Thursday, 22 November, 2007

by Adapted from Sydney IndyMedia by Diet Simon
IndyMedia

"You're voting for whether we're gonna live or die," an Aboriginal woman has told an anti-nuclear rally in Alice Springs, central Australia. With a federal election due on Saturday, one of the most burning issues for people living in the Northern Territory, which contains Alice Springs, is fear that the mainly desert land will become a dump for nuclear waste from all over the world. The incumbent right-of-centre government of Prime Minister John Howard has announced plans to nuclearise Australia, already the world’s biggest exporter of uranium. Howard wants a string of 25 nuclear power stations around the east Australian coast and has started buying Aboriginal land for waste dump sites.

Unlike Australian states, the Northern Territory is still under the ultimate control of the national government, which has just stripped 73 Aboriginal communities there of practically all of their rights, allegedly to stamp out sexual abuse of children.

Critics see it as a land grab to facilitate mining and nuclear dumping.

Polls predict that the Howard government will lose the election to be replaced by Labor. But Howard has had an uncanny knack for turning things in his favour up to a few hours before people vote.

Labor says it opposes nuclear power but has just agreed to limitless uranium mining and exporting if the states where it happens want this.

In Alice Springs Mitch, an Eastern Arrernte/Luritja woman, spoke out strongly against a nuclear waste dump on her land. "It's not good enough for white people but good enough for black people," she said. "We're getting a bit sick of that."

Mitch encouraged voters to think carefully about the nuclear waste dump on Saturday, because of its impact on Indigenous people. "You're voting for whether we're gonna live or die," she said.

Protesters confronted the government candidate for the seat of Lingiari, Adam Giles, outside his Alice Springs office.
About thirty demonstrators challenged him to oppose the proposed nuclear waste dump.

Protesters read a statement "to tell the story of how the federal government is forcing its radioactive waste onto unwilling communities in the Northern Territory”.

Using oversized speech bubbles, they decorated the front wall of the Country Liberal Party (CLP) office with some of the statements made by Liberal party members about the proposed nuclear waste dump.

These included local CLP Senate representative, Nigel Scullion's promise to "cross the floor" and oppose the dump, a promise on which he reneged.

"Senator Nigel Scullion, whose office we are visiting today, said 'there's not going to be a nuclear waste dump in the Northern Territory. The people of the Northern Territory don't want anybody else's nuclear waste... I represent them and so, not on my watch,'" the statement quoted.

He later supported the dump legislation in parliament.

The statement highlighted a lack of government consultation with Indigenous communities in accepting the nomination of Muckaty Station for a dump.

The traditional Ngapa landowners of the former cattle station have offered land about 120km north of Tennant Creek for a radioactive materials repository in exchange for 12 million Australian dollars (7 million euros) from the government. The site is being assessed before a decision is made next year.

"Julie Bishop...[minister for science] said she was confident all affected people had been given adequate opportunity to express their views. She had obviously disregarded the numerous letters and public statements of opposition from members of all 5 family groups in the Muckaty Land Trust," the protesters’ statement said. For more on the lack of consultation see http://www.abc.net.au/alicesprings/stories/s1692156.htm.

The group added that neither of the major parties could be trusted to stop the proposed dump, though "the Greens, Democrats and Australian Labor Party all oppose the current plan forcing the dump on the Northern Territory".

In the 1950s and 1960s Britain exploded atom bombs in central Australia without warning Aborigines living there. Many died from radiation illnesses, others are still ill and trying to get compensation.