Managing Australia’s radioactive waste – need for an independent Commission of Inquiry (Aug 2014)

Managing Australia’s radioactive waste

12 Aug 2014, Jim Green, Online Opinion

www.onlineopinion.com.au/view.asp?article=16583&page=0

How should Australia manage radioactive waste? The short answer is that there is no obvious approach − hence the need for an independent Commission of Inquiry.

This discussion primarily concerns waste produced at the Lucas Heights nuclear research reactor site south of Sydney, operated by the Australian Nuclear Science and Technology Organisation (ANSTO), as well as much smaller volumes produced and/or stored at numerous medical, scientific and military sites. Radioactive waste produced at Australia’s uranium mines, from the use of Australian uranium overseas, and the radioactive contamination of Maralinga and other nuclear bomb test sites, are separate problems.

To date, efforts to find a radioactive waste repository site have been unsuccessful. For the past 15 years, Coalition and Labor governments have attempted a ‘crash though or crash’ approach, attempting to impose a repository first in South Australia and more recently in the Northern Territory − both attempts failed in the face of opposition from Traditional Owners and the wider community.

All options should be considered

Much of the debate assumes the ‘need’ for a central repository. But the option of storing waste where it is produced needs serious consideration. Even if a central repository exists, waste is inevitably stored at the site of production − often for long periods. One government documents suggests that waste stores would be cleared out once every five years if and when a central repository was established, and a government official said waste would be removed from Lucas Heights on an infrequent basis. Thus on-site storage facilities must be adequately monitored and regulated whether or not a central repository exists.

Lucas Heights is a case in point. Measured by radioactivity, well over 90% of the radioactive waste is produced at Lucas Heights and is either stored there already or is at overseas reprocessing plants and destined to be returned to Lucas Heights. Ironically, all of the key proponents of a central repository − including ANSTO itself, the federal government, and the Australian Nuclear Association − have acknowledged that ANSTO can continue to manage its own waste at Lucas Heights, as has the Australian Radiation Protection and Nuclear Safety Agency (ARPANSA). ANSTO’s Dr Ron Cameron said: “ANSTO is capable of handling and storing wastes for long periods of time.”

Australia’s nuclear expertise is heavily concentrated at Lucas Heights. Security at Lucas Heights is far more rigorous than has been proposed for remote repository sites. Storage at Lucas Heights would avoid the risks associated with transportation and double-handling. In particular, one of the most incoherent aspects of the NT proposal was that long-lived intermediate-level waste would be trucked from Lucas Heights to Muckaty for above-ground storage, only to be moved again if and when a deep geological repository is established − deep geological disposal being the designated method of disposal for this type of waste by the nuclear industry.

Successive governments have indulged in scare-mongering, talking up the risks of waste allegedly stored in hospital car parks, basements and the like in order to make the case for a central facility. Yet Canberra has also claimed that existing waste stores are safe and that there has never been a single incident of concern.

Canberra hasn’t shown the slightest interest in actually determining whether existing waste stores are adequate and ensuring that any necessary improvements are implemented. Providing an off-site repository option, combined with the federal government’s glaring indifference to the status of existing waste stores, can only encourage poor management practices at existing stores.

That glaring indifference is evident in the following answers (from the federal Department of Education, Science and Tourism (DEST)) to questions (from an environmental NGO) in 2003:

Q: “What plans does the federal government have to upgrade stores since the government repeatedly claims that they are unsafe.”

DEST: “This question should be referred to the appropriate state and territory regulators.”

Q: “Regarding the storage of radioactive waste in 26 towns and suburbs in SA, what number of these stores will still be storing radioactive waste even if the repository project goes ahead because of ongoing waste production?”

DEST: “This question should be directed to the South Australian Environment Protection Authority or to the operators of the existing stores.”

Q: “What plans does the federal government have to upgrade stores since the government repeatedly claims that they are unsafe.”

DEST: “This question should be referred to the appropriate state and territory regulators.”

Complete indifference from DEST in 2003 − and nothing has changed in the past 11 years.

Net benefit

The principle of net benefit is useful to frame the discussion. The NHMRC Code of Practice for the Near-Surface Disposal of Radioactive Waste in Australia (1992) requires that “No practice involving exposures to radiation should be adopted unless it produces sufficient benefit to the exposed individuals or to society to offset the radiological detriment it causes.”

Yet successive federal governments have made no effort whatsoever to attempt to demonstrate a net benefit with their SA and NT repository proposals.

In 2004, ARPANSA held an inquiry into the proposal for a waste repository in SA. A government official was asked to justify the claim that a central repository would reduce the cumulative risk of storing waste. The response was that: “In terms of someone sitting down and doing that risk assessment, that hasn’t been done − the short answer is it hasn’t been done.” The official said that the repository proposal was being pursued on the basis of a “general belief” and another official said it was a “general feeling”.

So the robust concept of net benefit has been replaced with general beliefs and feelings as a basis for public policy. The situation has not changed in the 10 years since the 2004 ARPANSA inquiry − there has been no effort to assess waste management options according to net-benefit principles, not even a superficial attempt.

Prof. Ian Lowe, who sat on the ARPANSA panel which convened the 2004 inquiry, summed up some of the unresolved questions and problems: “DEST told the forum that “Disposal of the waste in a purpose-built national repository will reduce the cumulative risks of storing wastes”, leading to the conclusion that “The community and the environment will benefit”. Questioning revealed that the basis for this assertion is shaky. … There are some difficult issues to be resolved if the applicant is to show that the proposal would provide a net benefit to the community, most obviously including a risk assessment to determine whether the increased risk of collecting and transporting waste is outweighed by the reduced risk of storage at a properly engineered repository; this study should take into account the continuing need for local storage of waste between the proposed disposal campaigns. A professional risk assessment cannot be conducted until a firm waste acceptance plan and transport code are developed.”

Commission of Inquiry

An independent Commission of Inquiry is necessary to untangle the mess created by successive governments. It needs to address basic issues that remain unresolved after all these years − such as a comprehensive inventory of existing waste stockpiles, and the adequacy (or otherwise) of existing waste stores. It needs to thoroughly explore all options for radioactive waste management.

The alternative option is that Canberra could try yet again to impose a repository on an unwilling Aboriginal community, stripping that community of its land rights in the process. In addition to the immorality of that approach, it simply hasn’t worked − it failed in SA and it failed in the NT.

A Commission of Inquiry should learn from overseas experience. Around the world, opinion is shifting in the direction of bottom-up, consultative, consensual approaches to radioactive waste management.

The UK Committee on Radioactive Waste Management notes: “Experience in the UK and abroad clearly demonstrates the failures of earlier ‘top down’ mechanisms (often referred to as ‘Decide−Announce−Defend’) to implement long-term waste management facilities. It is generally considered that a voluntary process is essential to ensure equity, efficiency and the likelihood of successfully completing the process. There is a growing recognition that it is not ethically acceptable for a society to impose a radioactive waste facility on an unwilling community.”

The new approaches emphasising consultation and consent clearly represent a qualitative step forward yet they raise challenges of their own. Examples include:

  • Situations where community consent is forthcoming but proposed sites are sub-optimal on other criteria (meteorological, geological, etc.).
  • Impoverished communities offering land for toxic waste facilities to receive benefits which they ought to be entitled to in the first place (sometimes called ‘radioactive ransom’).
  • Governments may not accept informed community decisions, such as the recent political manoeuvring following a decision in north-east England to reject a proposal for a radioactive waste repository.

A History of Duress – Uranium Mining on Mirarr Land

A History of Duress – A Gundjehmi Aboriginal Corporation (GAC) Research Project

Reproduced from:

http://web.archive.org/web/20130425181741/http://www.mirarr.net/duress1.htm

http://web.archive.org/web/20130427074830/http://www.mirarr.net/duress-2.html

Introduction

In the late 1970s and early 1980s agreements for four uranium projects were entered into by the Northern Land Council on behalf of traditional Aboriginal land owners. These were Ranger, Nabarlek, Jabiluka and Koongarra. Ranger is still operational and is presently expanding its mining and milling operations. The Nabarlek ore body has been exhausted and the mine has been decommissioned. Neither Jabiluka nor Koongarra proceeded due to the uranium export policies of the former Federal Labor Government.

Soon after it was elected in 1996 the Howard Government announced that it intended to consider proposals for new uranium mines and an expansion of uranium exports. Under the previous Hawke and Keating Labor Governments uranium mining was only permitted at the Ranger mine in the Northern Territory and the Roxby Downs mine in South Australia. Energy Resources of Australia Ltd (ERA), the operator of the Ranger mine and the owner of the Jabiluka mining lease, requested permission from the Commonwealth and Northern Territory Governments to start mining activities at Jabiluka.

The proposals for uranium mining in the Alligator Rivers region have been highly controversial. There is very significant opposition to uranium mining in the Australian community. Any mining in the Alligator Rivers region is particularly sensitive to many people because of the potential threats to the natural and cultural World Heritage values of Kakadu National Park. In order to develop its response to the proposal for the opening of the Jabiluka mine, Gundjeihmi Aboriginal Corporation has undertaken some preliminary historical research. This research provides an overview of events in the late 1970s and early 1980s when the Ranger, Nabarlek and Jabiluka agreements were negotiated by the NLC.

The research for this report was largely based on material available from a range of sources, particularly the Northern Land Council Library. There is also a considerable number of people who have been involved in the region and many Aboriginal people who live in the region who have been spoken to about present developments and their recollections of past developments in the region.

The unrelenting pressure on Aboriginal people in the region

Nearly twenty years later, it is possible to overlook the pressures that people were under during this period. Aboriginal people in the region were struggling to get title to their land with the assistance of the newly established and inexperienced Northern Land Council (NLC). There was considerable uncertainty about whether they would get title to their land, and even if they did, what would this mean. There was pressure for the development of at least four uranium mines in the region. The NLC, two Governments, a number of mining companies, and many other people and organisations were seeking a stake in the future of the region. They were arranging what seemed to be a never-ending series of meetings and consultations. They were negotiating arrangements between themselves and Aboriginal people and were making decisions that would affect the lives of Aboriginal people living in the region for many years to come. A new large national park was in the process of being created and with it the prospect of many more tourists coming to the region.

For most of the traditional owners it must have seemed that getting title to their land was of little use if they were going to have four uranium mines and thousands of tourists walking all over their country. As one of the NLC lawyers commented in early 1978:

“… there is hardly any point in winning land claims in the Alligator Rivers Region or the Borroloola region if there is going to be a commercial covenant to develop large mines in the area. Such development would be in total contradiction to the maintenance of Aboriginal culture and lifestyle which is the very reason for running traditional land claims “(McGill 1978, 5).

Many of the reports of the Australian Institute of Aboriginal Studies Uranium Impact Steering Committee refer to the difficulties Aboriginal people had with the processes that occurred during the mid-1970s and early 1980s. It is not hard to see why large numbers of Aboriginal people concluded that there was little point actively resisting the extreme development pressures on their land.

The Project has mentioned before the pressure on Aboriginal people of countless meetings, of meetings where it seems that there is no point in resisting, because “the government” will win in the end, through sheer relentlessness. It has also commented on acrimony which arises as quarrels develop between members of a family, and between families, because their aspirations differ … The response at Oenpelli to the news that it is going to be necessary to negotiate with mining companies with respect to exploration has been one of desperation at there being no end to these pressures and intrusions (Australian Institute of Aboriginal Studies 1983, 68-9).

With all of the other social and economic problems that exist in many such communities, it is not a simplification to say that Aboriginal people in the region were, and still are, living in a state of crisis and social breakdown.

