Nuclear lobby’s power to prevent Australia debating uranium to India, and to promote arms race
ALP downplay arms control considerations, Crikey, December 5, 2011 , by NAJ Taylor “…….The power of lobbyists There are numerous lessons to be learned from the US experience, particularly since the similarities in the way the matter was debated there.
There as in here, well-funded and resourced lobby groups successfully denied Australian’s of a debate, and a complacent and shameful standard of media proliferated falsehoods and empty rhetoric as if reasoned evidence such that even Foreign Minister Kevin Rudd – who as recently as last month strongly opposed any deal with India – begrudgingly toed the line of the party leader given the announcement was made whilst he was in Dehli.
For instance, following the vote, Nitin Pai, editor of Pragati – The Indian National Interest Review, and Fellow at The Takshashila Institution tweeted that:
” Rory_Medcalf And let me say that the consistent policy advocacy by a certain Sydney based think tank surely played an important role…..
What is clear to me is that Australia’s prospects of being awarded a seat on the UN Security Council next year are bound to have suffered already. http://blogs.crikey.com.au/this-blog-harms/2011/12/05/alp-downplay-arms-control-considerations/
Lawyers press for revealing secrets of Maralinga’s baby deaths after nuclear bomb testing
the medical records of those 23 stillborn babies remain sealed and held by the National Archives of Australia.
Now, as British lawyers search for others to join the class action against the British Ministry of Defence, they will also push for the secrets of the Woomera baby graves to be revealed.
Secrecy surrounding the disturbing rate of baby deaths and research suggesting fallout from tests blanketed the town despite being more than 600km from the Maralinga testing sites, warrants those families investigating claims as part of the class act
The Children’s Graveyard at Woomera South Australia. Paul Langley’s Nuclear History Blog, 1 Dec 11 What was known and when?. SECRET records detailing the fate of dozens of babies born in the shadow of Maralinga’s nuclear testing hold the key to a case building as the state’s largest class action. More than 100 South Australians have joined a class action against the British Ministry of Defence over deaths and disabilities they believe were caused by nuclear testing at Maralinga more than 50 years ago.
Among them are families of the Woomera babies – more than 60 lives lost, many without explanation, during the decade of nuclear testing, up to 600km away. Lawyers running the case say it is “just the tip of the iceberg”. They have heard only from people who are “very confident” they have a case for compensation. Already, families of some of the stillborn children, hours-old babies and toddlers who account for more than half the plots in Woomera Cemetery for the 1950s and 1960s, have come forward….. Continue reading
UK govt lied about the extent of the atomic bomb tests in Maralinga
A spokesman for Rosenblatt solicitors, which is representing veterans from the UK, New Zealand and Fiji since taking up the case six years ago, said: “This is potentially very significant information for the progress of the case.”…
RAF veteran says government covered up scale of nuclear tests, Ex-airman’s evidence could prove crucial in court case against Ministry of Defence, THE INDEPENDENT, OMAR OAKES, PAUL CAHALAN 14 NOVEMBER 2011 A former RAF navigator has claimed the size of a nuclear bomb detonated during tests in the 1950s could have been three times bigger than the Government officially stated, in evidence which could that prove crucial for more than 1,000 service veterans suing the Ministry of Defence (MoD) for upwards of £100m. Continue reading
Effect of nuclear plants on marine life – are animal activists aware?
Indeed nuclear lobbyists in Australia operate by stealth – not least in Adelaide. ( Comment from a readerof this page) One prolific blogger comes to mind who’s a member of an animal activist group. Impressive one thinks but hopping over to Barry Brook’s website and there he is lobbying for nuclear. This duplicitous gentleman (an animal activist no less) believes it’s quite acceptable for one nuclear plant to suck up a billion marine organisms and marine life every year in the US – the Indian Point nuclear plant.
Adding insult to injury he evaded responding to the fact that “since the advent of the nuclear age in the mid-1940s, the mass of radioactive 129I (t1/2 = 15.7 Myr) circulating in the Earth’s hydrosphere has increased nearly forty fold from its natural background level of 140 kg.
