Dear People for a Nuclear-Free Australia,
I write to you at the end of the year to give you some updated information about the nuclear situation in Australia.
The Labor Government under Resources Minister Martin Ferguson is determined to establish a radioactive waste dump in the Northern Territory on the land of the Warlmanpa people. The place is called Muckaty Station, situated 120km north of Tennant Creek and close to the railway line that Haliburton (Dick Cheney’s company) constructed between Adelaide and Darwin. Not only is it planned for this railway to transport uranium mined in SA and WA to the Darwin Port but it might also be used to transport radioactive waste from Lucas Heights in Sydney and our very dangerous reprocessed waste from Lucas Heights from France and Britain through Darwin.
Although the Labor Party in opposition opposed these radioactive waste plans, Ferguson has overridden many of his colleagues and is intent on seeing the waste go to Muckaty station. Prime Minister Julia Gillard has said she will stick with the Muckaty plan, despite the ALP’s original promises.
There is something even more surreptitious in the wings. The US currently has about 64,000 tons of deadly radioactive waste accruing at its 104 reactors around the country with no place to store or move it. Australia’s vast desert areas are often suggested as the perfect place- Bob Hawke and others support this enthusiastically on the grounds that we could make a lot of money being the radioactive waste dump of the world.
Many of the Muckaty Traditional Owners are extremely upset that their sacred land should be so violated and a group have taken action in the Federal Court to halt the Ferguson dump push. Many other Australians, including trade unionists and health professionals support their efforts to protect their country. Muckaty station sits atop a shallow aquifer which provides water for communities and wildlife. This dump, if it proceeds, could contaminate the water, land and food with long-lived radioactive and carcinogenic elements for hundreds of thousands of years, through impending earth movements, floods, geological disruptions, ice ages, and other unforeseen events.
It is imperative that we not let this happen to our beautiful country and our first nation people.
Other quite terrifying scenarios are opening up in many states. The WA government is enthusiastically supporting extensive uranium exploration and fast-tracking mining plans - there are over 100 uranium sites in that vast state. BHP Billiton’s Olympic Dam mine in SA is proposed to increase its uranium output by a factor of five to make it the biggest uranium mine in the world. All Australian uranium mines are now owned by foreign corporations.
As we know uranium and plutonium generated in reactors can be used to make atomic bombs. Radioactive waste will, over time, induce epidemics of cancer, leukemia and genetic disease in future generations. Indeed, according to the New York Academy of Science, the Chernobyl disaster (reaching its 25th anniversary next April) has killed almost one million people in Europe from these diseases thus far.
Will we be the nation which exports the fuel stock for nuclear weapons and epidemics of disease all over the world, or do we have the moral fibre to prevent this???
I know this is not a cheerful Christmas letter, but then again we have the opportunity to serve the planet and its people. PEACE ON EARTH, GOODWILL TO MEN, WOMEN AND CHILDREN.
With Hope and Affection
Helen Caldicott FRACP
PS I am putting some
very relevant articles up on the PNFA web site for those who are interested in
more information. If you are inspired to save our lovely country and planet, not
only can you donate on the pnfa.com.au web site, but you
can submit your ideas and commitments to me to end this nuclear madness. As
Jefferson said, “An informed democracy will behave in a responsible fashion.”
Wikileaks has led the way, now we must inform and demand that our elected
representatives do the right thing for our families, for our country and for the
world. We must get the educated word out on TV, radio and in the print media, as
the brave Julian Assange has done.