facility will be operating for at least 300-400 years), but there was never any danger of the Coalition not supporting Minister Ferguson’s legislation.
As pointed out in the House of Reps debate, it bears uncanny similarity to the Coalition’s legislation it purports to replace, the main difference being it specifically targets Muckaty-a site nominated in the Howard era. Mr Wroe’s piece also ignores the ongoing opposition to the waste dump from the NT government and many Traditional Owners of the Muckaty Land Trust, who have built broad national support for their campaign and launched a federal court challenge against the nomination of the Muckaty site. If I was David’s driving instructor, I would tell him to look more carefully at the traffic signals.
First radioactive dump gets the green light, The Age, David Wroe February 8, 2012 Australia is set to get its first radioactive waste dump with the government agreeing to a Coalition demand for $10 million for the Northern Territory, which will host the dump.
Energy Minister Martin Ferguson told ABC radio’s PM program yesterday that the government would agree to a demand from Northern Territory Nationals Senator Nigel Scullion for the $10 million fund for education, health and infrastructure, ensuring the passage of the legislation through the Senate.
The preferred site is Muckaty Station, near Tennant Creek. The dump will take medical waste and reprocessed fuel rods from the Lucas Heights reactor. http://www.theage.com.au/opinion/political-news/first-radioactive-dump-gets-the-green-light-20120207-1r5ge.html#ixzz1lqYBS82y
1 This month.
20 September –National Day of Action in Melbourne on the International Day of Peace
Help Aunty Sue Protect Her Land and Sacred Sites From Destructive Rocket Testing.
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PETITION – To: Prime Minister Anthony Albanese and the Australian Labor Government
of the week – Australians for War Powers Reform (AWPR)
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