Tuesday, 5 June, 2007

by Christopher Doran and Annika Dean
The Herald

The recent decision by Traditional Owners of the Ngapa clan in the Northern Territory to allow their land to be used as a site for nuclear waste should be of concern to all Australians. Agreement to a waste dump is the thin edge of the Howard government's wedge for Australia to become a full fledged nuclear nation. Howard's stated ambition to build 25 reactors by 2050 cannot be realised without first solving the problem of what to do with the extremely toxic high level waste. It also opens the door to Australia being a repository for the world's nuclear waste.

The Muckaty proposal comes after a failed attempt to build a waste dump in South Australia, after a campaign led by senior Aboriginal women.

The dump will be used for storage of low and intermediate level waste from Sydney's Lucas Heights nuclear research reactor. Long lived "intermediate" waste remains radioactive for tens of thousands of years. The waste will be transported from Lucas Heights through densely populated areas around Sydney, and through many towns that are opposed to nuclear waste being trucked through their communities.

The Ngapa, one of several clans whose traditional ownership of the vast Muckaty Station 120 kilometres north of Tennant Creek was legally recognised in 1995, nominated their land in return for $12 million in federal funding. Senior Ngapa elder Amy Lauder said in a statement that her people agreed in order "to create a future for our children with education, jobs and funds for our outstation…" The Ngapa were asked to accept the use of their traditional land as a nuclear waste dump in return for basic services. Non-Indigenous Australians are not expected to do deals for these basic services.

The deal is strongly opposed by surrounding clans at Muckaty and even by some members of the Ngapa clan itself. Bindi Jakamarra Martin, a Warlmanpa man from the Ngapa clan has said that building the dump "would poison our beautiful land", and that "Our dreamings cross right into that land where they want to put that dump."

Why should Newcastle care about Sydney's nuclear waste being dumped in the outback? Apart from the appalling injustice and radioactive racism, a nuclear dump would be a sizeable step towards Howard's plans for 25 nuclear reactors by 2050- one of which would almost certainly be in the Hunter region.

A waste dump at Muckaty Station is far from a done deal. Federal Minister Julie Bishop still has to approve the site. What's more, approving a site and implementing it are two very different stories. The Howard government knows from previous unsuccessful attempts to build a nuclear dump in South Australia and a uranium mine at Jabiluka, that any attempts to expand the Australian nuclear Industry will be met by significant public opposition. Australians will not be fooled into believing Howard's snake-oil pitch that nuclear is safe, or is the solution to climate change. Renewable energy and efficiency, not nukes and expanded coal mining, are the answers to Australia's future.