“Nuclear fuel reprocessing has been by far the major contributor, responsible for releasing 5400 kg of 129I (half-life 15.7 million years) primarily into the North Atlantic Ocean. Regional and global trends in the distribution of the 129I inventory are elucidated from an examination of more than 600 determinations of 129I in environmental samples from around the world. Because the major point sources are located in Europe and the United States, more than 99% of the present 129I reservoir is distributed in the Northern Hemisphere, where both 129I concentrations and 129I/I ratios in rivers, lakes, and shallow seawater are several orders of magnitude above the preanthropogenic background.
” …………………. We model the effect of a collapse in thermohaline circulation and project a concentration increase of more than 3 orders of magnitude in shallow oceans over the 10,000 years that follow if nuclear reprocessing is to continue at the present rate. ” “Filthy water cannot be washed.” http://www.agu.org/pubs/crossref/2010/2009GC002910.shtml#citation#citation
Soouth Australia’s Mike Rann gives freehold to BHP over Olympic Dam uranium mining lease
“They have a code of silence at that mining lease that’s stronger than any code in downtown
Calabria,” “They even have the government tied up because when BHP says jump, the government says how high.”
Yesterday, Rann again signed off on BHP’s powerful proprietary interests over the site. BHP gets freehold over the extended Olympic Dam mining lease. Few mining companies have this ultimate level of control.
The estimated mining royalties for South Australia ($350 million) from the “world’s biggest mine in human history” are around one tenth of what Western Australia pulls every year from iron ore.
Mike Rann delivers Kloppers’ Kingdom in Melbourne, Crikey, by Kevin Naughton of InDaily, 13 Oct 11,
“…….Rann was in Melbourne at BHP Billiton’s headquarters to sign the indenture agreement that specifies several of the terms under which BHP can expand its mine at Olympic Dam. Marius Kloppers, the busy global boss of the company with more than $72 billion turnover, held the whip hand on the Premier of a state with annual turnover of about $13 billion.
The indenture agreement goes before Parliament next week where there will be some token debate, but little in the way of exhaustive analysis of the terms of a deal that gives BHP 45 years of certainty, control and exclusive access rights that make this mine site look more like Kloppers’ Kingdom than a part of South Australia. Continue reading
Australia’s Lynas corporation accused of fraud – secrecy over radioactive waste disposal
Malaysian MP accuses Australian company of fraud, 702 ABC Sydney , 29 Sept 11, South East Asia correspondent A Malaysian MP has accused an Australian company of corporate fraud in relation to the building of an ore processing plant in Malaysia.
The Lynas Corp plant will process ore from Western Australia in Malaysia, extracting rare earth minerals for hi-tech manufacturing. The ore contains low levels of radiation, but the Australian company says its plant will be safe.
But Malaysian MP Fuziah Salleh has lodged an official complaint with the Australian Securities and Investments Commission (ASIC). In a letter to ASIC, she says the company promised the International Atomic Energy Agency it would intensify consultation.
She says the company’s failure to publicly release a waste disposal plan amounts to corporate fraud…..The plant is expected to be complete by the end of the year..
http://www.abc.net.au/news/2011-09-29/malaysian-mp-accuses-australian-company-of-fraud/3034900/?site=sydney
Call to sack Australia’s Resources Minister, over his deceitful handling of nuclear waste issue
Dr Jim Green said: “Mr Ferguson’s handling of this dump issue has been misleading,
undemocratic, secretive and in violation of binding Labor Party platform policy. He is treating South Australians with contempt. Prime Minister Gillard should sort out this mess by replacing Mr Ferguson with someone better suited to the task of managing a difficult and contentious issue.”
MARTIN FERGUSON MISLEADS SA ON NUCLEAR DUMP, 28 September 2011, Federal resources minister Martin Ferguson’s mishandling of the contentious plan to truck nuclear waste through SA to a dump site in the NT reached a new low with his misleading comments on ABC Riverland radio this morning.
Mr Ferguson claimed that no decision had been made on a dump site. However he is pushing the National Radioactive Waste Management Bill (NRWMB) through Parliament. The Bill targets Muckaty in the NT as the only site under active consideration for a dump site despite the fact that MuckatyTraditional Owners are challenging the nomination in the Federal Court, and despite NT legislation banning the imposition of a nuclear dump. Continue reading
South Australian government secrecy on expansion of BHP’s Olympic Damn
Release ‘secret’ Roxby report, 22 Sept 11, The Greens have called for the immediate release of a hidden report that captures the views of State Government agencies on the Olympic Dam
Mega-expansion.
