Radioactive waste and the nuclear war on Australia's
Aboriginal people
by Jim
Green
Australia's nuclear industry has a shameful history of
'radioactive racism' that dates from the British bomb tests in the 1950s,
writes Jim Green. The same attitudes persist today with plans to dump over half
a million tonnes of high and intermediate level nuclear waste on Aboriginal
land, and open new uranium mines. But now Aboriginal peoples and traditional
land owners are fighting back!
"It
wouldn't be an overstatement to say that the never-ending nuclear war against Australia's
Aboriginal people amounts to cultural genocide. Indeed it would be a statement
of the obvious."
From
1998-2004, the Australian federal government tried - but failed - to impose a
national nuclear waste dump on Aboriginal land in South Australia.
Then the
government tried to impose a dump on Aboriginal land in the Northern Territory,
but that also failed.
Now the
government has embarked on its third attempt and once again it is trying to
impose a dump on Aboriginal land despite clear opposition from Traditional
Owners.
The latest
proposal is for a dump in the spectacular Flinders Ranges, 400 km north of
Adelaide in South Australia, on the land of the Adnyamathanha Traditional
Owners.
The
government says that no group will have a right of veto, which is
coded racism: it means that the dump may go ahead despite the government's acknowledgement that "almost all Indigenous community
members surveyed are strongly opposed to the site continuing."
The proposed
dump site was nominated by former Liberal Party politician Grant Chapman but he
has precious little connection to the land. Conversely, the land has been
precious to Adnyamathanha Traditional Owners for millennia.
'It
was like somebody ripped my heart out'
The site is
adjacent to the Yappala Indigenous Protected Area (IPA). "The IPA is right on the fence -
there's a waterhole that is shared by both properties", said Yappala Station resident and Adnyamathanha Traditional
Owner Regina McKenzie.
The
waterhole - a traditional women's site and healing place - is one of many
archeological and culturally significant sites in the area that Traditional
Owners have registered with the South Australian government over the past six
years. Two Adnyamathanha associations - Viliwarinha Aboriginal Corporation and
the Anggumathanha Camp Law Mob - wrote in November 2015 statement:
"Adnyamathanha
land in the Flinders Ranges has been short-listed for a national nuclear waste
dump. The land was nominated by former Liberal Party Senator Grant Chapman.
Adnyamathanha Traditional Owners weren't consulted. Even Traditional Owners who
live next to the proposed dump site at Yappala Station weren't consulted. This
is an insult.
"The
whole area is Adnyamathanha land. It is Arngurla Yarta (spiritual land). The
proposed dump site has springs. It also has ancient mound springs. It has
countless thousands of Aboriginal artefects. Our ancestors are buried there.
"Hookina
creek that runs along the nominated site is a significant women's site. It is a
registered heritage site and must be preserved and protected. We are
responsible for this area, the land and animals.
"We
don't want a nuclear waste dump here on our country and worry that if the waste
comes here it will harm our environment and muda (our lore, our creation, our
everything). We call on the federal government to withdraw the nomination of
the site and to show more respect in future."
Regina
McKenzie describes getting the news that the Flinders Ranges site
had been chosen from a short-list of six sites across Australia: "We were devastated, it was like
somebody had rang us up and told us somebody had passed away. My niece rang me
crying ... it was like somebody ripped my heart out."
McKenzie said
on ABC television: "Almost
every waste dump is near an Aboriginal community. It's like, yeah, they're only
a bunch of blacks, they're only a bunch of Abos, so we'll put it there. Don't
you think that's a little bit confronting for us when it happens to us all the
time? Can't they just leave my people alone?"
Adnyamathanha
Traditional Owner Dr Jillian Marsh said in an April 2016 statement:
"The
First Nations people of Australia have been bullied and pushed around, forcibly
removed from their families and their country, denied access and the right to
care for their own land for over 200 years. Our health and wellbeing compares
with third world countries, our people crowd the jails. Nobody wants toxic
waste in their back yard, this is true the world over. We stand in solidarity
with people across this country and across the globe who want sustainable
futures for communities, we will not be moved."
The battle
over the proposed dump site in the Flinders Ranges will probably be resolved
over the next 12 months. If the government fails in its third attempt to impose
a dump against the wishes of Aboriginal Traditional Owners, we can only assume
on past form that a fourth attempt will ensue.
