Antinuclear

Australian news, and some related international items

Murky Muckaty nuclear deal by the Australian government

A lengthy scientific study had identified Outback South Australia as the best site for the dump.

But SA is a State and, therefore, had the constitutional power denied the Northern Territory to tell Canberra where to go.

Group of 40 okays NT nuclear dump | Northern Territory News,NIGEL ADLAM February 27th, 2010
the nuclear waste dump deal was done – not with the 395 people who consider themselves traditional owners of the whole of Muckaty but with the 40 who are recognised as the traditional owners of the small waste dump site. Continue reading

February 27, 2010 Posted by | AUSTRALIA - NATIONAL, secrets and lies | , , , , , | Leave a comment

Darwin to Adelaide Railway Planned for Transport of Imported Nuclear Waste

discussions were under way with the Yanks to store the US Nuclear Waste in Australia, and transport it with the Railway to ‘secure places’ in the NT Centre.

New Matilda, Markob 24/02/10 “… the Darwin to Alice train, built for no purpose other than a nuke waste train (it certainly, at a cost of $2billion-the interest on which is around $300k/day- had no economic upside or value, Continue reading

February 27, 2010 Posted by | AUSTRALIA - NATIONAL, secrets and lies, uranium | , , , , , , , | Leave a comment

Govt lies about need for Northern Territory nuke waste dump

Another furphy, this one directly peddled by the Minister, says access to nuclear medicine in Australia is dependent on putting a nuclear waste dump in the NT

Radioactive politics,  ABC The Drum Unleashed – 25 Feb 2010, There are a number of furphies about the type of nuclear waste that is produced in Australia. Continue reading

February 25, 2010 Posted by | AUSTRALIA - NATIONAL, secrets and lies | , , , , , | Leave a comment

Martin Ferguson pulls a swifty on Northern Territory Nuclear Waste Dump

S.11 of the [new]Bill overrides all state and territory laws that regulate or prohibit nuclear waste dumps

S.12 of the [new]Bill directly overrides the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Heritage Protection Act 1984 in a similar manner to the Howard-era Act. It also overrides the Environment Protection and Biodiversity Conservation Act 1999

Back to the future with Ferguson’s nuclear waste legislation crikey, 24 Feb 2010…Labor’s 2007 election commitment was to repeal the CRWMA, which overrode NT laws and any Commonwealth legislation that might have delayed or hindered the investigation of waste dump sites, and replace it with a “a consensual process of site selection”. And Ferguson insisted yesterday that that was exactly what was happening. Continue reading

February 24, 2010 Posted by | AUSTRALIA - NATIONAL, secrets and lies | , , , , , , , | Leave a comment

Impossible to dump nuclear waste on white Australians’ land

ANSTO executive Steven McIntosh said …“We cannot really comment upon that policy process [of siting remote dumps]…….. but politics frankly was the determining factor.”

How to site a nuclear waste dump – Crikey.

by Bernard Keane

22 February 2010 Apart from the dispute between traditional owners, there’s a more fundamental question of why remote areas are preferred for nuclear waste dumps. The prerequisites routinely mentioned – geological stability and distance from groundwater – can readily be achieved elsewhere, without the expense and danger of transporting nuclear waste thousands of kilometres. Continue reading

February 23, 2010 Posted by | AUSTRALIA - NATIONAL, secrets and lies, uranium | , , , , , , , , , | Leave a comment

Martin Ferguson’s secret meetings on nuclear waste dump

Muckaty firms as nuclear dump Northern Territory News DANIEL BOURCHIER February 21st, 2010 MUCKATY Station is this week expected to be named as the site for the controversial nuclear waste dump.The revelation follows a series of secret meetings Federal Resources Minister Martin Ferguson held with the Northern Land Council, and separately with NT Chief Minister Paul Henderson and Resources Minister Kon Vatskalis. Continue reading

February 22, 2010 Posted by | AUSTRALIA - NATIONAL, secrets and lies, uranium | , , , , , , | 2 Comments