Called the ‘Assessment Report’, it is a compulsory step in the approval process for a major development. It summarises the responses by various government agencies to the proponent’s Supplementary Environmental Impact Statement (EIS) and is supposed to be released before the Government announces its approval of a project. However, for recent controversial projects the Rann Government has chosen to only release the Report after they have announced their decision. “The only reason the Government is choosing not to release the Assessment Report now is to avoid scrutiny,” said SA Greens Parliamentary leader Mark
Parnell.
“The Government is holding back the Report’s release for political reasons – keeping the SA community in the dark. This means that the public doesn’t get a chance to respond. It also allows the Government to dodge tricky questions as the media and others tend to focus on the approval decision, rather than what Government agencies actually think.
“The Rann Government has form in releasing the Assessment Report only after they announce their decision on a project. They did it for Buckland Park and they did it for the Port Stanvac desal plant. “For a project as important as the Olympic Dam expansion, the Government should be giving the SA community more opportunities to be involved in the
final decision, not less. “For example, the Assessment Report will be able to tell us what
Government agencies like SARDI really think about the proposed desalination plant at Pt Lowly.
“The Greens call on the State Government to immediately release the Assessment Report, well before they announce their decision on the OlympicDam Expansion.
South Australia: Labor and Liberal keep uranium mine information from the public
Last night, Labor and Liberal combined to defeat a Greens motion calling on the release of more information from the world’s richest resource company to justify BHPB’s preferred option to send Roxby ore to China for processing.
Labor & Liberal roll over on Roxby ‘China Option’, 15 Sept 11, South Australian Greens Parliamentary Leader Mark Parnell has accused the SA Labor Government and Liberal Opposition of abandoning domestic processing for the Olympic Dam expansion. Continue reading
Toro Energy uranium company notorious for peddling lies
The Battle to Keep WA Uranium Free, New Matilda.com By Jim Green and Mia Pepper, 13 Sept 11, “…..Toro is notorious for peddling junk science. As nuclear radiologist Peter Karamoskoswrote in The Age earlier this year:
“There seems to be a never-ending cabal of paid industry scientific ‘consultants’ who are more than willing to state the fringe view that low doses of ionising radiation do not cause cancer and, indeed, that low doses are actually good for you and lessen the incidence of cancer. Canadian Dr Doug Boreham has been on numerous sponsored tours of Australia by Toro Energy, a junior uranium explorer, expounding the view that ‘low-dose radiation is like getting a suntan’. Toro must have liked what it heard because it made him a safety consultant for the company in 2009.”
As Karamoskos goes on to note, Toro’s claims do not stand up to scrutiny: Continue reading
Muckaty radioactive waste dump not necessary for nuclear medicine
HEALTH PROFESSIONALS DISPUTE CANBERRA’S NUCLEAR DUMP CLAIMS , 12 sept 11, The Public Health Association of Australia and the Medical Association for the Prevention of War are tonight hosting a special forum at Charles Darwin University to address Canberra’s plan for a radioactive waste storage and disposal facility in the NT. Topics will include refuting the Federal Government’s claims about the connection between nuclear medicine and the proposed waste facility.
The forum is timely with the federal Senate scheduled to debate the highly-controversial National Radioactive Waste Management Bill (NRWMB) this week, and with the Federal Court scheduled to hear a legal challenge against the nomination of the Muckaty site next month. Medical groups have previously written to Federal Senators calling on them to reject the NRWMB (online at <http://tiny.cc/2c7z0>). Continue reading
Australia plotted with USA against atomic energy chief – Wikileaks
US, Australia ‘schemed against IAEA chief’, SBS World News, 31 August 2011 Source: AAP, The United States and Australia schemed unsuccessfully in 2005 to block Mohamed ElBaradei’s election to a third term as head of the International Atomic Energy Agency, a newly leaked US diplomatic cable shows.
Both countries were unhappy with ElBaradei’s “unhelpful” response to Iran’s nuclear program, but the bid to prevent his re-election to the nuclear regulatory agency’s leadership ultimately failed for lack of international support.The February 18, 2005 State Department cable released by WikiLeaks on Tuesday opens a window into the effort, describing a lunch conversation between Australian officials and a US special envoy for nuclear non-proliferation, Jackie Sanders.