Dumping
on South Australia, 1998-2004
This isn't
the first time that Aboriginal people in South Australia have faced the
imposition of a national nuclear waste dump. In 1998, the federal government announced
its intention to build a dump near the rocket and missile testing range at
Woomera.
The proposed
dump generated such controversy in South Australia that the federal government
hired a public relations company. Correspondence
between the company and the government was released under Freedom of
Information laws.
In one
exchange, a government official asked the PR company to remove sand-dunes from
a photo to be used in a brochure. The explanation provided by the government
official was that: "Dunes
are a sensitive area with respect to Aboriginal Heritage". The
sand-dunes were removed from the photo, only for the government official to ask
if the horizon could be straightened up as well.
Aboriginal
groups were coerced into signing 'Heritage Clearance Agreements' consenting to
test drilling of short-listed sites for the proposed dump. The federal
government made it clear that if consent was not granted, drilling would take
place anyway.
Aboriginal
groups were put in an invidious position. They could attempt to protect
specific cultural sites by engaging with the federal government and signing
agreements, at the risk of having that engagement being misrepresented as
consent for the dump; or they could refuse to engage in the process, thereby
having no opportunity to protect cultural sites.
Aboriginal groups
did participate in Heritage Clearance Agreements, and as feared that
participation was repeatedly misrepresented by the federal government as
amounting to Aboriginal consent for the dump.
'We
would not do that for any amount of money'
In 2002, the
Federal Government tried to buy-off Aboriginal opposition to the dump. Three
Native Title claimant groups - the Kokatha, Kuyani and Barngala - were offered A$90,000 to surrender their native title rights,
but only on the condition that all three groups agreed.
The
government's offer was refused. Dr Roger Thomas, a Kokatha Traditional Owner, said: "The
insult of it, it was just so insulting. I told the Commonwealth officers to
stop being so disrespectful and rude to us by offering us $90,000 to pay out our
country and our culture."
Andrew
Starkey, also a Kokatha man, said: "It
was just shameful. They were wanting people to sign off their cultural heritage
rights for a minuscule amount of money. We would not do that for any amount of
money."
In 2003, the
federal government used the Lands Acquisition Act 1989 to seize land for the
dump. Native Title rights and interests were extinguished with the stroke of a
pen. This took place with no forewarning and no consultation with Aboriginal
people.
Next
- the sham 'consultation'
Leading the battle
against the dump were the Kupa Piti Kungka Tjuta, a council of senior Aboriginal women from
northern South Australia. Many of the Kungkas personally suffered the impacts
of the British nuclear bomb tests at Maralinga and Emu Field in the 1950s.
The
government's approach to 'consultation' with Aboriginal people was spelt out in
a document leaked in 2002. The document states: "Tactics to reach Indigenous audiences will be
informed by extensive consultations currently being undertaken ... with
Indigenous groups." In other words, sham 'consultation' was
used to fine-tune the government's pro-dump propaganda.
The
government's cynical and disrespectful tactics were the antithesis of Article
29 of the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples,
which states that ''no
storage or disposal of hazardous materials shall take place in the lands or
territories of indigenous peoples without their free, prior and informed
consent''.
This issue
of sham 'consultation' arises time and time again, most recently with the
discussion initiated by a Royal Commission (discussed below) into
"building confidence" in the safety of nuclear waste dump proposals.
West Mallee Protection (WMP), representing Aboriginal and non-Aboriginal people
from Ceduna in western South Australia, responded with this blistering attack:
"WMP
finds this question superficial and offensive. It is a fact that many people
have dedicated their time and energy to investigating and thinking about
nuclear waste. It is a fact that even elderly women that made up the Kupa Piti
Kungka Tjuta - a senior Aboriginal women's council - committed years of their
lives to stand up to the proposal for a low-level facility at Woomera.
"They
didn't do this because of previously inadequate 'processes' to 'build
confidence' as the question suggests but because:
A)
Individuals held a deep commitment to look after country and protect it from a
substance known as 'irati' poison which stemmed from long held cultural
knowledge.
B)
Nuclear impacts were experienced and continued to be experienced first hand by
members and their families predominately from nuclear testing at Emu Field and
Maralinga but also through exploration and mining at Olympic Dam.
C) They
epitomized and lived by the worldview that sustaining life for future
generations is of upmost importance and that this is at odds with the dangerous
and long lasting dangers of all aspects of the nuclear industry.