The Ranger uranium project

In the mid-1970s the Whitlam Labor Government was confronted with a growing political dilemma in regard to uranium mining in Australia. On the one hand the Government could see the economic and commercial opportunities that would come from the mining of a number of large high grade uranium deposits in the Alligator Rivers region of the Northern Territory. The expansion of uranium mining was seen as an opportunity to establish an integrated nuclear industry in this country. On the other hand there was clear evidence of growing public concern about uranium mining and nuclear issues generally. The Government commissioned the Ranger Uranium Environmental Inquiry in July 1975 to examine proposals for the development of the Northern Territory uranium deposits. The Inquiry was chaired by Justice Fox.

At the same time the Government had introduced land rights legislation for Aborigines in the Northern Territory. The legislation was subsequently passed in an amended form by the Fraser Government. Land rights and the Aboriginal interest in the land of the region complicated the Fox Inquiry’s consideration of the future of the uranium mining industry. Much of the land where the uranium deposits were located was either claimable under the Aboriginal Land Rights (Northern Territory) Act or became Aboriginal land when the Act was proclaimed.

The Fox Inquiry’s comments on Aboriginal attitudes to mining

In the Second Report of the Range Uranium Environmental Inquiry (Fox Report) a summary of Aboriginal attitudes to uranium mining was included:

“The evidence before us shows that the traditional owners of the Ranger site and the Northern Land Council (as now constituted) are opposed to the mining of uranium on that site … Some Aboriginals had at an earlier stage approved, or at least not disapproved, the proposed development, but it seems likely that they were not then as fully informed about it as they later became. Traditional consultations had not then taken place, and there was a general conviction that opposition was futile. The Aboriginals do not have confidence that their own view will prevail; they feel that uranium mining development is almost certain to take place at Jabiru, if not elsewhere in the Region as well. They feel that having gone so far, the white man is not likely to stop. They have a justifiable complaint that plans for mining have been allowed to develop as far as they have without the Aboriginal people having an adequate opportunity to be heard … it is not in the circumstances possible for us to say that the development would be beneficial to them. There can be no compromise with the Aboriginal position; either it is treated as conclusive, or it is set aside … In the end, we form the conclusion that their opposition should not be allowed to prevail “(Ranger Uranium Environmental Inquiry 1997, 9).

When discussing the land claim, the Inquiry made a number of other comments in relation to Aboriginal attitudes to mining:

“While royalties and the other payments referred to in (b) are not unimportant to the Aboriginal people, they see this aspect as incidental, as a material recognition of their rights … Our impression is that they would happily forgo the lot in exchange for an assurance that mining would not proceed” (Ranger Uranium Environmental Inquiry 1977, 269).

One of the strongest expressions of Aboriginal concerns to the Fox Inquiry about development pressures in the region was by Silas Roberts:

“We are worried that we are losing a little bit, a little bit, all of the time. We keep our ceremony, our culture, but we are always worried. We still perform our ceremonies. We are very worried that the results of this enquiry will open the doors to other companies who want to dig up uranium on our sacred land. There are so many I find it hard to remember them all but I can remember Ormac, Queensland Mines, Union Carbide, Reynolds Mining, B.H.P. and Pan Continental. We think if they get in there and start digging we’ll have towns all over the place and we’ll be pushed into the sea. We want a fair go to develop. We are human beings, we want to live properly and grow strong” (Roberts 1976, 3).

On 10 May 1976 the NLC’s Ranger Sub-Committee met in Darwin to discuss the draft of this statement. According to unpublished minutes of the meeting the senior traditional owner of the Ranger area, Toby Gangale, stated that he was upset at the use of his land for three reasons:

  1. He had not been consulted when exploration commenced.
  2. He had not been told of the nature of the exploration and
  3. That Ranger Companies had proceeded to build their camp and airstrip without letting him know of their intentions.

The Chairman of the NLC had stressed the opposition to uranium mining at the National Press Club on 10 November 1977:

“Now people are trying to force us to accept that mining, uranium mining, will go ahead. But we insist that we don’t want uranium mining” (quoted in Roberts 1978, 141)

Traditional owners of the land in the Alligator Rivers region had also written to Prime Minister Fraser stating:

“We are the traditional owners of Alligator River country. We have had meeting today with the Northern Land Council. We do not want any mining here. If you won’t do what we ask then make one mine first and then we will see about the others later. We want to see the national park working first like you promised with Aboriginal rangers before any miners come and start building towns and mines “(Land Rights News, October 1977, 3-4).

In a submission to the Inquiry the Secretary of the Northern Land Council (when it was the Northern Aboriginal Land Committee Inc) explained that while some of the traditional owners of the land on which uranium mining was proposed “do not object to Ranger proceeding … this is because they feel that it is inevitable” (Wilders, undated, 1).

This was also stated by representatives of the NLC when they appeared before the Inquiry (22 February 1977). The Manager of the NLC Alex Bishaw explained:

“The pressures upon Aboriginal people in that area and around Oenpelli have led them to see mining as probably inevitable just as white people going into the area over the last fifty or so years has been “(Transcript, 22 February 1977, page 12,904).

Justice Fox then asked:

“Well, they in fact see it as inevitable and they don’t therefore wish to maintain any opposition to it. Is that a fair way of putting it or not?” (page 12,905).

Mr Bishaw replied:

“Yes. It was discussed time and time again and there were no direct instructions to, as it were, make a last ditch stand and oppose it” (page 12,905).

The national interest provisions of the Aboriginal Land Rights Act

It is important to understand some of the provisions of the Aboriginal Land Rights (Northern Territory) Act in regard to mining. While many companies have complained about the complexities of the Act and the time delays in negotiating approvals for exploration and mining agreements, the Act does set out clear procedures for mining companies to follow when they wish to use Aboriginal land. The national interest provisions, even though they have never been used, and the arbitration provisions, can be used to override the wishes of traditional Aboriginal land owners under certain circumstances.

Sub-section 40(b) of the Aboriginal Land Rights (Northern Territory) Act states that:

An exploration licence shall not be granted to a person in respect of Aboriginal land unless:

(b) the Governor-General has, by Proclamation declared that the national interest requires the licence be granted.

Section 43 of the Act also deals with the national interest cases. If a Proclamation is issued by the Governor-General then the land council and the applicant have 180 days (or longer if agreed) to try and agree upon the terms and conditions to which the grant will be subject. There is a requirement that the Proclamation be tabled in both Houses of Parliament. The Proclamation can be disallowed by either or both Houses of Parliament (section 48G). While the provisions have never been used the Fraser Government threatened the NLC that it would invoke these provisions in relation to the uranium mines.

When the Whitlam Government introduced the Aboriginal Land (Northern Territory) Bill the Minister (Les Johnson) outlined the Government’s view on the national interest provisions of the Bill in considerable detail:

“The Bill also gives Aboriginals the power of veto over mining developments on Aboriginal land, but provides that any such veto may be over-ridden, if such action is required in the national interest and if a proclamation to that effect is not disallowed by either House of Parliament after the proclamation has lain before the House for 15 sitting days. There will, of course, be many interpretations as to what constitutes the national interest. Mr Justice Woodward paid special attention to this term and said it should not be invoked on a mere balance of convenience or desirability but only as a matter of necessity.

I hope that it will not be necessary to invoke the national interest provisions of this Bill, and that with goodwill from all parties – the Aboriginal landowners, the prospective miners, environmental interests and the Government – a reasonable and effective solution can in most cases be found to protect the Aboriginal interests and to meet desirable national development goals. Where such agreement cannot be reached the Government’s consideration as to whether the national interest requires the proposed development would need to include an assessment of whether at a particular point in time was vital to Australia, whether the mineral was available elsewhere, or whether it could be left in the ground for future development without irreparable damage to Australia’s social and economic development.

Importantly, there is much significance to be placed on Mr Justice Woodward’s view that an Aboriginal veto must not be overridden unless the national interest requires that the proposed development proceed. Almost any mineral development could be said to be in the national interest but much more stringent criteria must be applied in an assessment as to whether such a development is required by the national interest. Equally important is the distinction, implicit in the use of this phrase, between the national interest on one hand and sectional interest on the other” (House of Representatives Hansard, 16 October 1975, 2224).

The Labor Government’s legislation was not passed. The Fraser Government introduced an amended version of the Bill. The national interest provisions of the Labor Government’s Bill were substantially changed and the provision that the Parliament could override the Proclamation was removed. Instead, as the Minister (Ian Viner) explained:

“Where consent is withheld, the Bill provides for an independent inquiry on the basis of which the Government may determine whether the national interest requires that exploration in mining can proceed “(House of Representatives Hansard, 4 June 1976, 3083).

However, this Bill was itself amended by the Government and the national interest provisions were reinserted as they were in the 1975 Labor Government’s Bill:

“The provision in clause 41 for an inquiry into whether the national interest requires that exploration or mining should proceed will be deleted and instead the Bill will provide for the tabling of a proclamation of a national interest decision before both Houses of Parliament. Either House will have the power to disallow the Government’s decision to override Aboriginal refusal to consent. This change is proposed in response to the many representations by Aboriginal groups and others seeking restoration of the provision proposed by Mr Justice Woodward for parliamentary review of any Government decision to override Aboriginal wishes in relation to mining “(House of Representatives Hansard, 17 November 1976, 2780).

The Labor Opposition (Les Johnson) commented on the Government’s proposed amendment:

“One of the most obnoxious clauses of the Government’s original Bill – that permitting a secret inquiry into whether mining on Aboriginal land is ‘in the national interest’ – is to be removed. The new clause, recognising the overwhelming vote of the 1967 referendum to give the Parliament legislative power in Aboriginal affairs, will reinstate that provision in the 1975 Bill which makes any such declaration subject to disallowance by either House of this Parliament “(House of Representatives Hansard, 17 November 1976, 2788).

There are a number of points that can be made about the national interest provisions in the Act. Provisions that enable the Government to invoke the national interest are included many pieces of legislation. Many pieces of legislation give Ministers the power to give directions of statutory bodies “in the national interest”. Section 78 of the Australian Broadcasting Corporation Act, for example, gives the Minister the power to give directions to the Corporation “in the national interest”.

Sub-section 40(b) of the Aboriginal Land Rights Act, however, states that the national interest requires the licence to be granted. This is not to be taken lightly. It is a stronger statement than simply saying that it is “in the national interest” for the licence to be granted. For the Government to invoke the national interest some very strong arguments are necessary As Senator Cavanagh explained.

“Before a proclamation can be made, national interest must require it; it must be urgent; it must be definite; it must be a requirement for our survival. The important word is ‘require’. The national interest must require it “(Senate Hansard, 23 April 1980, 1772).

In an earlier debate Senator Cavanagh had also raised this issue in the context of the debate over the NLC’s role in the Ranger negotiations:

“If the traditional owners decide that the land is not to be mined it cannot be mined under any condition unless there is a declaration by the Governor-General on the recommendation of the Government that such mining is in the national interest. But the Government can never declare that this mining is in the national interest. It is not for the defence of Australia. It is not for the protection of Australia. It would be an admission that the Government’s economic policy is such that it cannot continue without royalties that could be obtained from mining a dangerous material and exporting that danger to someone else overseas “(Senate Hansard, 17 October 1978, 1362-1363).

The wording of the Act was based on the arguments put forward by Justice Woodward in the Second Report of the Aboriginal Land Rights Commission:

“In this context I use the word “required” deliberately so that such an issue could not be determined on a mere balance of convenience or desirability but only as a matter of necessity “(Woodward 1974, 104).

The national interest has been dealt with in a number of court cases. In the 1995 Federal Court decision on the declaration made by the Minister for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Affairs under the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Heritage Protection Act 1984 one of the judges highlighted the serious nature of these matters:

The Act takes as its starting point that there are particularly significant Aboriginal areas and objects which it is in the national interest to preserve. Depending on the nature and extent of the particular significance, that interest may require the subordination both of other governmental interests and of private interests. These are grave issues and it is not reasonable to suppose that Parliament intended a decision upon them to be tossed off at short notice … they were to be the subject of a full and careful report, made after there had been a true opportunity for participation by all those affected, and involving a personal and informed decision by the Minister.

