Thursday 25 May 2006
ABC - The World Today
Reporter: Alexandra Kirk

ELEANOR HALL: As it generates debate about nuclear energy in Australia, the Federal Government is about to return one of Australia's most disputed uranium mining areas to Kakadu National Park.

Coronation Hill is one of 29 mining leases the Government is planning to incorporate into the park, in a move it says will enhance the area's World Heritage value.

But Greens leader Bob Brown says today's announcement is really just softening up the public for an expansion of the uranium mining nearby, as Alexandra Kirk reports from Canberra.

ALEXANDRA KIRK: The Federal Government says it's putting right a longstanding problem dating back to the previous Labor Government.

The 1st of September has been set as the date when land covering 29 uranium mining leases will be incorporated to the World Heritage area, including Coronation Hill. And the Government will spend more than $7-million to rehabilitate the abandoned mining areas in Kakadu's environmentally and culturally sensitive South Alligator River area.

The Federal Parliamentary Environment Secretary, Greg Hunt, says the Government's reached agreement with the leaseholders so the leases can become part of Kakadu for two reasons.

GREG HUNT: A) to rehabilitate the sites, and b) because there was a longstanding legal case between the Commonwealth and the mining companies, the leases were terminated in the early 1990s, that was found to have been an illegal termination, the case went through to the High Court. That's all been resolved. We've reached agreement. We're now able to reincorporate 470 hectares, or 466 exactly, into the World Heritage area.

ALEXANDRA KIRK: Greg Hunt says new areas will be opened up to the public.

GREG HUNT: It's a very important symbol to the traditional owners, to the Indigenous people within the area, the Jawoyn people. And thirdly, it says to Australia that we can rehabilitate uranium mines in some of the most sensitive areas in the country.

Coronation Hill is a well-known name. It effectively says that Coronation Hill has been put to bed, resolved, it's a national park, and it's not just national park, but it's being returned to World Heritage area.

ALEXANDRA KIRK: Do you think this puts to bed the idea of, you know, uranium mining, the possibility in Kakadu and, say, excising areas from Kakadu in order to allow mining to proceed?

GREG HUNT: I doubt that it's ever likely that any area would be excised from Kakadu. I think that the park boundaries are unlikely to change.

There's a proposal for the Koongarra site, again with a pre-existing lease which predates the site. That Koongarra lease is in the shadow of Nourlangie Rock, so it's very close to one of the great Aboriginal rock sites. I'd think that there would be extremely high hurdles, extremely high hurdles before anything would happen there.

But there is an existing site, again which predates the park, again which is in a lease, surrounded by but not within the park, that has another six, seven years to run. Whether they are able to extend that, that's a technical question for the company.

ALEXANDRA KIRK: But Greens leader Bob Brown says the $7-million of Federal money is really a compensation windfall for the mining industry and will do nothing for the National Park.

BOB BROWN: Because mining in the National Park for uranium in Coronation Hill and the adjacent sites was effectively prohibited when the Hawke Government extended Kakadu Park to encompass these areas back in 1991.

This is really tidying up past dilemmas in the area ready for expanded uranium mining. But there's no mention here of Koongarra, or even Jabiluka, which the mining companies, with a 600 per cent increase in the price of uranium on the world market in the last 18 months, have their beady eyes on.

ALEXANDRA KIRK: Senator Brown says warning bells should be ringing about a massive expansion of uranium mining in areas of high environmental values.

BOB BROWN: Uranium mining in Kakadu would be as popular as privatising Snowy Hydro. The Government's not about to try that. What they will do is use this clean-up of, or removal of previous leases and compensation to the mining companies as an environmental plus.

ALEXANDRA KIRK: How?

BOB BROWN: Well, they will say that we're removing doubt, we're going to protect Kakadu, in brackets (unspoken), but watch now for the mining onslaught in areas around and near Kakadu and elsewhere in Australia of high environmental sensitivity, which will be fed to the mining corporations as they expand uranium exports under the Howard Government.

ELEANOR HALL: Greens leader Bob Brown ending that report by Alexandra Kirk in Canberra.