Bligh rules out Queensland uranium mining
ABC News By Chrissy Arthur Jul 23, 2009
Queensland Premier Anna Bligh says uranium mining will not be allowed in the state under her government.Earlier this week, Federal Resources Minister Martin Ferguson said it was inevitable that uranium would be mined in Queensland.Ms Bligh says she made a promise at the last election not to allow uranium mining and she will not be breaking it.”It’s not like coal, or nickel or zinc,” she said.”This is a material that is used for a range of very serious and violent purposes around the world.”
Bligh rules out Qld uranium mining – ABC News (Australian Broadcasting Corporation)
Rio Tinto tries to steer Rudd towards nuclear power
Business Spectator , 22 Jul 2009
Rio Tinto tries to steer Rudd towards nuclear power“…………….The company laid out its position in a submission to the government’s Energy White Paper, signed by Rio Tinto Australia managing director Stephen Creese.
The submission raised particular concern about the government’s 20 per cent renewable energy target…………………..
Rio Tinto owns 68 per cent of Australia’s largest uranium exporter Energy Resources of Australia Ltd.
The miner also cast doubt on the viability of gas as a lower-emitting, base load alternative to coal.
Government minister in a hole over Australian uranium mine approval
Government minister in a hole over Australian uranium mine approval
edie.net news by David Gibbs 21 July 09-“……………..The decision to approve Australia’s fifth uranium mine sparked fierce criticism of Mr Garrett from political opponents and conservation groups.They accused the former anti-uranium activist, who once stood for the Nuclear Disarmament Party and penned anti-nuclear anthems for his band, of hypocrisy and argue the mine will harm the environment.
Federal opposition leader Malcolm Turnbull said: “This approval shows that Mr Garrett is as big a phoney as the prime minister.
“He spent his whole life denouncing uranium mining and wanting to shut it down. Now he’s opening a new one.” ………………Senator Scott Ludlam, nuclear spokesman for The Greens, said the claim the mine, 550km (340 miles) north of Adelaide, would be world’s best practice was “unfounded and bordered on delusional”.
He added: “This acid injection uranium mine will dump liquid radioactive waste into regional groundwater body and the minister is trying to argue this won’t damage the environment.”
Government minister in a hole over Australian uranium mine approval
Stand up to Martin Ferguson’s Uranium Push
Send a backyard message to Martin Ferguson
monkeyjedi. blogspot.com 20 July 09Would you allow a secretive US arms company to mine uranium in your backyard? Neither would we!So help us tell our politicians that Australia doesn’t need more uranium mines.It’s easy to approve a new uranium mine when it is out of sight and out of mind – but just because we don’t see a place every day doesn’t mean that we should risk ruining it forever.That’s how the Environment Minister Peter Garrett and Resources Minister Martin Ferguson are able to approve environmentally destructive projects like General Atomics new Beverley 4 Mile mine, 500 kilometres north of Adelaide.
Adelaide.We need your help to send a backyard message to Minister Ferguson, in his home electorate of Batman.
If this acid leaching mine opens, Australia will have five uranium mines either working or approved, with more in the pipeline. Along with the expansion of other mines it adds up to a potential trebling in Australia’s uranium exports – three times the waste, three times the worry, three times the risk.
The Australian Government allows our uranium to be sold to nuclear weapon states such as China. Uranium sold for nuclear power frees up uranium for nuclear weapons so our exports directly or indirectly fuel growing nuclear instability and intensify threats across our region and around the world.
That’s why it’s important to let our politicians know, in their own backyards, that this massive expansion of uranium mining must stop.
Stop the world Mummy, I want to get off…: Send a backyard message to Batman
A Labor loner who has given it all away
A Labor loner who has given it all away The transformation of Peter Garrett from environmental activist to passive government minister is now complete, writes Kerry-Anne Walsh.
- Sydney Morning Herald July 19, 2009
Parachuted into the safe Labor seat of Kingsford Smith in Sydney, Garrett landed in Canberra at the 2004 election and has, in quietly dramatic fashion, been divesting himself ever since of his pre-Labor skin.
Approving the Four Mile uranium mine last week was the starkest example to date of the transformation of Garrett from anti-nuclear and environmental activist to passive government minister. It was an even bigger slap in the face to his past than giving the nod last year to a Tasmanian pulp mill…………………………… It was, after all, only two years ago at Labor’s national conference that he spoke passionately against expanding Labor’s three-uranium-mines-only policy.
“I have always maintained and indeed committed myself to the notion that Australia should be nuclear-free – that our country is as far into nuclear activities as it ever should be,” he spruiked. “I have long been opposed to uranium mining, and I remain opposed to it. I am unapologetic about this. In fact, I am proud of it.”………………..
………….when policy directions collide fiercely with deeply held convictions – if, indeed, they still do – there is always the option of resignation from cabinet……………..
……..The voters who put him there won’t thank him; he’s betrayed them.
Oppose Garrett’s sell out — leave uranium in the ground
Oppose Garrett’s sell out — leave uranium in the ground
Green Left Leslie Richmond19 July 2009
He occupied a (somewhat self-appointed) position as a hero of Australia’s environment and Indigenous rights movements for decades. Yet these days, former Midnight Oil frontman and current ALP environment minister Peter Garrett works overtime to prove his credentials as a defender of big business and the big polluters…………….
……….His latest exercise in political surrender was his approval of the Four Mile uranium mine in northern South Australia. The deposit is the biggest uranium discovery in 25 years. It is just a few kilometres from Beverley uranium mine, the expansion of which Garrett approved last yeat.
Four Mile will be run by Quasar resources, a company owned by US weapons dealer and nuclear energy corporation General Atomics. General Atomics makes the Predator aerial drone vehicles the US is using so effectively to kill civilians in Pakistan and Afghanistan……………
…………………Once again, an Indigenous community is being forced to give up its heritage to have access to basic services and living standards. Garrett is dividing a community where people would have expected the Midnight Oil-era Garrett to be promoting Indigenous empowerment and ownership…………………..
………..And he’s accepted that far from being a setback for our country, US forces are, in fact, a positive boon. In 2004, he reversed his long-standing opposition to the US-run Pine Gap military facility. In 2007, he supported the establishment of a new US military spy facility near Geraldton…………….
………….who can know that the resources company Quasar — owned by military hardware company General Atomics — will run the mine without thinking immediately of the potential the uranium will end up in nuclear weapons? The only safe place for uranium is in the ground, undisturbed.
Green Left – Oppose Garrett’s sell out — leave uranium in the ground
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
20 May – Webinar – The dangerous world of AUKUS, US, military occupation and suppression of dissent
National Webinar, 20th May, 2026, 6.30pm AEST. Confronting laws restricting/suppressing protest speech and action
Speakers: Former Sen. Rex Patrick, Lawyer Nick Hanna ,Arthur Rorris ,Jorgen Doyle, Sen David Shoebbridge,
Facilitator Kelley Tranter.
of the week – Australians for War Powers Reform (AWPR)
To see nuclear-related stories in greater depth and intensity
Antinuclear 