There is also the fact that it is the Governor-General who makes the Proclamation. Many other Acts give this type of authority to the relevant minister but the Aboriginal Land Rights Act puts the authority in the hands of the Governor-General. While this is largely symbolic it is not without its significance. As the judge commented in the above quote in relation to the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Heritage Protection Act, the decision involves “a personal and informed decision by the Minister”. The Governor-General would also, presumably, be required to make a personal and informed decision about whether to override the decision of Aboriginal people.

While not specifically referring to the national interest provisions of the Act, the Minister for Aboriginal Affairs explained that “the Commonwealth had the interests of all the people of Australia in mind when it made its decision” to allow uranium mining to proceed in the region” (quoted in the Northern Territory News, 29 August 1977).

Did an Aboriginal veto apply to the Ranger project?

Under sub-section 40(1) of the Aboriginal Land Rights Act the Northern Land Council, on the advice of traditional owners, can withhold consent to the granting of a mining interest in respect of Aboriginal land. However, the Ranger project was specifically exempted from this provision under sub-section 40(6) of the Aboriginal Land Rights Act. This sub-section says:

If the land, or part of the land, described in Schedule 2, being the land known as the Ranger Project Area, becomes Aboriginal land, subsection (1) does not apply in relation to that land, or that part of the land.

By specifically exempting the project the Government avoided having to invoke the national interest provisions of the Aboriginal Land Rights Act.

The insertion of sub-section 40(6) formalised the situation for the companies. In fact, the Commonwealth Government had already entered into a Memorandum of Understanding on 28 October 1975 with Peko Mines Ltd and Electrolytic Zinc Co of Australasia Ltd to “grant any necessary and appropriate authorities” for the project to proceed.

In the absence of a veto over the development of the project, the NLC and the traditional owners were faced with three options:

  • to refuse to negotiate and make Aboriginal rights a big issue;
  • to agree to negotiate but on terms unacceptable to the Government; or
  • to accept that they had been overruled and try to get the best deal.

As Howitt and Douglas (1983, 71) pointed out, the NLC “basically chose the third strategy”. Some of the difficulties confronting the NLC were outlined by one of the NLC’s lawyers, Stuart McGill, in February 1978. The fact that Aboriginal people could not prevent the Ranger mine from proceeding meant that the NLC was placed:

“… in the difficult position that although the traditional owners of the region and the Northern Land Council have continually objected to mining, it is forced into a position where it must write an agreement for mining or else the Government will write the agreement on behalf of the Land Council through the arbitration provisions of the Act. This immediately causes some confusion within the members and staff of the Land Council, because on the one hand, the Council is opposed to mining and on the other hand it is making agreements with mining companies for mining to go ahead. Many people say that you must do one thing or the other but you can’t do both. My opinion is that it is possible to do both although the Council should stick to its basic opposition to mining (subject to the opinion of traditional owners) and only negotiate with mining companies when it is forced to do so “(McGill 1978, 1).

According to McGill, the negotiating strategy of the NLC at the time was to slow down the pace of development. McGill quoted from one of the NLC’s Ranger negotiators, Stephen Zorn:

“If possible, negotiations should result in the indefinite deferral of the project” (quoted in McGill 1978, 3).

Two days after the Government’s announcement that mining would proceed at Ranger the Minister for Aboriginal Affairs, Ian Viner. travelled to Gunbalanya to explain the Government’s decision. He was quoted as saying that:

“I suppose it’s like you and me”, Mr Viner said. You would not like a big pit dug in your own backyard, and to them that is what an open pit uranium mine will be. “But they have been informed of what will be involved there. I think like you and me they would probably prefer it didn’t happen, but knowing it will happen they want to be satisfied that proper controls are imposed on mining so it doesn’t harm the physical environment and that the social impact is controlled as much as possible” (quoted in The Sydney Morning Herald, 29 August 1977).

The negotiation of the Ranger mining agreement

Since the Ranger Project Area was exempt from sub-section 40(1), sub-section 43(2) of the Aboriginal Land Rights Act required the NLC and the companies to negotiate a mining agreement:

The mining interest shall not be granted unless the applicant for the mining interest has entered into an agreement under seal with the Land Council containing such terms and conditions as are agreed on by the parties having regard to the effect of the grant of the mining interest on Aboriginals …

The Minister for Aboriginal Affairs explained the position at the time:

“What has been under negotiation between the Commonwealth and the Northern Land Council has been the terms and conditions under which mining should proceed at Ranger, not whether mining itself should proceed … the agreement reached between the negotiators reflects, in a very considerable way, the wishes of the traditional owners, especially in such things as protection of the environment and reduction in the social impact of mining” (The Age, 14 October 1978).

What the Minister did not say was that at the time most, if not all, of the traditional owners of the Ranger Project Area, were opposed to the mine proceeding.

Arbitration under the Aboriginal Land Rights Act

If agreement cannot be reached between the Land Council and the mining companies then under sub-section 45(1) of the Aboriginal Land Rights Act the Minister, after consultation with the Land Council and the mining company, can appoint an Arbitrator. If the Land Council does not accept the terms and conditions of the agreement proposed by the Arbitrator, the Minister can enter into the agreement on behalf of the Land Council

From the mining company’s perspective, the granting of the land of the Ranger Project Area to an Aboriginal Land Trust removed a considerable degree of uncertainty in relation to the Project. It meant that the provisions of the Aboriginal Land Rights Act would apply. First, there was no veto in the Act in relation to the Project area. Second even if the company and the NLC could not agree on the terms and conditions of mining the Minister could appoint an Arbitrator to determine the terms and conditions. According to Zorn who assisted the NLC to negotiate the Ranger agreement, the Government threatened to refer the matter to an Arbitrator a number of times when it appeared likely that agreement would not be reached by the parties (Sydney Morning Herald 12 August 1978).

The role of the NLC in the negotiation of the agreement

The Commonwealth Government adopted many of the recommendations of the Fox Inquiry in August 1977. One of the recommendations of the Fox Inquiry which was rejected was that the uranium mines in the region should be opened sequentially to minimise the damage to Aboriginal people and the environment. In late 1977 the NLC presented a draft agreement to the Commonwealth in respect of the Ranger project. The Commonwealth responded in May 1978 and negotiations commenced with the NLC on the terms and conditions of the project. The agreement was signed at Oenpelli on November 1978. According to Carroll:

“Ratification of the agreement had originally been given at a full meeting of the Northern Land Council in August, but certain Aborigines took out an injunction to prevent the signing, alleging inadequate consultation with affected communities” (Carroll 1983, 342-3).

Lack of adequate consultation has been a recurring theme throughout the region.

The role of the NLC in negotiating the agreement was severely criticised at the time. For example, Bob Collins, who was later to become Opposition Leader in the Northern Territory and is now a Senator, was very critical of the way in which the agreement was negotiated for the NLC almost single-handedly by Stephen Zorn with little back-up from environmental experts:

“I’m intrigued at how a deal involving such big sums of money was done with such a small negotiating team consisting of one mining negotiator and a solicitor from the NLC who had little background in natural resources legislation” (quoted in The National Times 23 September 1978).

Parsons has documented some of the events leading to the “approval” of the Ranger agreement by the NLC. Only 28 of the 42 members attended the final meeting at Red Lily Lagoon in Arnhem Land (beginning 12 September 1978). Five of the 28 stayed away from the meeting or walked out before the agreement was ratified. Members were “talked to about it [the agreement]” and were told:

“If we don’t sign the agreement, Mr Fraser has told me [Yunupingu] he has power to block the Aboriginal Land Rights Act, and that he will stop the funds to the outstations”.

“If the Land Council makes a mistake on this question the whole of Australia will know and many people will support those who want to see Aboriginals without land, without any right to make their own decisions, and without a Land Council to represent them” (quoted in Parsons 1978, 137).

According to Parsons:

At the Red Lily Lagoon meeting several speakers complained that the NLC was “just an office of DAA and the government”. The councillors wished to speak with the traditional owners, only some of whom were present, so they could satisfy themselves that the traditional owners knew and understood what the proposals meant … Many Councillors later complained that Yunupingu had put enormous pressure on Toby Gangale, one of the traditional owners and that this lead to Toby later complaining that he was “sick of fighting” against the mining (Parsons 1978, 138).

The Member for Arnhem, Bob Collins was highly critical of the way this meeting was conducted.

Mr Bob Collins produced tapes of the land council’s secret meetings last week to support his claim that the ratification of the Ranger agreement was a farce … On the tapes the chairman of the land council, Mr Galarrwuy Yunupingu, is criticised by several members of the council for acting on his own authority and without consultation with the Aboriginal communities … “If this paper is signed, it is signed under protest. I’d like to hear you say that. The protest is that we have to agree with the Government. We have been forced to agree. If we don’t put that protest in, everybody will say ‘Look how easy that was’. The Oenpelli people are under pressure” …

Mr Collins said the tapes also showed that Mr Yunupingu had told the council meeting they would be in trouble with the ALP and the union movement if they did not sign the Ranger agreement … Mr Collins said the Aboriginal leaders had been under the mistaken impression that the Government would legislate to change the Act and take everything away from them if they refused. “Theoretically it is possible”, he said. “But the Australian people would not stand for this, and in any case the Act provided for a deadlock situation. The Government can take the matter to arbitration if the land council does not sign” (quoted in The Sydney Morning Herald, 19 September 1978).

After the first NLC Red Lily meeting there was, according to Parsons, a “galvanizing of Aboriginal opinion never before witnessed” in the Top End. Legal action was taken against the NLC on the grounds that it had not properly undertaken its functions under section 23 of the Aboriginal Land Rights Act. An interim injunction was granted in the Northern Territory Supreme Court on 19 September 1978 stopping the NLC from signing the agreement. The affidavits of Johnny Marali No 1, Dick Malwagu and John Gwadbu were incorporated into the Senate Hansard (17 October 1978, 1352-1356). The affidavits include the following statements:

Throughout the meeting we were told by Mr Yunupingu that we really had no choice in the matter and that the Commonwealth Government was determined to go ahead. I believed I had no choice but to support the motion and I feel that most of the people who were present felt the same way.

To the best of my knowledge the traditional owners of the land, have not as a group or individually been consulted by the Northern Land Council and as deposed to above they did not in fact speak to the council and Mr Yunupingu refused to allow us to have them address the council, saying that he would look after this himself. I am not satisfied that they have been consulted and from my discussions with other Aboriginals from the Oenpelli area, I believe that the Oenpelli people and the traditional owners are very much against the mine, but have been pushed and pressured so much over the last five or six years, that they realise it is useless to keep saying no, and that for this reason they just do nothing.

I believe that the Northern Land Council has a duty to be satisfied that the traditional owners have consented to the agreement and I am not satisfied that this has occurred.

I do not believe that the traditional owners of the area have been consulted by the Northern Land Council and certainly we at the meeting did not have a chance to speak with them to find out their views. One of the traditional owners Mr Toby Gangali was there for some of the time, but he was not asked questions by the council and I believe that he was asking for help and support from the Northern Land Council because of all the pressure that had been placed upon him.

I believe that from his attitude he felt that future opposition was hopeless although he was very unhappy about what was proposed.

I believe that many of the people felt that if they did not agree then they would simply be pushed and placed under more pressure until such time as they did agree and I believe the majority did not feel that they had carried out their responsibilities to the traditional owners and be satisfied that the traditional owners supported the agreement.