Secret agreement on nuclear waste dump for Northern Territory

Hale to fight own party against nuclear dump – ABC News (Australian Broadcasting Corporation) 20 Feb 2010 “….The ACF’s Dave Sweeney says the only sites still under consideration are in the Territory.”I would put my money that Minister Ferguson will try and bulldoze through the imposition of a waste site at Muckaty at Tennant Creek,” he said.”And I think if he goes down that path and if Federal Labor allows the Minister to break with clear policy we will be in deeply contested territory.”Mr Sweeney says the Commonwealth has entered into an agreement regarding the facility with the Northern Land Council but that agreement is being kept confidential.

Hale to fight own party against nuclear dump – ABC News (Australian Broadcasting Corporation)

February 20, 2010 Posted by | AUSTRALIA - NATIONAL, secrets and lies | , , , , | Leave a comment

Rudd Govt Betrays Australians on Nuclear Waste Dumping

The Australian Government, aided by an inert mainstream media, is lying and cheating Australians. Martin Ferguson and the Rudd Government pretend to change the Howard Government’s laws on nuclear waste, and pretend to have aboriginal support for the dumping of radioactive waste on aboriginal land in the Northern Territory.

Rudd Government, elected on the promise to over-turn discriminatory and anti-environment laws about radioactive waste, is now producing a new and worse version of those laws. (More about Martin Ferguson’s new Bill at.Bernard Keane – Crikey )

Australia is obligated to take back a small amount of radioactive waste from UK and France. That waste originated from the Lucas Heights nuclear reactor in Sydney – and could perfectly well be stored there.  Or on Commonwealth land elsewhere in Australia.

February 15, 2010 Posted by | 1, AUSTRALIA - NATIONAL, energy, secrets and lies, uranium | , , , , , , , , , | 1 Comment

Australian government continues to cover up radiation damage to veterans

successive governments continued to cover up the atomic test issue.

Rudd Government refuses to help Maralinga veterans sue Britain: The Courier-Mail Ian McPhedran January 20, 2010

THE Rudd Government has refused to help Australian veterans who are suing the British Government over radiation exposure during atomic bomb tests in the 1950s and 60s. Continue reading

January 20, 2010 Posted by | AUSTRALIA - NATIONAL, secrets and lies | , , , , | Leave a comment

Australian climate activist gaoled in Copenhagen

Australian climate activist detained three weeks in Copenhagen gaol

Danish authorities detained an Australian, Natasha Verco, for over three weekd since the Copenhagen climate conference. She was detained in the Vestre Faengsel prison, to appear in court in Copenhagen on Monday January 4th 2010. Continue reading

January 5, 2010 Posted by | AUSTRALIA - NATIONAL, climate change - global warming, secrets and lies | , , | Leave a comment

Depleted uranium was tested on soldiers in Australia

An Australian royal commission first discovered the use of depleted uranium in atomic tests at Maralinga some  years ago,

Global changes ruining the world, September 25, 2009 Human Nuclear Action UK Admits Soldiers Used in Radiation Experiments The UK Ministry of Defense admitted on 12 May that it exposed British, Australian and New Zealand servicemen to radiation in tests during the 1950s and 1960s. A spokesperson for the Ministry denied that the soldiers were used as guinea pigs, Continue reading

December 25, 2009 Posted by | AUSTRALIA - NATIONAL, secrets and lies, uranium | , , , , , , , , | Leave a comment

Continued secrecy, denial, about radiological warfare

atom-uran-1Before the Bomb – book review – On Line Opinion, by Noel Wauchope  – 9/11/2009 Where do we go, to find out about the radiological effects of atomic weapons?We usually seek out the rather patchy and incomplete stories of the victims – those at the “receiving end” of bombing, at Hiroshima, or of the atomic tests of Nevada, of Mururoa, Montebello, Maralinga. These have been covered in several books.But, how much was known about these radiological effects before the Bomb?

Here, at last, is the book that answers this question. And Paul Langley’s book The Prediction of the Radiological Effects of Atomic Bombs From Knowledge Published Prior to August 1945 answers it with evidence in forensic detail, a plenitude of exact primary documentary evidence, including digital evidence available on the Internet.

