Australia’s nuclear waste danger
Obama’s visit later this year may well lead to Australia becoming an international nuclear waste dump – THE NUCLEAR INDUSTRY and RADIOACTIVE WASTES – our theme for June 2010 With the National Radioactive Waste Management Bill, the Australian government is setting Australia up for a possible later step in the sorry story of nuclear wastes.
The decision to impose a nuclear waste dump on Northern Territory Aboriginal land has been followed quickly by an agreement between the Australian government and President Obama, on sharing nuclear technology. And this will now be followed by Obama’s visit to Australia – just at the time when 
Obama is in deep trouble over the USA’s growing mass of nuclear wastes.
At the same time, Obama has set up a (somewhat pro-nuclear industry) “Blue Ribbon Panel” to find out what on earth to do with USA’s nuclear wastes
Australia is still signed up to the International Framework for Nuclear Energy Cooperation , (that’s the new name for the Global Nuclear Energy Partnership), by which uranium -selling countries agree to take back nuclear wastes from overseas countries
Australian govt’s new trick to benefit nuclear industry
The NT intervention is clearly racist and is not motivated by concern for Aboriginal children but to enable government control of Aboriginal land…..Many Aboriginal communities have been forced to sign over their land on five-year leases to the federal government — land that contains gold, iron ore, uranium as well as areas that have been slated as potential nuclear waste dumps.
We are all in this together, Green Left Weekly, Ruth Ratcliffe June 20, 2010“…….The Rudd government plans to extend the paternalistic policy of welfare quarantining, which the Howard government initiated in remote Aboriginal communities, to other areas of disadvantage. Continue reading
Welfare quarantining in order to re-instate Racial Disrimination Act?
Racial discrimination act delayed as welfare rules extended * Patricia Karvelas * From: The Australian * June 22, 2010 THE Racial Discrimination Act, suspended for welfare quarantining in Northern Territory Aboriginal communities, will not be reinstated until December.Indigenous Affairs Minister Jenny Macklin said it would take some time for it to be fully reinstated after the government passed new laws to make income quarantining apply to indigenous and non-indigenous Australians….. Continue reading
Australian media publicising mining billionaires’ cheating message
On Australian TV we witness the unappetising vision of a bunch of billionaires looking like feral hippies – protesting against the government’s proposed super profit resources tax.
Well, of course – these impoverished underprivileged citizens want to have their 15% minimum profit, pretty much untrammelled by letting us – the great unwashed, and our descendants, get some benefit from this greed and environmental destruction.
It is sad that the Australian public can be conned in this way, due to media that is either bowing to its corporate ownership, or just too stupid or slack to see what is happening.
No wonder BHP, Rio Tinto etc are scared that other governments might get the idea of acting in the interests of their people, rather than of corporations. And it’s happening – – in the nuclear industry, as Germany is about to ring in a similar tax on nuclear power.
W.A. Premier threatens compulsory Aboriginal land acquisition – gas now, uranium later?
Video on Nuclear waste Dump for Australian Aboriginal Land
VIDEO Australia nuclear waste dump row – Asia-Pacific – Al Jazeera English Asia-Pacific – Al Jazeera 17 June 2010, Australia’s government is pushing its plans for a nuclear waste dump in a remote part of the country’s Northern Territory.It has signed an agreement with the traditional owners of the land who will receive $10m in compensation, most of it in cash.But the proposed nuclear dump has divided local people while and environmentalists warn it could one day be used to store waste from overseas.Al Jazeera’s Azhar Sukri reports.
Labor’s sorry record on uranium mining and Aboriginal rights
Ark Tribe faces the bosses’ court – time for unions to get back on the front foot, Socialist Alliance Unionists, 17 June 2010, “…..Indigenous rights? The racist and humiliating Northern Territory Intervention. Uranium mining? Looming open slather for mining bosses. So why support the ALP? Continue reading
Japan’s space junk falls on aboriginal land
Joy and delight, it seems, greets the fall of the asteroid bit, onto already contaminated Aboriginal land at Woomera!
Now I ask you – who, other than the Aborigines, would we expect to be delighted about a bit of metallic junk being flung onto their property?
First the Aborigines got atomic bombs, then uranium mining, now radioactive wastes, now space junk…!
Space probe returns to Earth from trip to asteroid, Google hosted news, By TANALEE SMITH (AP) –14 June 2010,”… It is the first time that a spacecraft has successfully landed on an asteroid and returned to Earth……
Japanese space probe to land in Australian outback, news90, June 13, 2010 · “…local Aboriginal elders,.. will fly out in a helicopter to check it has not damaged any sites sacred to the local indigenous people. – (and what if it has? – too late now!)