Large community meetings were held in a number of Arnhem Land communities and statements were presented to the NLC on behalf of a number of communities. For example,

“… nobody was allowed at the East Alligator meeting to express that contamination could ruin the land for our future. Milingimbi community feel that (NLC) chairman had the wrong stories he should listen to his own people we don’t want to fight against him we just want him to look after our land” (quoted in Parsons 1978, 141).

The stresses on the NLC were such that there were newspaper reports that the organisation might disintegrate (see The Northern Territory News 20 September 1978). The Government accused the ALP of political interference in the dispute about the agreement (which was vigorously denied by the ALP and a number of Aboriginal leaders). The Country-Liberal Party member for the Northern Territory strongly supported the NLC Chairman for his “courageous stand which included the sacking of one of the NLC’s white advisers [Stuart McGill]” (quoted in The Northern Territory News 21 September 1978). The Minister for Aboriginal Affairs (Viner) flew to Darwin for discussions with the Chairman of the NLC. The Minister:

“… declared that not only the future of uranium mining but that of Aboriginal land rights legislation was at stake “(Australian Financial Review, 21 September 1978).

One newspaper article was headed:

Viner tries to save Territory black council (Courier Mail, 21 September 1978).

Following negotiations between those opposing the signing of the Ranger agreement and the Chairman of the NLC, a 9 point agreement was lodged with the Supreme Court. Significantly, the first point was that a process needed to be established to ensure that the NLC properly undertook its functions under sub-section 23(3) of the Aboriginal Land Rights Act (Australian Financial Review, 26 September 1978).

It was reported that a meeting of 40 traditional owners at Gunbalanya in early October had told the NLC that they did not accept the draft mining agreement. According to newspaper reports 12 of the traditional owners “spoke at length on their dissatisfaction with the present agreement”.

Mr Toby Gangale said yesterday: “I don’t like that agreement. I wish it would go away for six months … I wish it would go away for five years” (The Northern Territory News, 12 October 1978).

Further, it appears that the NLC did not adhere to the terms of the agreement to stall the Supreme Court action. A meeting of the NLC executive was held at Bamyili near Katherine (1-2 November 1978) where the members were not told by the Chairman that the agreement would be signed. The executive was told that the NLC still had to undertake further consultations as a result of the 9 point agreement.

Harry Wilson said “If we accept that agreement now will the lawyers still go out to consult with the communities”. Galarrwuy: “Yes. They will still go out to consult. It will be up to the traditional owners to say yes or no to that agreement”. The people, including me [Leo Finlay] accepted that the consultation was going to continue. So people put up their hands and someone said, “well, that’s ok. If the consultation is going to go on then we can accept it. I voted against it and so did Gordon Lansen. We didn’t put up our hands. Galarrwuy asked “what about you Leo?”. I said, “no, I won’t accept it”. I knew it was a trick. Everyone else put their hands up (National U, Special Supplement, November 1978).

The executive flew to Oenpelli with the Minister for Aboriginal Affairs on 3 November 1978 for the formal signing. One member (Leo Finlay) who attended the meeting publicly stated that he was not aware that the agreement was to be signed at Oenpelli by the NLC.

“We thought we were going to the airport, but we went to the office and saw the agreement all set to be signed. That was a big shock to me. A lot of people signed and a platinum pen was handed to everyone. I refused to accept one …” (National U, Special Supplement, November 1978).

Other newspaper reports suggested that the signing of the agreement was a “surprise”:

Gold pens with the inscription “Ranger 1978” were distributed to members of the NLC Executive … Interpreters in a number of Aboriginal communities were still working on translations of the agreement when the signing was announced in Friday … Instead of following the machinery for ratification foreshadowed by the Land Rights Act – that the traditional owners recommend signing to the NLC – Mr Viner, Mr Yunupingu and executive members of the council flew to Oenpelli on Friday to inform traditional owners that the NLC had recommended the signing of the agreement. The traditional owners of the Ranger site accepted the recommendation and the gold pens were distributed (Australian Financial Review, 6 November 1978).

According to newspaper reports, the mining agreement was signed by Mr Viner, Galurrwuy Yunupingu, Dick Malwagu and John Gwadbu. The Kakadu National Park lease agreements were reportedly signed by Mr Yunupingu, Toby Gangale, Marjorie Mundaimi, Professor Derek Ovington (Director of ANPWS) and Mick Alderson (The Northern Territory News, 6 November 1978). In a joint statement Mr Viner and Mr Yunupingu stated that the signing was “an historic and significant occasion” and the mining agreement “marks the first of its kind ever signed by an Aboriginal body independently and in the interests of Aborigines with respect for their traditional land” (quoted in The Northern Territory News, 6 November 1978).

The historical evidence suggests that many people were concerned that the NLC did not properly undertake its functions under sub-section 23(3) and Part IV of the Aboriginal Land Rights Act. In the end, when the agreement was finally signed, the evidence demonstrates that the NLC did not act on the instructions of the traditional owners. Stephen Zorn, who was one of the negotiators of the agreement, wrote to the Chairman of the NLC arguing that “Mr Yunupingu and the NLC staff had pressured members to ratify the Ranger agreement”.

“There was indeed pressure, and there was not the sort of real, effective consultation that is required both by Section 23 of the Land Rights Act and by ordinary common decency”, Dr Zorn said … “For all of these reasons, I think it quite reasonable for people to conclude that the NLC leadership and staff, pushed, it is clear by the Commonwealth government, have created a situation in which many Aboriginals are not satisfied they have had adequate time”, he said (quoted in The Northern Territory News, 30 October 1978).

According to Leo Finlay, only a few of the traditional owners were present at the meeting:

“[Yunupingu] never once said the agreement was about to be signed. He never asked even the Oenpelli owners who were there if they agreed to sign the agreement. He just told them that they had heard the traditional owners ie. the one who come with NLC. The people from the community did not say a word. They just sat there. The agreement was never discussed with them. They were never asked their opinion of it” (National U, Special Supplement, November 1978).

The agreement was signed on Friday 3 November after 6 years of discussion. Leo Finlay was publicly critical of the process:

“The Ranger agreement was signed with lies and trickery, a prominent member of the Northern Land Council said today. Both the Minister for Aboriginal Affairs, Mr Viner, and the NLC Chairman, Mr Galarrwuy Yunupingu, continually misled council members and the traditional owners, Borroloola delegate Mr Leo Finlay said. Aborigines had no idea the uranium mining agreement was to be signed last Friday until they saw the Ranger documents waiting for them, he said … The process of consultation which had been promised with the communities has never taken place. From the time that we agreed to stop the court injunction we have been lied to and tricked by the Government, the NLC chairman and his manager” (Northern Territory News, 10 November 1978).

The senior traditional owner, Toby Gangale, when he was finally asked to speak, was quoted as saying:

“I’ve given up. It’s been six years now. I’m not fighting anymore” (National U, Special Supplement, November 1978).

But the Chairman of the NLC was quoted as saying that:

“… the signing of the agreement had unified the Aboriginal people. “The position of the land council has been strengthened” … His own position as chairman of the NLC had also been strengthened” (The Canberra Times, 4 November 1978).

It is hardly believable given the concerns expressed by so many people about the role of the NLC in the negotiations over the project that the NLC Chairman could say at the ground breaking ceremony for the Ranger mine on 11 June 1979:

Through it all the Northern Land council watched the interests of Aboriginal people.

In a related issue, Parsons concluded his article by expressing another concern that no one was discussing with Aboriginal people how they could secure a more independent economic future other than from mining royalties. Aboriginal people were told that mining would provide employment and funding to enable them to pursue a range of social and economic opportunities. He believed that it was essential that Aboriginal people be provided with a range of alternatives. In retrospect this issue remains one of the most critical in the region today.

While the Ranger agreement could have been challenged at the time, and indeed there were threats to do so (see Adelaide Advertiser 6 November 1978), the amendments to the Aboriginal Land Rights Act in 1980, which were themselves introduced because of legal challenges to the NLC’s role in the Nabarlek agreement, make legal action much more difficult. However, a challenge was finally undertaken in October 1985.

The mid-1980s NLC legal action

In October 1985 the NLC commenced legal action against the Commonwealth Government and the Ranger project operator ERA. The NLC argued that the 1978 Ranger agreement was invalid because it was signed “as a result of duress, undue influence and unconscionable conduct by the Commonwealth” (quoted in The Australian, 29 October 1985). The NLC intended to claim that as much as $200 million had been lost to Aboriginal interests because of the “grossly inadequate payments by comparison with mining agreements in other countries and the modest annual payments for the life of the contract (20 years) are not indexed for inflation” (quoted in The Northern Territory News, 28 October 1985).

The Chairman of the Northern Land council, Mr Galarrwuy Yunupingu, said: “We have grown up a lot since those days when the Fraser Government used all of its expertise and pressure to have the agreement signed. The NLC and the traditional owners from Kakadu can now stand on their own feet” (quoted in the Sydney Morning Herald, 29 October 1985).

A mediation package was presented to the traditional owners in September 1994 but the was not acceptable to the traditional owners. The proceedings were subsequently discontinued because the NLC did not believe it could obtain funding to conduct the case.

The negotiation of the Blue Book (the draft mining agreement)

The negotiation of the mining agreement between the NLC and Pancontinental commenced within days of the Djarr Djarr meeting. A 100 page draft agreement (the so-called Blue Book) – formally known as the Negotiators Draft Agreement – was finalised at the end of June 1981.

Detailed negotiations were undertaken with the company during the period 26-28 June 1981 and the Blue Book was finalised for presentation to Aboriginal communities in the region. These negotiations were “in the presence of” a number of Aboriginal people from the region. The NLC had also already advised the company on 8 June 1981 that it had no objection to the technical aspects of the Project.

The summary notes prepared by one of the negotiators (after the agreement was concluded) highlighted the continuing problems Aboriginal people were having with the process. The following is taken from the record of meetings on 12 June 1981.

General points from Gagudju meeting. Joseph Bumarda stressed Aboriginal people were understanding very little.

  1. Nathaniel Maralngurra asked what would Pancon do if Aboriginals pulled out of the negotiations.
  2. Peter Carroll both to the meeting and privately said everything was going too quickly and indeed, Mick Alderson agreed with him. Toby Gangele suggested putting negotiations off till after the land claim decision received.
  3. Mick Alderson reiterated his complaint that even if Aboriginal people said no, the Government would force mining to go ahead.

The fact that Toby Gangale was reiterating his long held view that the NLC should not talk to Pancontinental until after the land claim was finalised suggests that either he did not understand the content of the resolutions passed at the Djarr Djarr meeting in January, or he did not agree with the resolutions from the meeting, or he had changed his mind since that meeting. David Parsons had stated very clearly to the Djarr Djarr meeting that people could change their mind on the resolutions. What was not explained at the meeting was how people could stop the NLC negotiating with the mining company once the process had started. The evidence suggests that the NLC had no intention of stopping the negotiations regardless of the views expressed by any of the senior traditional owners.

The same document records what seem to be continuing reservations on the part of some Aboriginal people expressed at the negotiation meeting on 26 June 1981:

Cole [negotiator from Pancontinental] further explained that Djarr-Djarr mine could not go ahead unless Aboriginal people say yes and Toby then said that the Traditional Owners would leave it for a while. Considerable discussion ensued. There was discussion regarding the three approvals that would have to be given (Clause 5) and Jacob asked whether Aboriginal people had to say yes and then the other three approvals sought.

Two days later (28 June 1981) the notes record:

Cole advised that the document was the one that Aboriginal people should think about and then advise Pancon. He said that all the changes that Aboriginal people wanted had been included in that document and that Aboriginal people should decide about the things in the document. Toby advised that Aboriginal people did not want to have to think about it. Bill Neidji said that it was best to have a big mob of people all the people must understand, we only have one English word.