This is also a book that raises questions: questions that matter very much right now. Today, World War II veterans, Pacific Islanders, Navajo people and Australian Aborigines seek acknowledgment and justice for their diseases from exposure to radiation. Iraqi doctors and communities, and US, Canadian and UK Gulf War veterans claim health damage from depleted uranium. Where is the truth?…………..

It is an Australian shame that recognition has not been given to aboriginal victims. The reaction of Australian authorities has been a record of “lies, denial, racial taunts and suppression of evidence.” In Project Sunshine’s calculations of exposure dose to Australians, two population groups were excluded. These were: Aborigines living in remote areas around the bomb test sites, and the soldiers and others involved in the tests. In other words the two most affected groups.

A later health study continued to exclude the Aborigines, ignoring the testimony of survivors, their memory of the “Black Mist”, and even of those with Beta burns. Secrecy surrounded the investigation. Professor Ernest Titterton, Chairman of the Australian Atomic Weapons Test Safety Committee, kept project information from the Committee. As he stated “I was subject to American control on information.”

 

Before the Bomb – book review – On Line Opinion – 9/11/2009

November 10, 2009 Posted by | 1, AUSTRALIA - NATIONAL, secrets and lies, uranium | , , , , , , , , , | Leave a comment

Media silence on land grab for uranium

Pilger: Breaking the Australian Silence by John Pilger 06 November 2009 Pacific Free PressI would like to talk about this silence: about how it affects our national life, the way we see the world, and the way we are manipulated by great power Continue reading

November 8, 2009 Posted by | 1, AUSTRALIA - NATIONAL, secrets and lies, uranium | , , , , , , , | Leave a comment

Powerful influence of big polluting industries

revealed-polluters-fear-tactics-on-climate Brisbane Times MARIAN WILKINSON AND FLINT DUXFIELD

November 6, 2009

BIG greenhouse polluting companies around the world, employing thousands of lobbyists, are exerting heavy pressure on governments to weaken climate change laws at home and slow progress on an international climate agreement in Copenhagen, a global investigation reveals.

In Australia, 20 companies who have already won the most concessions from the Rudd Government’s emissions trading scheme employ 28 lobbying firms with well over 100 staff, many of them former politicians, political advisers or government officials.

In the US there are more than 2800 climate lobbyists, five for every member of Congress, an increase of more than 400 per cent over the past six years. From Washington to Canberra and New Delhi to Brussels, companies and their lobbyists are often raising the same widespread fears about jobs, power blackouts and economic losses unless governments weaken commitments to combat climate change.The report by the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists examined the climate lobby in eight countries including the US, Canada, Australia, India, Japan, China, Belgium and Brazil. It relied on more than 200 interviews, lobbying registers and political donation records. ………………In the US, chief executives of coal and power companies have hosted a public campaign against climate legislation which is being blocked in the Senate……….

Industry lobby groups have also carved out a permanent role at the UN talks as representatives of the so-called BINGOS – Business and Industry Non-Government Organisations.

While lobbyists for the renewable energy industry, the carbon traders and environmental groups are also becoming more prominent, the report finds that their voices ”can barely be heard above the clamour of the older, well-capitalised and deeply entrenched industries that have been lobbying on climate change for more than 20 years”.http://www.brisbanetimes.com.au/national/revealed-polluters-fear-tactics-on-climate-20091106-i0ju.html

November 6, 2009 Posted by | climate change - global warming, energy, secrets and lies, uranium | , , , , , , , , , , | Leave a comment

How ANSTO “fixed” nuclear opinion poll

civil-liberty-2smThis is how ANSTO’s  poll was on Saturday 24/10/09

ANSTO-241009

This is how ANSTO changed it by Monday 26/10/09

ANSTO-261009-1Nifty. hey?

October 27, 2009 Posted by | AUSTRALIA - NATIONAL, secrets and lies | , , , | Leave a comment