"The
insinuation that the general population or target groups such Kupa Piti Kungka
Tjuta or the communities in the Northern Territory that succeeded them and also
fought off a nuclear dump for Muckaty were somehow deficient in their
understanding of the implications and may have required "confidence
building" is highly offensive."
The
politicians finally get their ears out of their pockets
The Kupa
Piti Kungka Tjuta continued to implore the federal government to "get their ears out of their
pockets", and after six years the government did just that. In the
lead-up to the 2004 federal election, with the dump issue biting politically,
and following a Federal Court ruling that the government had illegally used
urgency provisions in the Lands Acquisition Act, the government decided to cut
its losses and abandon the dump plan.
The Kungkas wrote in an open letter: "People
said that you can't win against the Government. Just a few women. We just kept
talking and telling them to get their ears out of their pockets and listen. We
never said we were going to give up. Government has big money to buy their way
out but we never gave up."
Botched
clean-up of the Maralinga nuclear test site
The
1998-2004 debate over nuclear waste dumping in South Australia overlapped with a
controversy over a botched clean-up of the Maralinga nuclear weapons test site
in the same state.
The British
government conducted 12 nuclear
bomb tests in Australia in the 1950s, most of them at Maralinga. The 1985 Royal Commission found that regard for Aboriginal safety
during the weapons tests was characterised by "ignorance, incompetence and cynicism".
The
Australian government's clean-up of Maralinga in the late 1990s was just as bad. It
was done on the cheap and many tonnes of plutonium-contaminated waste remain
buried in shallow, unlined pits in totally unsuitable geology.
Nuclear
engineer and whistleblower Alan Parkinson said of the clean-up: "What
was done at Maralinga was a cheap and nasty solution that wouldn't be adopted
on white-fellas land."
Dr Geoff
Williams, an officer with the Commonwealth nuclear regulator, the Australian
Radiation Protection and Nuclear Safety Agency, said in a leaked email that the clean-up was beset by a "host of indiscretions,
short-cuts and cover-ups".
Nuclear
physicist Prof. Peter Johnston noted that there were "very
large expenditures and significant hazards resulting from the deficient
management of the project".
Prof.
Johnston (and others) noted in a conference paper that Traditional Owners were excluded from any
meaningful input into decision-making concerning the clean-up. Traditional
Owners were represented on a consultative committee but key decisions - such as
abandoning vitrification of plutonium-contaminated waste in favour of shallow
burial in unlined trenches - were taken without consultation with the
consultative committee or any separate discussions with Traditional Owners.
Federal
government minister Senator Nick Minchin said in a May 2000 media release that
the Maralinga Tjarutja Traditional Owners "have
agreed that deep burial of plutonium is a safe way of handling this
waste." But the burial of plutonium-contaminated waste was not
deep and the Maralinga Tjarutja Traditional Owners did not agree to waste burial in unlined trenches - in fact
they wrote to the Minister explicitly dissociating themselves from the
decision.
Barely a
decade after the Maralinga clean-up, a survey revealed that 19 of the 85 contaminated waste pits have
been subject to erosion or subsidence.
Despite the
residual radioactive contamination, the Australian government off-loaded
responsibility for the contaminated land onto the Maralinga Tjarutja
Traditional Owners. The government portrayed this land transfer as an act of
reconciliation. But it wasn't an act of reconciliation - it was deeply cynical.
The real agenda was spelt out in a 1996 government document which said that the
clean-up was "aimed at
reducing Commonwealth liability arising from residual contamination."
Radioactive
ransom in the Northern Territory
After the
Kungkas victory in 2004, successive federal governments spent the best part of
a decade
attempting to establish a national nuclear waste dump at Muckaty, 110 km north
of Tennant Creek in the Northern Territory. A toxic trade-off of basic services
for a radioactive waste dump was part of the story from the start.
The
nomination of the Muckaty site was made with the promise of a A$12 million
compensation package comprising roads, houses and scholarships. Muckaty
Traditional Owner Kylie Sambo (see
photo) objected to this radioactive ransom: "I think that is a very, very
stupid idea for us to sell our land to get better education and scholarships.
As an Australian we should be already entitled to that."
While a
small group of Aboriginal Traditional Owners supported the dump, a large
majority were opposed
and some initiated legal
action in the Federal Court challenging the nomination of the Muckaty site
by the federal government and the Northern Land Council (NLC).