The first round of consultations

On 4-5 July a meeting was held with approximately 200 Aboriginal people to explain the provisions of the Blue Book. This included explanations of the provisions relating to mining payments, protection of the environment, rehabilitation, permits, medical treatment, Aboriginal participation committee, employment, sites of significance, Aboriginal culture, traditional owners, liquor, surrender and termination. A resolution was passed that Peter Sutton was to get the views of Aboriginal people about the Blue Book and any changes they would like to see to the agreement. The consultations resulted in the development of the so-called Red Book.

In the period 16 July to 15 September 1981 the Northern Land Council undertook a wide ranging series of consultations in relation to the Blue Book. These were undertaken by Peter Sutton and Silas Maralngurra. The full reports of these meetings are extensive and only a small number of excerpts of some important points are included below.

16 July 1981 (Howard Springs)

People think the mine will go ahead whether they say yes or no. Peter Sutton said this was not the case.

22 July 1981 (Hayes Creek)

This particular group showed considerable impatience with the consultation process. This was purely on the grounds of a desire to see financial benefits as soon as possible.

Peter Sutton asked the group for an expression of any concerns, problems or ideas they had in relation to the draft agreement or the consultations concerning it. [named individual] replied on behalf of the group ‘we just want the money, and to have the meeting’.

18-19 July 1981 (Katherine)

… if a big meeting all agreed that the mine could go ahead then it could go ahead.

2 August 1981 (Jim Jim)

[named individual] said that some Aboriginal people whose own territories were a considerable distance from the Djarr Djarr area, are a bad influence on negotiations because such distant people tend to unequivocally support the commencement of mining. Nevertheless these people should be consulted.

[named individual] complained solidly about the fact that Pancon had stressed Toby Gangele’s indebtedness to them because of their support of him during the Alligator Rivers Stage II land claim.

[named individual] said, regarding the problems of taking responsibility for consenting to mining, “I’m alright. It’s Toby who will cop it”.

3 August 1981 (Jim Jim)

Toby Gangele: Since the land claim decision may be subject to some appeal and is not really final, the situation is still up in the air. We should wait for a final result of the Alligator Rivers land claim before making a final decision on mining.

Peter Sutton explained in detail the amounts for the first three years as shown in the draft agreement. Toby Gangele; “Yes, front money big lot of money first year”.

4-5 August 1981 (Cannon Hill)

… Big Bill repeated his comment, made before the consultation formally began, that he felt the up-front money payments should be made in a large sum and immediately upon consent, and with firm guarantees.

Big Bill: keep payments low, because family will humbug me.

[named individual] “The government shouldn’t interfere with our ideas. It’s our country which is being opened up and ruined”.

Big Bill: very worried that some workers may take uranium out and make a bomb and come back and kill us all … at the final meeting, when everything is settled, we should have a big corroboree to show them that we are not losing our culture.

6 August 1981 (Jabiru)

It was noticeable that this particular group especially regards the development of the Pancon mine as a fait accompli.

Peter Sutton raised the option of combining the up-front payments in a single large payment in the first year. Everyone said they would like to have this done … “yes, because by and by we are all dead, six foot under ground” (exactly the same comments made by each group in each case).

7 August 1981 (Deaf Adder Gorge)

[named individual] “We give hand to Mirarr, Manilagarr all that mob, but we don’t give it to Pancon yet – we got to work it out properly. This Koongarra I don’t give it, I can’t give nobody. For Pancon, we give help to other mob, work it out properly, we don’t give it, not yet”.

17-18 August 1981 (Oenpelli outstation)

Peter Sutton then asked [named individual] his general attitude to the Jabiluka proposal. He replied that “people say OK”, largely on the grounds that they want the money. He also said that since Nabarlek and Ranger had been approved, Pancon would need to be very different and exceptional to be singled out for rejection (cumulative impact does not appear to be a very conscious concern here).

12 September 1981 (Oenpelli)

SM introduced the topic of the association which would be recipient of Jabiluka funds. Big Bill Nayidji’s view was that a new association should be created for this purpose, called Djabiluku or Djarr-Djarr; and at the same time the name of Gagadju Association should be changed to Gundjeyhmi.

12 September 1981 (Oenpelli outstation)

It will be no defense for NLC to say, when accused of having rushed these negotiations, that they were only acting on instructions. There has to be someone (else) to blame, in this system, and NLC representatives, those who are not traditional owners of the land concerned, are the perfect scapegoats (both of them having done things with which people disagree, and for having done things with which people do agree, but which come under public criticism to the point where Aboriginal people may wish to dissociate themselves from those actions).

14 September 1981 (Maningrida)

… the conceding of all major decisions to a core TO [traditional owner] group is probably related not simply to the politics of land ownership and the privileges of proximity, but also to the “safety” from dire consequences of those who both take spiritual responsibility for djang and social responsibility for changes to the area. Since virtually all deaths in the society are matters for human blame, and wrong behaviour in relation to djang can result in death, a “political” decision about the relative safety of giving consent to a mining project is potentially a life-and-death matter. (The seriousness of this should not be underestimated).

15 September 1981 (Minjilang)

SM said that the Pancon consent money must be there in Darwin right on the spot within one week of signing.

Dick Malwagu: “It’s getting to much, uranium mining. We should look two place (presumably Ranger and Nabarlek), country getting too small. Last time rush, signed on djurra. We on islands might go against it. This time more careful. Promises were broken last time. Country not much left. We on narrow path. Got to be honest one another”.

PS pointed out that there is a distinct possibility that the government may reduce its funding to Aboriginal communities in the area, in proportion to the revenue flowing into it from mining agreements. This produced great concern.

There was some effort made during these meetings to present the no-option to people. In many meetings Peter Sutton said that Aboriginal people did not have to say yes to mining and that no decision had been made. This is in contrast to the record of the second round of meetings where the process was to consult people about each of the terms of the agreement. In effect any discussion about whether the mine should proceed was deferred until a big meeting in mid 1982.

The second round of negotiations

The Executive of the NLC met during the period 22-24 September 1981 to consider the Red Book. This led to the beginning of further negotiations with the company on 29 September 1981 where the financial package in the Red Book was rejected by Pancontinental.

In the document headed Pancontinental Negotiations dated 29 September 1981 it is stated that Jacob Nayinggul had a meeting with the so-called “inside group” (the main traditional owners of land likely to be affected by the project) and these people said:

“… NLC lawyers should talk to Pancon lawyers about people’s ideas and the feedback from people was that no Agreement should take place between the two parties until a full written response was given to all negotiators and then explained to them to the Inside Group” (page 18).

The NLC and Pancontinental initialled a draft of the agreement on 27 February 1982. According to one set of notes from the meeting, the instructions to initial the agreement were given by the Inside Group. From this date onwards the negotiations in relation to the agreement were being formally conducted under section 48 of the Aboriginal Land Rights Act. One set of notes recording the meetings specifically refer to section 48 meetings for all of the subsequent meetings.

The second round of consultations

A series of consultations about the draft agreement were undertaken during the period 11 March – 5 June 1982 by a different group than those who undertook the first round of consultations. This second group were actually involved in negotiating the agreement with the company. One of the quarterly reports to the Minister for Aboriginal Affairs by the Australian Institute of Aboriginal Studies on the Social Impact of Uranium Mining on the Aborigines of the Northern Territory commented:

To an external observer, the shift by the Northern Land Council midway through the Jabiluka negotiations from using a specialist consultant -who was not a member of the negotiating team – to seek the views of the Aborigines affected, to the use of members of the actual negotiating team to carry out follow-up consultations has undesirable overtones in that it represents the abandonment of the principle of “disinterested interpreter”. There was merit in the initial arrangement where there was a clear line drawn between consultations and negotiations (Australian Institute of Aboriginal Studies 1982, 47-8).

The content of the second round of meetings were somewhat different to the first round of meetings. The second round were almost exclusively concerned with consultations over the main clauses of the draft agreement. A number of interesting comments were raised during these meetings.

What happens if people say no to mining. Bining want to say no but are a bit greedy for Balanda things

[named individuals] then said that they wanted a decision regarding the mine to be made by the Inside Group.

DP then explained the anticipated procedure for further meetings and indicated that comments from the Outside Groups’ meetings would go to the Inside Group and the Inside Group will then select the ideas that they think are good ideas and tell the negotiating team to negotiate on those ideas, or they may tell the NLC that what is in the White Book is not good enough and they want renegotiation on certain points. DP explained that after that negotiation session, then there would be a big “YES/NO” meeting and the results of that meeting would be advised to the NLC and the NLC will then have a meeting under Section 48 of the Aboriginal Land Rights Act to confirm the Agreement should be signed or not signed.

DP talked to Toby about the procedure that will follow the Section 48 meetings, that is more meetings of the Inside Group, possible renegotiation, instructions back to Traditional Owners, consent of the NLC, and then final consent by Traditional Owners. He also indicated that Big Bill had suggested the idea of a corroboree and asked Toby what he thought. Toby said he thought the idea of a corroboree was a good one.

One of the reports to the Minister for Aboriginal Affairs by the Australian Institute of Aboriginal Studies on the Social Impact of Uranium Mining on the Aborigines of the Northern Territory commented on the difference between the two groups of consultations. The report noted that there were still deficiencies in the process:

Aboriginal people complain of too many meetings;

old people do not or cannot understand the issues as presented;

failure to attend meetings is interpreted as lack of interest, not an expression of deliberate abstention or disapproval; and

that express instructions that meetings should be delayed or should not occur at all during particular periods of time have been ignored (Australian Institute of Aboriginal Studies 1982, 47).

Government approval for the companies to negotiate sales contracts

Even while the second round of consultations with Aboriginal people on the draft agreement were being undertaken Deputy Prime Minister Anthony announced that the project had received conditional approval under the Government’s uranium export policy (16 March 1982). This enabled the companies to enter into the marketplace to negotiate export contracts. Approval to export and the grant of the mining lease were conditional on agreement being reached with the NLC. Practically speaking, however, the Government could confidently proceed with this course of action because it could, if necessary, have invoked the national interest and arbitration provisions in the Aboriginal Land Rights Act. However, more significantly:

“In making this decision I have taken account of the views of the Northern Land Council which has indicated its support for market entry” (Anthony 1982, 280).

Presumably the Government believed that the initialling of the draft agreement by the NLC and Pancontinental in the previous month was a clear sign that the final agreement would be approved by the traditional owners in the near future.

Undoubtedly the Government’s decision must have put considerable pressure on the Aboriginal land owners to give their consent to the project. It certainly was a very clear indication that whatever the views of the traditional owners the mine would proceed. It was really a question of which sections of the Aboriginal Land Rights Act needed to be invoked by the Government to ensure that the project would proceed. In fact, the Shadow Minister for Aboriginal Affairs (Susan Ryan) at the time pointed to this charade:

“Does not such action reinforce the attitude that is to be found within Aboriginal communities right throughout the Northern Territory, that is, that irrespective of any opposition that they might have to mining, their values and their views will be overridden by a government determined to have mining, a government that prefers to achieve its mining objectives by a legal charade that could project the view that Aboriginal approval to mining is an approval that is freely given “(quoted in House of Representatives, 25 March 1982, 1466).

More amendments to the Aboriginal Land Rights Act

Two days after this announcement by the Deputy Prime Minister the Government introduced a bill to further amend the Aboriginal Land Rights Act in the Senate. The legislation passed the Senate on the same day (18 March 1982) and was debated and passed by the House of Representatives on 25 March 1982. As a result of High Court action at the time by Peko-Wallsend Ltd against the Minister for Aboriginal Affairs it was not clear that the Minister could grant the land recommended for grant by the Land Commissioner, including the Jabiluka project area.