The cable spotlights US and Australian concerns over the Egyptian diplomat’s interpretation that Iran had a “right” to civilian nuclear power, and his reluctance to declare Iran in non-compliance with the nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty. Australian officials said there weren’t the 12 votes on the IAEA board of governors needed to deny ElBaradei re-election, “but that did not stop them from speculating on ways to try to prevent his re-election,” said the cable.
John Carlson, then head of Australia’s nuclear safeguards agency and one of the officials at the lunch, said Canberra strongly supported limiting IAEA chiefs to two terms, according to the cable…… The cable also included an informal document forwarded by Carlson, who had not yet cleared it with his government, entitled The case against ElBaradei….
Landscape Guardians – anything to stop action on Climate Change
I had the interesting experience of sitting through a recent Landscape Guardians meeting, with a panel of their “experts” including Randall Bell, in the small community of Barunah Park, west of Geelong.
“Any weapon” is what they use, and FUD (fear, uncertainty, doubt) tactics are their specialty…..the Guardians are part of the murky network of climate deniers, fossil fuel lobbyists, and hard-right Liberal party types. Their president has acknowledged they are waging a political battle against environmentalists.
Anti-wind power lobby: Farming fear, uncertainty and doubt, Green Left Weekly, July 30, 2011 , By Ben Courtice, The ABC’s Four Corners on July 25 showcased the national debate around wind farms’ alleged negative health effects.
It patiently allowed the anti-wind power Waubra Foundation to walk the audience through their case that wind farms are a health hazard. Many people I have met are curious to know if there is any truth to the allegations. Continue reading
Waubra Foundation – Australia’s secretive front group for polluting industries
The trick with astroturfers is to create a large number of so-called community groups to gain disproportionate media attention. Further investigation often finds these to be “phantom” organisations of just one person with often the same person representing multiple groups.
At the mere sniff of a proposed wind farm, media releases go out from “local”
Landscape Guardian groups. Paid advertisements call for public meetings. At these, the forces behind the climate sceptic movement in Australia, such as the Institute of Public Affairs’ Australian Environment Foundation, call on the by now familiar list of Guardians and its plentiful supporters amongst the Lavoisier Group, the Liberal Party and other sceptic groups to be bussed in. With the emphasis on silencing any pro-wind supporters at a meeting….
The ugly Landscape of the Guardians, Independent Australia, Sandi Keane, 24 July 11, “……..Wind Turbine Syndrome, according to the Waubra Foundation. Symptoms claimed include sleep problems, headaches, dizziness, nausea, exhaustion, anxiety, anger, irritability, depression, tinnitus, concentration problems – and a new one – children refusing to go to school! Continue reading
ANSTO’s all too cosy relationship with its nuclear regulator
Nuclear regulator ‘too close’ to ANSTO, ABC News 7 July 11, A review of Australia’s nuclear industry regulator, ARPANSA, has found an improper relationship with the main agency it monitors.
The Health Department’s audit and fraud control branch has been investigating how ARPANSA handled allegations of safety breaches and bullying at the nation’s only nuclear reactor in Sydney.
Whistleblowers had alleged ARPANSA was too close to the Australian Nuclear Science and Technology Organisation (ANSTO), which runs the Lucas Heights research facility.
The whistleblowers claimed that safety reports were being compromised.
The Health Department review also questioned ARPANSA’s impartiality.
Greens Senator Scott Ludlam told ABC1’s Lateline the review vindicates the whistleblowers.
“The whistleblowers were right and the people who have been raising concerns about practices with these hazardous materials were right to raise their concerns,” he said. “It also tells us the regulator and the regulated were too close.”
The Federal Government is now reviewing ARPANSA’s regulatory powers, with Thursday’s report recommending they be strengthened if necessary.
1 This month
17 October, Free Public Talk on Nuclear Issues in South Australia
David Noonan will speak on public interest concerns over the new Roxby Downs Indenture Act 2026 on BHP copper-uranium mining and ore processing in SA, and on how AUKUS may face SA with a High-Level nuclear waste agenda.
Dr Jim Green will discuss international developments in the field of nuclear power including ‘small modular reactors’ and Generation 4 ‘advanced’ nuclear reactor concepts.
Help Aunty Sue Protect Her Land and Sacred Sites From Destructive Rocket Testing.
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AUKUS – https://aukuspublicinquiry.com/
PETITION – To: Prime Minister Anthony Albanese and the Australian Labor Government
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