The
conservative Liberal/National Coalition federal government passed legislation -
the Commonwealth
Radioactive Waste Management Act - overriding the Aboriginal Heritage Act,
undermining the Aboriginal Land Rights Act, and allowing the imposition of a
nuclear dump with no Aboriginal consultation or consent.
The Australian
Labor Party voted against the Commonwealth Radioactive Waste Management Act,
with Labor parliamentarians describing it as "extreme",
"arrogant",
"draconian",
"sorry",
"sordid",
and "profoundly
shameful". At its 2007 national conference, Labor voted unanimously
to repeal the legislation.
Yet after
the winning the 2007 election, the Labor government passed legislation - the National
Radioactive Waste Management Act (NRWMA) - which was almost as draconian and still permitted the imposition of a dump with
no Aboriginal consultation or consent (to be precise, the nomination of a site
was not invalidated by a failure to consult or secure consent).
Radioactive
racism in Australia is bipartisan - both the Labor government and the
Liberal/National Opposition voted in support of the NRWMA. Shamefully, the NLC
supported legislation disempowering the people it is meant to represent.
In February
2008, Labor Prime Minister Kevin Rudd highlighted the life-story of Lorna Fejo
- a member of the stolen generation - in the historic National Apology to Aboriginal People in Parliament House.
At the same time, the Rudd government was stealing her land for a nuclear dump.
Fejo said: "I'm
very, very disappointed and downhearted about that [NRWMA legislation]. I'm
really sad. The thing is - when are we going to have a fair go? Australia is
supposed to be the land of the fair go. When are we going to have fair go? I've
been stolen from my mother and now they're stealing my land off me."
'Our
heart jiggled with joy'
The Federal
Court trial finally began in June 2014. After two weeks of evidence, the NLC gave up and
agreed to withdraw the nomination of Muckaty. Victory for the Muckaty
mob!
The
announcement came just days before the NLC and government officials were due to
take the stand to face cross-examination. As a result of their surrender, the
NLC and the government did not have to face cross-examination in relation to
numerous serious accusations (see here, here and here) raised in the first two weeks of the trial -
including claims that the NLC rewrote an anthropologists' report.
Kylie Sambo said: "I
believe [the NLC] didn't want to go through that humiliation of what they
really done. But it's better now that they actually backed off. It's good for
us."
Lorna Fejo said: "I
feel ecstatic. I feel free because it was a long struggle to protect my
land."
Marlene
Nungarrayi Bennett compared the Muckaty victory to other famous victories for
Aboriginal people: "Today
will go down in the history books of Indigenous Australia on par with the Wave Hill Walk-off, Mabo
and Blue Mud Bay. We have shown the Commonwealth and the NLC
that we will stand strong for this country. The NLC tried to divide and conquer
us but they did not succeed."
Dianne
Stokes said: "Everyone
is feeling very happy that we won; we struggled that long to get it over and
done with. ... If anyone else around the country wants support to stop a
nuclear dump, we will come along and help them to go against the waste. We had
so much support when we were struggling, if anyone calls we will go straight
there."
Isobel
Phillips said: "Looking
back now on how we struggled, it was the hardest. Keeping it up was the worst
because of the pressure that our land will be destroyed. We first felt sad,
heartbroken and betrayed that the government would put the nuclear waste on our
country. And our grief is for our elders who have passed away - they helped us
but their spirit is here with us today. There is one thing that we have - our
culture, lore, and family connection on the land.
"We
kept going with the fight until we won our land back. Our heart jiggled with
joy and smiled when we heard the good news that the government was not going
ahead with the nuclear waste dump on our country. We jumped and we danced with
excitement - what a blessing. We are so happy, so strong and still smiling with
pride."
Australia
as the world's nuclear waste dump
Now
Aboriginal people in South Australia face the imposition of a national nuclear
waste dump
as well as a plan to import 138,000 tonnes of high-level nuclear waste and
390,000 cubic metres of intermediate level waste for storage and disposal as a
commercial venture.
The plan is
being driven by the South Australian government, which last year established a Royal Commission to provide a fig-leaf of independent
supporting advice. The Royal Commissioner is a nuclear advocate and the
majority of the members of the Expert Advisory Committee are strident nuclear
advocates.