The amendments allowed the Minister to deal immediately with those parts of the claim area not affected by the legal proceedings. This meant that a grant of land including the Jabiluka project area could be made to a Land Trust.

As the Opposition pointed out at the time, the mine could not proceed unless the land was granted to a Land Trust and therefore became subject to the mining provisions of the Aboriginal Land Rights Act. The Opposition also highlighted the difficulties the Deputy Prime Minister’s decision to allow the company to negotiate export contracts posed for traditional owners:

Mr Anthony’s approval means that the Jabiluka project partners can begin negotiations for the sale of uranium from Jabiluka before the Aboriginal owners have agreed to allow mining to proceed. While the Northern Land Council has initialled an agreement on Jabiluka, the agreement has still to be discussed by the Aboriginal owners of the area as specified under Section 48 of the Northern Territory Land Rights Act (Senate 18 March 1982, 956).

The Opposition was reported in The Northern Territory News (26 March 1982) as saying that the amendments ensured that the Government could hand over the land covering the Jabiluka project “so traditional owners could be pressured into ratifying an agreement between the NLC and Pan Continental”.

One of the Opposition speakers in the debate (Stuart West) claimed that the senior counsel for the NLC, Mr Eric Pratt, had telexed the Minister for Aboriginal Affairs 9 months previously and stated:

“The mining is justified environmentally and economically and will result in substantial benefits to Aboriginals “(quoted in the House of Representatives Hansard, 25 March 1982, 1451).

Mr West indicated that the telex had been sent without NLC approval and on “a Pancontinental telex machine”. Mr Holding later in the debate referred to “legal paternalism” in the NLC:

… in which negotiations are entered into by legal advisers for and on behalf of the Northern Land Council and when, after Mr Pratt has reached what he regards as satisfactory arrangements with the mining companies – who, after all, ultimately pay his fees – considerable pressures are applied to traditional owners to give their approval and to comply with those agreements (House of Representatives Hansard, 25 March 1982, 1466-7).

Did the NLC have a conflict of interest in the uranium negotiations?

There are two aspects to this issue. One is the way that the land councils are funded under the Aboriginal Land Rights Act. The other is the financial relationship between the NLC and Pancontinental at the time the Jabiluka agreement was negotiated.

As a result of the public debate over the Ranger, Nabarlek and Jabiluka projects a number of people questioned whether the NLC had a conflict of interest as a result of its funding arrangements. For example, Peter Carroll, who was later to be involved in the Jabiluka consultations as an employee of the Department of Aboriginal Affairs, stated:

“The establishment of the NLC through the Land Rights Act provides for funding of the Council through mining royalties. This could be interpreted to say that the NLC has a vested interest in promoting mining on Aboriginal Land” (Carroll 1978, 3).

A newspaper reporter from The Age (16 April 1982) commented:

Conflicts of interest abound. None is more poignant than that experienced by the Aboriginal land councils themselves – particularly near Yinkididi near the Jabiluka site, where traditional owners are still negotiating with Pancontinental Mining Ltd. There is no doubting that land councils are committed to promoting Aboriginal strength and ability to survive the 20th century intact. But now the councils are established, well run and well funded, it may be time to modify them in the light of experience to ensure they protect all the interests of all the traditional owners – even those who want no mining at all.

All of the Northern Territory land councils are now funded, to undertake their functions under the Aboriginal Land Rights Act, by mining royalty equivalents payable into the Aboriginals Benefit Trust Account (ABTA) by the Commonwealth from Consolidated Revenue. While the land councils do not receive royalties directly to undertake their functions, they do benefit from more mining activity on Aboriginal land because of higher royalty equivalent payments into the ABTA.

However, at the time of the Ranger negotiations the NLC was funded under different arrangements than apply today. Because the original Aboriginal Land Rights legislation needed to be amended there were delays in the establishment of the ABTA into which mineral royalty equivalents are now paid. The NLC was at the time funded, in part, from the Aborigines’ Benefits Trust Fund. The Fund operated during the period 1952 until June 1978 and received all royalties from mining on Aboriginal reserves other than the royalties from the Groote Eylandt mining operations (Altman 1983, 27).

Given the resource demands on the NLC at the time, both from the uranium mining negotiations and the land claims, the NLC Chairman at the time stated that mining would need to proceed on Aboriginal land to generate royalty income for the Land Councils:

The Northern Land Council’s prime function is to protect and further the interests of Aborigines within their domain. As the council’s present resources are totally inadequate for this purpose the only way they can generate some wealth for the Aborigines in the foreseeable future is by permitting at least some uranium mining on the lands in their custody. Yunupingu says: “If we want to see the NLC run successfully to run Aboriginal development, to see Aboriginal people running their own businesses on their own land, there should be development of mining … [but Jabiluka] will never go. No hope unless the local people change their minds” (The Bulletin, 11 July 1978).

One of the NLC’s lawyers at the time commented that while the land councils required adequate funding to fight on behalf of Aboriginal people “this should not be an argument for encouraging uranium mining” (McGill 1978, 5). Even after the present Land Council funding arrangements were put in place after June 1978 there were still claims of a potential conflict of interest for the NLC. In his report on the Act in 1980, Rowland pointed to a conflict of interest situation that arises where:

the Land Council is funded in part from royalty type payments received from mining on Aboriginal land (s.64(1) and s.35(1)). It may be at times be seem to have a financial interest that could temper the objectivity of its advice to the traditional owners (Rowland 1980, 54).

During the debate in the Senate on the 1982 amendments to the Aboriginal Land Rights Act (see above) one of the Opposition members (Holding) quoted from the Rowland report, and stated:

“these titles include areas of land which are currently the subject of negotiation between the Northern Land Council and Pancontinental Mining Ltd in respect of the mining project at Jabiluka. My concern is that, given the opportunity to amend the Act, the Minister or the Government has continued to ignore some of the problems inherent in the legislation, which were pointed out by Mr Rowland … in the legislation that created the Aboriginal Land Rights Act and which gave birth to the Northern Land Council we have created an organisational framework which was not related to the structures of Aboriginal society, and in which the potential for conflict of interest was endemic” (House of Representatives Hansard, 25 March 1982, 1465).

Another member of the House of Representatives (West) raised the same issue. The model of land councils set up under the Act was showing signs:

of being used not for the benefits of the traditional Aboriginal owners but in the interests of the prevailing and snowballing bureaucracy in the land councils which are taking the decisions and not properly informing the people, on the grounds that the people are not, because of their traditional life style, capable of understanding these highly complicated agreements (quoted in Australian Financial Review, 13 April 1982).

This same article questioned whether the traditional owners had ever had a no-mining option put to them by the NLC.

A spokesman for the land council said that it had not been put and could not be put as the legislation did not permit such an option. However, another spokesman was adamant that the question had been put (Australian Financial Review 13 April 1982).

Further,

Mr Holding said on the evidence that he did not believe that the no mining option had ever been seriously available to the traditional owners. His discussions with traditional owners have confirmed this … (Australian Financial Review 13 April 1982).

Tony Grey from Pancontinental also pointed to this financial arrangement:

“The negotiations were not easy and not cheap. The NLC insisted that all their costs be paid by us. They refused to commence unless we agreed. It was largely because we were paying their legal fees, which were charged out at big city rates, that there was little incentive to reach a speedy conclusion” (Grey 1994, 232).

Colin Tatz, who was Chairman of the Australian Institute of Aboriginal Studies project examining the Social Impact of Uranium Mining on the Aborigines of the Northern Territory commented in his book:

“The details apart, one aspect of the Pancon-NLC negotiation is disturbing to many. A treasured precept of law is that justice must be not only be done but be seen to be done. In parallel, a precept of negotiated agreements of this kind is that total freedom to negotiate must not only be available but be seen to be available. In a nutshell, Pancontinental has paid more than $300,000 to the NLC for the NLC to employ a negotiating team to negotiate with Pancontinental. That this may be a recognized practice in big business is not relevant here. Neither the NLC nor Pancon emerges well from placing themselves in a situation where the NLC appears – however incorrectly in fact – to be an agent of the principal it is engaging with” (Tatz 1982, 185).

The Northern Land Council responded to the claims of conflict of interest in the Commonwealth Parliament and that it was a “pro-mining” organisation. The Australian Financial Review commented that the NLC responded in an “unnecessarily defensive manner”. However, the NLC was forced to undertake further discussions with the traditional owners as a result of the criticism that the no-option was not being put to the land owners.

The Northern Land Council asked the Traditional Owners if they wanted to stop further negotiations on the Pancontinental mining agreement. The Traditional Owners said they wanted more talks, but not until May this year. They said the negotiating team should talk to other Aboriginal people who were affected by the agreement and then come back to talk more to the Traditional Owners (Land Rights News March/April 1982, 5).

At the same time Bill Neidjie wrote a letter to the Bureau of NLC which included the following statements:

Everyone is pushing us. Pushing, pushing, pushing. Now they want us to sign but they don’t know what it means for us. This is our life. Everybody said ‘You’re asking far too much money. You Aboriginal people have got to have good reasons for asking for a lot of money. What do you want this money for?’

Now I’ll ask you one question. How much is your life worth? How much do I have to pay you so I can take your life away? People will say that we are just trying to make trouble now and stop everything, but we don’t want trouble. We just want you to understand what we are giving up … our life. It will cost Pancon money. It will cost us our life …

I am not trying to stop you. I know you have been trying but you are all the time pushing and wanting us to sign. Some ceremonies take six years or seven years, but you have only given us six months or seven months to negotiate …

We don’t know what is wrong with you. We are always straight with you. but now we must do something ourselves. We have seen what happened to others when mining came to quickly. They’ve lost. They’re getting skinny. They don’t believe in that mining any more. We don’t want that to happen to us and so we have asked for our stories to be written (quoted in House of Representatives Hansard, 25 March 1982, 1467).

Apart from possible conflicts of interest, the Government also clearly stated that part of the reason for the 1980 amendments to the Aboriginal Land Rights Act was to deal with the difficult role that land councils are required to undertake under the Act. One of the quarterly reports of the Australian Institute of Aboriginal Studies social impact project provided some general comments on how the consultations were undertaken in the region and the role of the NLC and other organisations:

The problem is that of ensuring that all people have access to relevant information. One could say that information flow does not cater for these matters in the Alligator Rivers region. People who attend meetings do not report back to their community … Their job is seen to attend the meeting, and once the meeting is over, so is their job: there is no obligation to inform others of what went on. The lack of clarity about what transpires at meetings is often compounded because people are unclear about the purpose of the meeting. Matters to be discussed are not canvassed beforehand; the full range of information necessary to make decisions is not provided, and hence people are not only being asked to make decisions, but they are being asked to assimilate new information and assess it prior to making the decisions. Aborigines in the Alligator Rivers region frequently complain of the tiresome nature of negotiations: the amount of time they take, the way that the Aborigines’ stated wishes are never heeded, and their exhausting nature. It is not uncommon for people to have spent two or three days at a meeting, and not have understood what went on … The decisions that are made at the very beginnings of negotiations are apt to determine everything that comes after (Australian Institute of Aboriginal Studies 1983, 47-8).

The final sentence has obvious relevance to what happened after the Djarr Djarr meeting in January 1981

The Project Director had earlier raised a number of other issues about the role of the NLC and the organisations in the region. He pointed out that there had been much criticism of the Land Councils because:

  • their structures seemed to be totally at odds with the principles and reality of land ownership by Aboriginal people;
  • they were centralised and bureaucratic;
  • council members were appointed by delegation from particular regions, charged with the final decisions on all land falling with the Land Council’s region; and
  • the delegates are not directly accountable to the land owners (von Sturmer 1981, 26).