Uranium companies pressuring Aboriginals in Australia’s Kimberly region
Green group on ‘uranium awareness’ tour » Kimberley Page, 10 June 2010, Uranium Awareness Community Forums planned for July While the proposed construction of a liquefied natural gas (LNG) facility at James Price Point attracts widespread media attention, an increase in uranium exploration is underway and under the radar in the Kimberley.
Presently there are numerous uranium tenements covering the Kimberley . This spike in activity is the result of the Barnett Government’s move to overturn the long-standing ban on uranium exploration and development held by the previous Labor Government.Already Traditional Owners across the Kimberley are under pressure to allow exploration activities. Meanwhile uranium companies are talking in glowing terms about the Kimberley as Australia’s new uranium province. Continue reading
Leading Australian law firms take up case against Muckaty nuclear waste dump
Maurice Blackburn, Julian Burnside, charged with waste dump action 3 June 2010 | by The New Lawyer THE Commonwealth Government and the Northern Land
Council will face a Federal Court legal challenge over plans for a radioactive waste dump in the Northern Territory.Maurice Blackburn Lawyers is working with NSW law firm Surry Partners, and Julian Burnside QC, to commence proceedings challenging the nomination of the Indigenous land, at Muckaty Station near Tennant Creek. Continue reading
Call To Martin Ferguson to withdraw nuclear dump plans
We, the undersigned residents of the federal electorate of Batman, call on Martin Ferguson MP to withdraw his plan to establish a national nuclear waste dump on Aboriginal land in the NT.We condemn his plans to override Aboriginal heritage laws, environmental protection laws, and all necessary state/territory laws in order to impose the unwanted and unnecessary nuclear dump.
” if you live in Ferguson’s Batman electorate, please sign the e-petition against the dump posted at:
http://www.gopetition.com.au/petitions/batman-voters-against-a-nuclear-waste-dump/sign.html
Legal case: Aboriginal owners do not want nuclear waste dump on their land
Mr Newhouse says his clients do not want compensation but for the nomination of the site to be withdrawn.
NT nuclear waste dump faces legal challenge. ABC News (Australian Broadcasting Corporation), By Jane Bardon and Gina Marich Jun 3, 2010 A legal challenge to the Federal Government’s plan to establish a national nuclear waste dump in the Northern Territory has been taken to the Federal Court. Continue reading
Review: hypocrisy on uranium and nuclear industry
Australia: what a load of hypocrisy is going on. about the Resources Tax! BHP saying that Olympic Dam uranium mine’s expansion is threatened. Of course it is! – By the collapse of the uranium market ! ANSTO forced to admit its safety failures. And, we wait to see if Peter Garrett will be able to promote AREVA’s uranium mining in Koongarra, while he still poses as Minister for Environment
International: hypocrisy as the closing Nuclear Non Proliferation conference promotes the nuclear industry, as pro-nukes suggest nuke bombing the oil spill, as the industry touts new, little, thorium reactors. All in a desperate bid to keep the “peaceful” nuclear industry afloat, as nuclear reactors age and close down, while new ones just aren’t getting built, except in secretive totalitarian states, such as China
Garrett’s chance to support environment rather than AREVA
“The Federal Government needs to chose which is more important – the long-term national interest of Australia or the corporate interest of a French nuclear company.”
Garrett keen to see Kakadu expansion ABC News (Australian Broadcasting Corporation) 30 May 2010 Federal Environment Minister Peter Garrett says he would like to seize the opportunity to expand Kakadu National Park, following a request from traditional owners. Continue reading
Koongarra land to be saved from uranium mining
Mr Lee, the sole member of the Djok clan and senior custodian of the land known as Koongarra, could have become one of Australia’s richest men if he had allowed the French energy giant Areva to extract 14,000 tonnes of uranium from its mineral lease in the area……….
Land of riches given over to Kakadu, The Age, LINDSAY MURDOCH, KAKADUMay 29, 2010 T HE World Heritage-listed Kakadu National Park will be expanded to include thousands of hectares of ecologically sensitive land that has uranium worth billions of dollars.
Aboriginal traditional owner Jeffrey Lee has offered the land to the federal government so it can become part of Kakadu, where he works as a ranger. Continue reading
1 This month
of the week – Australians for War Powers Reform (AWPR)
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