Indeed it
seems as if the Royal Commissioner sought out the dopiest nuclear
advocates he could find to put on the Expert Advisory Committee: one thinks
nuclear power is safer than solar, another thinks that nuclear power doesn't
pose a weapons proliferation risk, and a third was insisting that there was no
credible risk of a serious accident at Fukushima even as nuclear meltdown was
in full swing.
Announcing
the establishment of the Royal Commission in March 2015, South Australian
Premier Jay Weatherill said: "We
have a specific mandate to consult with Aboriginal communities and there are
great sensitivities here. I mean we've had the use and abuse of the lands of
the Maralinga Tjarutja people by the British when they tested their atomic
weapons."
Yet the
South Australian government's handling of the Royal Commission process
systematically disenfranchised Aboriginal people. The truncated timeline for
providing feedback on draft Terms of Reference disadvantaged people in remote
regions, people with little or no access to email and internet, and people for
whom English is a second language. There was no translation of the draft Terms
of Reference, and a regional communications and engagement strategy was not
developed or implemented.
Aboriginal
people repeatedly expressed frustration with the Royal Commission process. One
example (of many) is the submission of the Anggumathanha Camp Law Mob (who are also
fighting against the plan for a national nuclear waste dump on their land):
"Why
we are not satisfied with the way this Royal Commission has been
conducted:
Yaiinidlha
Udnyu ngawarla wanggaanggu, wanhanga Yura Ngawarla wanggaanggu? - always in
English, where's the Yura Ngawarla (our first language)?
"The
issues of engagement are many. To date we have found the process of engagement
used by the Royal Commission to be very off putting as it's been run in a real
Udnyu (whitefella) way. Timelines are short, information is hard to access,
there is no interpreter service available, and the meetings have been very
poorly advertised. ...
"A
closed and secretive approach makes engagement difficult for the average person
on the street, and near impossible for Aboriginal people to participate."
The plan to
turn South Australia into the world's nuclear waste dump has been met with
near-unanimous opposition from Aboriginal people. The Aboriginal Congress
of South Australia, comprising people from many Aboriginal groups across the
state, endorsed the following resolution at an August 2015 meeting:
"We,
as native title representatives of lands and waters of South Australia, stand
firmly in opposition to nuclear developments on our country, including all
plans to expand uranium mining, and implement nuclear reactors and nuclear
waste dumps on our land. ... Many of us suffer to this day the devastating
effects of the nuclear industry and continue to be subject to it through
extensive uranium mining on our lands and country that has been contaminated.
"We
view any further expansion of industry as an imposition on our country, our
people, our environment, our culture and our history. We also view it as a
blatant disregard for our rights under various legislative instruments,
including the founding principles of this state."
The Royal
Commission acknowledged strong Aboriginal opposition to its nuclear waste
proposal in its final report - but it treats that opposition not as a red
light but as an obstacle to be circumvented.
The
racism of the 'pro-nuclear environmentalists'
Australia's
self-styled 'pro-nuclear environmentalists' - academic Barry Brook (a member of the Royal Commission's Expert
Advisory Committee), uranium and nuclear industry consultant Ben Heard, and one or two others - have never once voiced concern about
attempts to impose nuclear waste dumps on unwilling Aboriginal communities.
Their silence suggests they couldn't care less about the racism of the industry
they so stridently support.
Silence from
Brook and Heard when the federal government was passing laws allowing the
imposition of a national nuclear waste dump in the Northern Territory without
consulting or securing consent from Traditional Owners.
Echoing comments from the right-wing Liberal Party, Brook and Heard
said the Muckaty site in the Northern Territory is in the "middle of nowhere".
From their perspective, perhaps, but for Muckaty Traditional Owners the site is
in the middle of their homelands - and claims that it is in the middle of
nowhere are deeply offensive.
Heard's comments about the current proposed dump site on
Adnyamathanha land in South Australia have been just as offensive. He claims
there are "no known cultural
heritage issues on the site". Try telling that to the
Adnyamathanha Traditional Owners who live on Yappala Station, in the Indigenous
Protected Area right next to the dump site.
So where did
Heard get this idea that there are "no
known cultural heritage issues on the site"? Not from visiting
the site, or speaking to the Traditional Owners. He's just parroting the
federal government's racist lies.
Brook and
Heard are also offering up the state of South Australia for an
international high-level nuclear waste dump as if it was their personal
property. No mention of Aboriginal Traditional Owners or their fierce
opposition to the proposal.
In
the US ...
The
intersection between nuclear waste dumping and racism isn't unique to
Australia, of course.