Von Sturmer argued that the Aboriginal Land Rights Act recognises traditional ownership yet never confronts the difficult question of translating it into appropriate administrative machinery. As an alternative to the Land Council structures as they then existed (and continue to this day) von Sturmer proposed the following:

“The alternative direction would be to make the fact of ownership paramount; to allow decisions to be made locally; to provide structures – the associations being formed in the Alligator Rivers region would be appropriate – which could record and ratify these decisions; to create a Land Council which consisted of delegates from component associations (the real locus of field activities) whose only powers would be to report decisions made locally, and to discuss matters of general moment. In short, the Land Councils should be regionalised – not, as current developments within the Northern Land Council suggest, by delegation to regions (essentially by the appointment of field staff attached to regional offices the prime responsibility of which is to report to the central Bureau) but from regions. The Land Councils would continue to serve important functions: advice on request to the land owners and associations on the political, economic and other implications of matters about which they are required to make decisions; a court of appeal and redress for particular land owners or others dissatisfied with their treatment at the hands of the regional association; a forum for the discussion of long-term goals and objectives … “(von Sturmer 1981, 26-27).

The final agreement

What is clear from the notes of the meetings and other documents obtained during the research for this report is that once the negotiations and consultations were underway (following the January Djarr Djarr meeting) the process really had only one logical conclusion: the approval of the agreement and the go ahead for mining at Jabiluka. When the agreement was finally signed the Chairman of the NLC, Gerry Blitner, was quoted as saying:

“Although the negotiating process has been a long one, it has reduced the pressure that has usually been associated with such negotiations on the traditional owners. Because of the fairness of the negotiations and the careful and delicate ways in which they have been handled, and the long and lasting benefit to the Aboriginal people, the NLC is proud to have been a part of them” (quoted in Niklaus 1982a, 6).

The Chairman pointed out that there had been 48 meetings with traditional owners during the 18 month period from the beginning of 1981.

“The Government wanted it that way so there would be no criticism that they’ve pushed mining without consulting with Aboriginal people” (quoted in Niklaus 1982a, 6).

The meetings were certainly very comprehensive and were very well documented. It seems that the main participants were conscious of the requirements imposed by amendments to the Aboriginal Land Rights Act in 1980. These amendments, which were previously discussed, meant that the Minister needed to be satisfied that the Land Council had sought and received proper instructions from the traditional owners and had acted in accordance with these instructions when it negotiated agreements on their behalf (see Senate Hansard 18 March 1982, 958). This ensured that any agreement entered into by the Land Council could not be invalidated by legal action against the Land Council because it had not properly undertaken its statutory functions under section 23. It appears that the extensive documentation of the meetings and other material was made available to the Minister for Aboriginal Affairs, Ian Wilson, specifically to ensure that the mining agreement could not be challenged. The Minister stated:

“I have examined the extensive documentation submitted to me by the NLC recording the meetings held with Aboriginals who are the traditional owners of the Jabiluka project and with those groups who may be affected by the mining proposal. I have also examined detailed reports provided by officers of my department who were invited to observe certain key meetings held with the traditional owners and other Aboriginals with strong associations with the project area. My conclusion is that the NLC has fully met its obligations under the Aboriginal Land Rights Act” (quoted in Niklaus 1982a, 7).

There remains, however, a very serious matter whether the NLC actually received proper instructions at the meeting held at Djarr Djarr in January 1981 to negotiate a mining agreement for the Jabiluka project. The NLC certainly recorded that it received proper instructions and would have informed the Minister accordingly.

While the NLC and the Minister obviously believed that the process of consultations was handled well by the NLC (and they were certainly handled better than the Ranger consultations), there is still a view being expressed by Aboriginal people in the region today that the process resulted in a mining agreement for a mine that most of them did not, and still do not, want on their land. This view was expressed at the time by a number of people, including the Australian Institute of Aboriginal Studies. The article by Niklaus also quotes from a NLC staff member who believed that the “seemingly endless stream of meetings” had a “totally divisive, fragmentary” effect on the Aboriginal communities (quoted in Niklaus 1982a, 6). The records of the meetings suggest, as one other person commented, that:

“A lot of meetings amount to pressure, out and out. It’s a long process – it’s a blitzkrieg towards the end. The old blokes have just been worn down” (quoted in Niklaus 1982a, 7).

The Opposition spokesperson at the time also raised this issue:

“Traditional owners I have met with do not perceive that they have any real choice about mining. They believe they will be harassed continually until they agree to mining. If as seems probable, the Jabiluka agreement is signed this week, it will not be because the aboriginal traditional owners really choose it, but rather because they see agreement as the only way out of a situation of intense and sustained pressure “(quoted in Niklaus 1982a, 7).

One set of the negotiators’ notes of the final session confirm this view: At the meeting on 29 June 1982 when the agreement was finalised Toby Gangale was quoted as having said:

“Eric, David, Phil, I myself am tired, everybody is tired, and everybody agrees we can go ahead” (page 46).

A final comment

The present owner of the Jabiluka mineral lease, ERA, has argued that it has a valid mining agreement with the NLC that was entered into in June 1982. The company has stated that even though it is aware that many Aboriginal people in the region today still object to mining at Jabiluka, including the senior traditional owner for the area, the agreement must stand. It is understandable that the company would seek to protect its commercial interests in this way.

The present Chairman of the Northern Land Council has stated publicly that the NLC will abide by the 1982 agreement. The NLC has refused to provide any substantive support to the traditional owners in their attempts to challenge the validity of the agreements and the project. As it did nearly twenty years ago, the NLC is arguing that it cannot challenge the agreement (morally or legally) because it will undermine the cause of Aboriginal land rights and the land councils in the wider Australian community.

Given the circumstances that led to the signing of that agreement, and the continuing pressure that has been applied on Aboriginal people to approve mining in this region, there is a very real issue about whether imposing this mine without the permission of the traditional owners will do anything other than contribute to the already obvious social and cultural distress being experienced by many Aboriginal people in the region.

References

Aboriginal Land Commissioner 1981. Alligator Rivers Stage II Land Claim, AGPS, Canberra.

Aboriginal Research Centre 1981. Uranium Country: Compilation of Newspaper Reports 1972-80, Contemporary Aboriginal Issues Report No 1, Monash University, Melbourne.

Altman JC 1983. Aborigines and Mining Royalties in the Northern Territory, Australian Institute of Aboriginal Studies, Canberra.

Anthony JD 1982. Jabiluka uranium project, Commonwealth Record, 15-21 March, 280-1.

Australian Institute of Aboriginal Studies 1980. Report to the Minister for Aboriginal Affairs on the Social Impact of Uranium Mining on the Aborigines of the Northern Territory (for the period 1 October 1979 to 31 March 1980), Canberra.

Australian Institute of Aboriginal Studies 1982. Report to the Minister for Aboriginal Affairs on the Social Impact of Uranium Mining on the Aborigines of the Northern Territory (for the period 1 October 1981 to 31 March 1982), AGPS, Canberra.

Australian Institute of Aboriginal Studies 1983. Uranium Impact Project Steering Committee, Report No 7/1982 for the period 1 April to 5 November 1982, Canberra.

Australian Institute of Aboriginal Studies 1984. Aborigines and Uranium, Consolidated Report on the Social Impact of Uranium Mining on the Aborigines of the Northern Territory, AGPS, Canberra.

Carroll P 1978. Uranium mining: the Oenpelli viewpoint, Nungalinya Occasional Bulletin No 1, Nungalinya College, Darwin.

Cole TRH 1981. Statement on Behalf of Pancontinental Mining Ltd to Northern Land Council Negotiators, Jim Jim, 9 June, 5pp.

Dreyfus M, 1981. Thick with Laws: Laws for Uranium, Aborigines and the Environment in the Alligator Rivers Region, Working Paper No 2, Aborigines and the Social Impact of Uranium Mining: Some Legal Considerations, Australian Institute of Aboriginal Studies, Canberra.

Grey T 1994, Jabiluka: the Battle to Mine Australia’s Uranium, Text Publishing Company, Melbourne.

Howitt R & Douglas J 1983. Aborigines & Mining Companies in Northern Australia, Alternative Publishing Cooperative, Sydney.

Lichacz W 1978. Taped interview with Galurrwuy Yunupingu, 15 May, 8pp.

McGill S 1978. Northern Land Council’s legal and strategic position re uranium mining, February 8, 7pp.

Niklaus P 1982a, 1982b, 1983. Land, power and yellowcake (3 parts), Australian Society, December 3, 3-7; December 17, 19-22; February 1, 25-28.

Northern Land Council 1985. Annual Reports 1980-81/1981-82/1982-83, Darwin.

Pancontinental Mining Ltd 1979. The Jabiluka Project Environmental Impact Statement, 3 volumes.

Pancontinental Mining Ltd 1981. Alligator Rivers Stage II Land Claim, Statement of Evidence, Darwin.

Pancontinental Mining Ltd 1986.Supplement to Final Submission to Ranger Uranium Environmental Inquiry, 13 December.

Parsons D 1978. Inside the Ranger negotiations, Arena No 51, 134-143.

Peko-Wallsend Operations Ltd & Electrolytic Zinc Company of Australasia Ltd, 1981a. Alligator Rivers Stage II Land Claim, Statement of Evidence, Darwin.

Peko-Wallsend Operations Ltd & Electrolytic Zinc Company of Australasia Ltd, 1981b. Submissions on Detriment to Alligator Rivers Stage II Land Claim.

Ranger Uranium Environmental Inquiry 1997. Second Report, AGPS, Canberra.

Roberts S 1976. Statement to Ranger Uranium Environmental Inquiry, Darwin, 26 May.

Roberts J 1978. From Massacres to Mining: the Colonization of Aboriginal Australia, CIMRA and War on Want, London.

Rowland BW 1980. Examination of the Aboriginal Land Rights (Northern Territory) Act 1976-80, Report to the Minister for Aboriginal Affairs, Perth.

Tatz C 1982 Aborigines & Uranium and Other Essays, Heinemann Educational Australia, Richmond.

von Sturmer J 1981. Aborigines in the Uranium Industry: Towards Self-Management in the Alligator Rivers Region, Draft paper for Academy of Social Sciences in Australia: Symposium, ‘Aboriginal Sites and Rights, and the Impact of Resource Development’.

Wilders JH undated. Submission by Secretary of the Northern Aboriginal Land Committee Inc to the Ranger Uranium Environmental Inquiry, 7pp.

Woodward AE 1974. Second Report of the Aboriginal Land Rights Commission, AGPS, Canberra.

Muckaty Traditional Owners defeat Lib-Lab-NLC dump plan

19 June 2014 – fantastic victory for Muckaty Traditional Owners in their battle to stop the imposition of a nuclear waste dump by the federal government! Here are some videos, photos and information.

 

Updates and more info:

www.beyondnuclearinitiative.com

https://twitter.com/hashtag/muckaty

https://www.google.com.au/search?q=muckaty

https://www.facebook.com/beyond.nuclearinitiative.1

Blog of court proceedings www.beyondnuclearinitiative.com/blog

Photos:

http://beyondnuclearinitiative.com/photos/

https://www.facebook.com/beyond.nuclearinitiative.1

https://twitter.com/search?q=%23muckaty&mode=photos

Videos

http://beyondnuclearinitiative.com/video/

http://www.youtube.com/results?search_sort=video_date_uploaded&search_query=muckaty

http://vimeo.com/search?q=muckaty

Audio

http://beyondnuclearinitiative.com/audio/

Radioactive Show 28.06.2014

A week after the win against the Muckaty Nuclear Waste Dump, hear from activists in Melbourne about their reflections on the 7 year campaign. With Michaela Stubbs, Jessie Boylan, Hannah Walters and Gem Romuld this show explores connections between city activists and Traditional Owners standing up for their country in the desert. We consider what we mean by acting in solidarity, and how the win at Muckaty strengthens the broader fight for a nuclear free world.

