Critical Times

By Joel Catchlove – December 2005

Despite the open-slather uranium mining
policy of the Liberal/National Coalition
government, just one new uranium mine has
begun production in the past decade. The
Beverley mine in South Australia, which began
commercial production in 2001, produces
about 10% of Australia’s uranium exports,
with Ranger in the NT and Roxby Downs in
SA producing the rest.

The Beverley mine uses an in-situ leach
mining method which involves dumping
liquid nuclear waste into groundwater with no
rehabilitation. Mining company Heathgate’s
‘consultation’ with the Adnyamathanha
traditional owners has been selective and
inadequate. Heathgate even stooped to
employing a private investigator to infiltrate
environment groups. Now Heathgate is
looking to expand its operations and is
involved in exploration across 4,600 sq kms of
SA.

Traditional owners and environmental groups
have enjoyed some major victories over the
past decade. The Jabiluka mine in the NT was
stopped. The federal government has effectively
ruled out uranium mining at Koongarra in the
Kakadu National Park.

The Labor Party has been held to its policy of
no new uranium mines despite pressure from
within and without. In October 2005, the SA
Labor government reaffirmed its opposition
to new uranium mines. In WA, the Labor
government opposes uranium mining and
plans to enshrine that opposition in legislation.

In Queensland, the Labor government
opposes uranium mining, albeit on the
questionable rationale that uranium exports
would undermine the coal export industry.
The federal ALP maintains a policy of no new
uranium mines though this may be challenged
at the ALP Convention in 2007.

Now the federal Coalition government has
embarked on its strongest push yet to expand
uranium mining. A sham parliamentary
inquiry has been established to promote
uranium mining. The government has also
established a steering committee tasked with
removing obstacles to expanded uranium
mining. The federal government has seized
control of uranium mining authorisation
in the NT. The 2003 Non-Proliferation
Legislation Amendment Act had nothing to do
with non-proliferation; it is designed to target
and intimidate protesters and whistle-blowers.

The reasons to oppose uranium mining are as
compelling as ever. The pattern of radioactive
racism persists, with Indigenous communities
repeatedly subjected to threats and thuggery,
divide-and-rule tactics, and bribery. The racism
is also evident with radioactive waste dumping.

First came the failed attempt to impose
a national nuclear waste dump on Kokatha
land in SA. Now the plan is to impose a dump
on Indigenous communities in the NT, with
the government currently pushing through
legislation to over-ride Aboriginal Heritage
Protection and Native Title laws.

The environmental impacts of uranium mining
are staggering in their proportions, not least
at Roxby Downs which produces 10 million
tonnes of radioactive tailings annually with
no long-term plans for its management. The
Roxby expansion plan envisages a dramatic
increase in the water take from the Great
Artesian Basin though the precious Mound
Springs have already been adversely effected
and in some cases ruined.

A further concern is that the current
regulatory environment for uranium mining
is inadequate. For example, the Olympic Dam
mine enjoys a range of exemptions from the
South Australian Environmental Protection
Act, the Water Resources Act, the Aboriginal
Heritage Act and the Freedom of Information
Act. While the SA Labor government opposes
new uranium mines, it fully supports plans to
make Roxby Downs the biggest uranium mine
in the world by tripling production. Liberal
and Labor both voted for the exemptions to
the Aboriginal Heritage Act in the late 1990s.

The 2003 Senate References and Legislation
Committee report into the regulation of
uranium mining in Australia reported “a
pattern of under-performance and noncompliance”,
it identified “many gaps
in knowledge and found an absence of
reliable data on which to measure the extent
of contamination or its impact on the
environment”, and it concluded that changes
were necessary “in order to protect the
environment and its inhabitants from serious
or irreversible damage”.

The problems don’t end at the mine sites.
Australian uranium is converted into highlevel
nuclear waste in nuclear power reactors
around the world, yet there is still not a
single repository anywhere in the world for
the disposal of high-level waste from nuclear
power. There is increasing talk of Australia
becoming the world’s nuclear waste dump.
Australian uranium has led to the production
of over 80 tonnes of plutonium in nuclear
reactors around the world – enough for
8,000 nuclear weapons – yet it is universally
acknowledged that the international
‘safeguards’ system is fundamentally flawed
and limited.

Australia’s uranium mining industry may
expand with proposed exports to China. China
is a nuclear weapons state with no intention
of fulfilling its Non-Proliferation Treaty
disarmament obligations. The Chinese regime
also refuses to sign the Comprehensive Test
Ban Treaty. Proponents of uranium sales to
China overlook the fundamental difficulty of
assuring peaceful uses of Australian uranium
in a closed and secretive society. It is difficult
to imagine a nuclear industry worker in China
publicly raising safety, security or proliferation
concerns without reprisal. Another concern
is that Australian uranium sales will free up
China’s limited uranium reserves for weapons
production.

Australia’s uranium exports already contribute
to proliferation problems and risks:

• Why does the government allow uranium
  sales to Japan given the regional tensions
  arising from Japan’s plutonium program and
  its status as a ‘threshold’ or ‘breakout’ state
  capable of producing nuclear weapons in a
  short space of time?
• Why does the government allow uranium
  sales to South Korea when only last year it
  was revealed that numerous nuclear weapons
  research projects were secretly carried out there
  from 1979 until 2000, in violation of the
  country’s NPT obligations?
• Why does the government allow uranium
  sales to the US, the UK and France nuclear
  weapons states which are failing to fulfil their
  NPT disarmament obligations?

Then a young and principled ALP researcher
(and now the pro-uranium SA Premier),
Mike Rann pinpointed the problem in 1982
when he wrote: “Again and again, it has been
demonstrated here and overseas that when
problems over safeguards prove difficult,
commercial considerations will come first.”

The campaigns against Jabiluka, and against
the planned national nuclear waste dump in
SA, were successful because excellent coalitions
of Indigenous people and environmentalists
developed. To further develop those
relationships, Friends of the Earth has helped
to relaunch the Alliance Against Uranium.

The Alliance met in north SA on September
17-18, bringing together over 70 people from
most Australian states, the majority being
representatives of Indigenous communities
being targeted by the uranium industry.

It’s a crucial period for the movement for
a nuclear-free Australia. If you’d like to
get involved, contact Joel Catchlove from
Friends of the Earth and the Campaign
Against Nuclear Dumping, 0403 886 951,
.
CAND meets each Tuesday from 5.30pm
at the Conservation Centre, 120 Wakefield
Street.

Better active today than radioactive tomorrow!