In the US, for example, a 2010 article in Scientific American noted: "Native tribes across the American West have been
and continue to be subjected to significant amounts of radioactive and
otherwise hazardous waste as a result of living near nuclear test sites,
uranium mines, power plants and toxic waste dumps."
More
bluntly, indigenous activist Winona LaDuke sums up
the problem: "The
greatest minds in the nuclear establishment have been searching for an answer
to the radioactive waste problem for fifty years, and they've finally got one:
haul it down a dirt road and dump it on an Indian reservation".
The racism
associated with nuclear waste dumping in the US is as plain as the nose on
James Hansen's face, but he hasn't said a word about it. Nor has the
Breakthrough Institute or any of the other self-styled 'pro-nuclear environmentalists'
in the US.
Self-styled
Aboriginal leaders
Just as
self-styled 'pro-nuclear environmentalists' ignore the nuclear industry's
systemic racism,
so too do a number of self-styled Aboriginal 'leaders'.
One such
'leader' is Warren Mundine. At various times he has been a member of
the federal government's Indigenous Advisory Council, a National President of
the Australian Labor Party, a Director of the Australian Uranium Association
and co-convenor of the Association's 'Indigenous Dialogue Group' (which never
initiated any dialogue with indigenous people).
Mundine was
silent when the Kupa Piti Kungka Tjuta were struggling to prevent the
imposition of a nuclear waste dump on their land from 1998-2004; and when
Muckaty Traditional Owners were struggling to prevent the imposition of a
nuclear waste dump on their land from 2006-2014.
And he
remains silent today as the Adnyamathanha Traditional Owners struggle to
prevent the imposition of a nuclear waste dump on their land; and as one after
another state government passes legislation weakening Aboriginal land rights
and heritage protections at the behest of uranium mining companies.
Mundine says Australia has "a
legal framework to negotiate equitably with the traditional owners on whose
land many uranium deposits are found." In fact, only in the
Northern Territory do Traditional Owners have any right of veto over mining -
and that legislation has a clause specifically exempting the Ranger uranium mine from the Act!
Mundine was awarded an Order of Australia gong in the June 2016 Queen's
Birthday honours, "for
distinguished service as a leader in Indigenous affairs and advocate for
enhancing economic and social public policy outcomes for Aboriginal and Torres
Straits Islander people."
No such
recognition for Aboriginal people fighting to protect country and culture - the
Maralinga Tjarutja, the Kupa Piti Kungka Tjuta, the Muckaty mob, the
Adnyamathanha and many others.
Systemic
racism
Bill
Shorten, leader of the federal Labor Party, recently said that "systemic
racism is still far-too prevalent" in Australia. He should
know - the Labor Party has repeatedly driven or supported bipartisan attempts
to impose nuclear waste dumps against the wishes of Aboriginal communities.
And both the
Labor Party and the Liberal/National Coalition believe that uranium mining is
more important than Aboriginal rights. One example concerns the 1982 South
Australian Roxby Downs Indenture Act, which sets the legal framework for the
operation of BHP Billiton's Olympic Dam uranium mine in SA.
The Act was
amended in 2011 but it retains exemptions from the South Australian Aboriginal
Heritage Act. As things stand, BHP Billiton must partially comply with an old
version of the Aboriginal Heritage Act - a version that was never proclaimed.
Traditional
Owners were not even consulted about the 2011 amendments. The government's
spokesperson in Parliament said: "BHP
were satisfied with the current arrangements and insisted on the continuation
of these arrangements, and the government did not consult further than
that."
That
disgraceful performance illustrates a broader pattern. Aboriginal land rights
and heritage protections are feeble at the best of times. But the legal rights
and protections are repeatedly stripped away whenever they get in the way of
nuclear or mining interests.
Thus the
Olympic Dam mine is largely exempt from the South Australian Aboriginal
Heritage Act. Sub-section 40(6) of the Commonwealth's Aboriginal Land Rights
Act exempts the Ranger uranium mine in the Northern Territory
from the Act and thus removed the right of veto that Mirarr Traditional Owners
would otherwise have enjoyed.
New South
Wales legislation exempts uranium mines from provisions of the
NSW Aboriginal Land Rights Act. The Western Australian government is in the
process of gutting the WA Aboriginal Heritage Act 1972 at the behest of the mining
industry. And on it goes:
- Native Title rights were
extinguished with the stroke of a pen to seize land for a radioactive
waste dump in South Australia;
- Aboriginal heritage laws and land
rights were repeatedly overridden with the push to dump nuclear waste in
the Northern Territory;
- and near-unanimous Aboriginal
opposition to a nuclear waste dump in South Australia's Flinders Ranges is
being ignored by the federal Liberal / National Coalition government (and
the Labor Opposition) and the South Australian Labor government (and the
Liberal Opposition).
-
It wouldn't be an overstatement to say that the never-ending nuclear war
against Australia's Aboriginal people amounts to cultural genocide. Indeed it
would be a statement of the obvious.
Dr
Jim Green is the national nuclear campaigner with Friends of the
Earth Australia and editor of the Nuclear Monitor newsletter, where a version of this article
was originally published. Nuclear Monitor, published 20 times a year, has been
publishing deeply researched, often critical articles on all aspects of the
nuclear cycle since 1978. A must-read for all those who work on this issue!
Take action:
·
The
Aboriginal-led Australian Nuclear Free Alliance (ANFA) is asking organisations
around the world to endorse a short
statement calling on nuclear nations not to dump their nuclear waste in
Australia.
·
Sign
the 'No Dump
Alliance' statement opposing international high-level nuclear waste dumping
in Australia.
- Scroll down
through ‘Older Posts’ at the end of each section
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Energy, the
ability to do work, is the most important dynamic, organic, and vital part of
the human drama.
For the past 10,000 years, we have simply grabbed some wood, oil or coal to
make a fire. Yes, our ancestors did it even back in the Stone Age. It has been
an easy way to cook food, heat our caves, and explode gasses in metal cylinders
with pistons. Many believe that we should just continue this human family
tradition, even if our collective population has ballooned to billions across
the planet and the carbon from our campfires keeps collecting in the
atmosphere.
Nikola Tesla, the father of AC electricity,
countered this trend a century ago when he said, “If we use fuel to get our
power, we are living on our capital and exhausting it rapidly. This method is
barbarous and wantonly wasteful and will have to be stopped in the interest of
coming generations.” Tesla further went on to state, “With its full development
and a perfect system of wireless transmission of our energy to any distance,
man will be able to solve all the problems of material existence.”
Another trend that can be called a revolution
is the transformation in the solar industry by multiple breakthroughs on all
fronts in the early part of this new millennium. Los Alamos National Laboratory
has recently broken through the single electron barrier by shrinking the
elements of a solar cell down to a few nanometers. Now each captured photon of
light can be made to generate not one, but two and even more electron charge
carrier. Producing this multiplicity of electrons, a feat duplicated by the
National Renewable Energy Lab (NREL), is a sign that photovoltaic (PV) cells
will soon be seen on the market with two to three times the output for the same
size cell as before (Physical Review Letters, V. 92, p. 186601, 2006 and
Nano Letters, V. 6, p. 424). 
However, notably, the only speaker to “pass
muster” during the coerced “peer review” was Dr. Paul Brown, whose nuclear
remediation discovery was praised by the only physicist on staff at the State
Department, Dr. Peter Zimmerman. His company, Nuclear Solutions, used gamma
rays (high energy X-rays) to zap mixed nuclear waste by knocking out one
neutron on the average through “giant dipole resonance.” The amazing part is
that this process was also independently discovered by the Institute for
Transuranium Elements overseas a few years later, also with the nuclear
material sealed in acrylic while it is treated with a tabletop gamma ray laser.
The treated waste has a short half-life of hours or weeks, compared to the
originally unacceptable thousands of years. With the demise of the government’s
Accelerated Transmutation of Waste (ATW) program, going the same way of the
doomed Tokamak, the door opens for a lower energy treatment that does not
activate the waste while trying to treat it, as ATW continued to do throughout
its trials. This is where onsite Laser-Driven Photo Transmutation of long-lived
radioactive waste finally will step in, reviving the fission reactor program,
with heightened security and elimination of off-site radioactive transport or
long term storage.
A number of discoveries in the field have
made zero point energy (ZPE) much more understandable and accessible to the
common physicist. A recent book based on a feasibility study has helped to
educate the public about the available means in the future for using ZPE to
produce useful electricity and even force production. I am optimistic about ZPE
rectifier diodes with “zero bias” as the best solid state means for converting
the quantum vacuum fluctuations into single direction, direct current (DC)
electricity.