File Download

– See more at: http://www.3cr.org.au/radioactive/podcast/radioactive-show-28062014#sthash.QJwpyXiv.dpuf

Radioactive Show 28.06.2014

A week after the win against the Muckaty Nuclear Waste Dump, hear from activists in Melbourne about their reflections on the 7 year campaign. With Michaela Stubbs, Jessie Boylan, Hannah Walters and Gem Romuld this show explores connections between city activists and Traditional Owners standing up for their country in the desert. We consider what we mean by acting in solidarity, and how the win at Muckaty strengthens the broader fight for a nuclear free world.

File Download

– See more at: http://www.3cr.org.au/radioactive/podcast/radioactive-show-28062014#sthash.QJwpyXiv.dpuf

Radioactive Show 28.06.2014

A week after the win against the Muckaty Nuclear Waste Dump, hear from activists in Melbourne about their reflections on the 7 year campaign. With Michaela Stubbs, Jessie Boylan, Hannah Walters and Gem Romuld this show explores connections between city activists and Traditional Owners standing up for their country in the desert. We consider what we mean by acting in solidarity, and how the win at Muckaty strengthens the broader fight for a nuclear free world.

File Download

– See more at: http://www.3cr.org.au/radioactive/podcast/radioactive-show-28062014#sthash.QJwpyXiv.dpuf

Radioactive Show 28 June 2014 − A week after the win against the Muckaty Nuclear Waste Dump, hear from activists in Melbourne about their reflections on the 7 year campaign. With Michaela Stubbs, Jessie Boylan, Hannah Walters and Gem Romuld this show explores connections between city activists and Traditional Owners standing up for their country in the desert. File Download or to listen online click here.

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Above: Alice Springs, 19 June 2014.

Above: Dianne Stokes and Nat Wasley

Above: Dianne Stokes: “I am proud and still in shock. We want to tell the world we stood up strong.”

Above: Bunny Naburula: “We have fought for seven long years.”

Above: 19 June 2014, Alice Springs

Above: Marlene Bennett and Nat Wasley, 19 June 2014.

Above: Marlene Bennett: “Today will go down in the history books of Indigenous Australia on par with the Wave Hill Walk-off, Mabo and Blue Mud Bay. The Warlmanpa Nation has won an eight-year battle against the might and power of the Commonwealth Government and Northern Land Council. Justice has prevailed and this is a win for all Territorians.”

Above: Mitch: “They forgot that the women of that land were fighting for their unborn grandchildren.”

Above: Barb Shaw: “This is what happens when black and white stand together as a collective.”

Above: Valda Shannon: “I want thank everyone who has stood with us all the way through this 8 year struggle. This has been a long an exhaustive journey. We have been silenced excluded but we kept our voices up.”

Above: Media conference in Alice Springs announcing the victory.

Above: Maurice Blackburn lawyer Lizzie O’Shea: “So proud to represent Traditional Owners of Muckaty Station and am thrilled the Cwth has agreed not to rely on the nomination.”

Above: Muckaty Traditional Owner and hip-hop artist Kylie Sambo. “Today we are here to tell you that we have won. My family has taught me how to fight. We are so relieved.”

Above: Adam Sharah: ‘Victory is sweet. We smashed the racist nuke industry today. Relaxing with strong women of Muckaty Land Trust.’

Above: Doris Kelly

Above: Doris Kelly, Gladys Brown and Elaine Peckham

Above: Senior Warlmanpa law man Dick Foster with Paddy Gibson.

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‘Justice has prevailed’: Muckaty nuclear waste plan finally dumped.

Beyond Nuclear Initiative, Media Release, June 19, 2014

Traditional Owners and campaigners are celebrating today after learning that plans for a national nuclear waste dump at Muckaty in the Northern Territory have been scrapped.

The Commonwealth Government has committed to not pursue the proposed Muckaty site, the announcement coming mid-way through a federal court trial examining the site nomination process. (A federal court action lodged in 2010 began went to trial on June 2, with hearings in Melbourne and Tennant Creek. The hearing scheduled for Darwin has now been vacated.)

A delegation of Traditional Owners has travelled from Tennant Creek to speak with supporters and media in Alice Springs.

Marlene Nungarrayi Bennett, Warlmanpa woman said, “Today will go down in the history books of Indigenous Australia on par with the Wave Hill Walk-off, Mabo and Blue Mud Bay. The Warlmanpa Nation has won an eight-year battle against the might and power of the Commonwealth Government and Northern Land Council. Justice has prevailed and this is a win for all Territorians.”

Penny Williams Namikilli said “ngulayilpa wanganya ngurru-ku partta-wurru mar-darnjaku marjumarju kula yanjaku. kuyayi ngurru kirlka kan-jin-mi, mayi parnta.” [Translated from Warlmanpa: We talked about our land to keep the waste away off the land, not to put it there. We want it to remain clean with bush tucker.]

Milwayi Traditional Owner Gladys Nungarrayi Brown said, “The land is important, we have to keep it clean without radioactive waste. Our ancestors walked around that land and were always looking after it-generation after generation they kept handing that knowledge on. We have to keep passing on that knowledge to future generations.”

The Commonwealth government announced in 2005 that it would pursue three sites in the Northern Territory for a national dump, passing legislation to override NT government opposition. Amendments made in 2006 allowed additional site nominations from Aboriginal Land Councils.

The Northern Land Council offered Muckaty for assessment in 2007, despite opposition from many Traditional Owners. A determined community campaign gained support from trade unions, public health and human rights organisations around the country. Annual demonstrations in Tennant Creek pledged direct action against any attempts to build the dump.

Beyond Nuclear Initiative convenor Natalie Wasley said “Next month will mark ten years since the SA nuclear dump plan was stopped by the Kupa Piti Kungka Tjuta and supporters. Any further attempts to impose nuclear waste on Aboriginal people considered politically expendable will be defeated.”

Dianne Stokes, Milwayi kurtungurlu and Yapa Yapa kirtta said, “We will be still talking about our story in the communities up north so no one else has to go through this. We want to let the whole world know that we stood up very strong. We want to thank the supporters around the world that stood behind us and made us feel strong.”

Kylie Sambo, Milwayi Kurtungurlu and hip-hop artist said, “I joined the campaign four years ago when I wrote my hip hop song Muckaty. My sister always told me stories about our mothers dreaming, where it traveled to and from. That land means a lot to us, that’s why we stand up to protect it. My sister always encouraged me to stand up for our people and our country, my uncle and grandfather would be very happy and proud of what we have done. We are in Alice Springs with good news that we have WON the fight, If you think something is not going the right way then you stand up and speak, because if we in the centre of the Northern Territory can stand up and win then so can you.”

Court proceedings in Melbourne revealed that compensation for the radioactive dump would be in the form of roads, houses and education scholarships. This funding is desperately needed in the region, with a recent estimate that Tennant Creek alone needs around 400 houses to meet current demand.

Ms Wasley concluded, “This radioactive ransom must end. We call for the repeal of the National Radioactive Waste Management Act, which explicitly targets Aboriginal Land for a waste dump. It is time for a national commission to examine radioactive waste production and all options for management.”

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June 26 update from Nat Wasley – Beyond Nuclear Initiative

Dear nuclear-free friends

We received fantastic news late last week, that the Commonwealth Government has committed not to pursue plans for a national radioactive waste dump at Muckaty, 120km north of Tennant Creek in the Northern Territory!

Some more information about the last few weeks of the campaign is outlined below; please hang in there to the end as this bulletin wraps up with some ideas for connecting and contributing to Beyond Nuclear Initiative’s ongoing work.

1- The Federal Government has agreed not to act on Muckaty nomination

The announcement that Muckaty will not be pursued for a nuclear dump came mid-way through the Federal Court trial examining the process under which the nomination of Muckaty was made by the Northern Land Council and accepted by the Commonwealth Government in 2007. Lawyers from Maurice Blackburn Social Justice Practice and Ron Merkel QC were acting pro bono for Traditional Owners challenging the site nomination.

Two weeks of the trial were completed with hearings in Melbourne, Tennant Creek and on country at Muckaty outstation. The Northern Land Council and Commonwealth Government agreed on June 19 to settle with the Applicants by committing not to act on the proposal or nomination, so the hearings scheduled for Darwin (June 23-July 4) were cancelled.

A blog of the court proceedings is posted online at the updated BNI website www.beyondnuclearinitiative.com/blog and photos posted at www.beyondnuclearinitiative.com/photos

The Muckaty win follows the successful campaign by the Kupi Piti Kungka Tjuta to stop a nuclear dump in SA and has been built from the ground up in Tennant Creek with help from supporters across the NT and country. Over the last 7 years, the community has marched in Tennant Creek every year, hosted trade union delegations, written songs and poems, made films and toured photo exhibitions. People have travelled tirelessly around the country to build awareness and support, having conversations over cups of tea in regional areas and walking the corridors of Canberra Parliament House to lobby Ministers.

The community used the annual May 25 rally and media attention on the federal court proceedings to reiterate they would continue campaigning until the dump was stopped- including blocking the road if needed.

Traditional Owners and the wider community in the Barkly region are very excited and relieved and looking forward to a big celebration on July 4 in Tennant Creek. Everyone is welcome to come along, contact me if you would like further details.

We will then set about collating photos, footage and other materials from the campaign, so stay tuned for the call out to copy and/or send these to the Arid Lands Environment Centre for archiving.

Federal Government is still pushing for a site on Aboriginal Land to be nominated within three months

While the Muckaty plan has been shelved, the federal government immediately starting pressuring NT Aboriginal Land Councils to nominate an alternate site within three months.

This replicates the rushed process of the first nomination that was heavily criticised during the federal court proceedings. BNI will maintain an active watch and ear to the ground on this issue. We hope that before throwing another dart at the map, the government will consider launching an independent commission that examines all facets of radioactive waste production, including options for minimisation, as well as all options for management. This call for a commission is supported by peak bodies including the Public Health Association of Australia and Australian Council of Trade Unions.

You can also sign up at the BNI website to make a recurring donation to the project. www.beyondnuclearinitiative.com/donate

Stay in touch – and thankyou for your contribution to this long running campaign 

Finally for now, we invite you to have a browse around and subscribe to the new upgraded BNI website to receive updates via a low volume email service.

I was asked by Muckaty mob to finish this note with a huge thanks to everyone who has been part of this campaign and supported the community to be heard- every action, letter, conversation, trip to Tennant, fundraising gig and movie night has helped bring about this victory!!

Thanks to your support and actions, Muckaty will be nuclear waste dump free.

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Muckaty: our case is like Mabo, our land is ours to protect

We’ve been fighting for eight years to stop a waste dump on our land. We brought people from different Dreamings, different clans together for this victory

Kylie Sambo

19 June 2014

http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2014/jun/19/muckaty-our-case-is-like-mabo-our-land-is-ours-to-protect

Protesters against the placement of a nuclear waste dump at Muckaty Station walk to the Tennant Creek courthouse on Tuesday, June 10 2014. Photograph: AAPIMAGE

They’ve finally heard us. Tennant Creek, where my people, the Warlmanpa and Warumungu live, won’t become Australia’s first waste dump. We’ve been fighting for eight years to stop the dump, and the government did nothing about it. Finally, we had to take them to court before they understood that we were serious, that we didn’t want a waste dump in the Muckaty area.

My whole family and other extended families, the communities around the Tennant Creek region, and other people who are living there have all been supporting us these past few years, as we’ve been doing our rallies and speaking up.

They’ve come on board and joined us, marched with us in Tennant Creek. This year has been a very good outcome. A lot of people from different Dreamings, different family groups, different clans have come together in our struggle. I believe this is an impressive way to show we stick together, we fight together.

I was worried a bit that the case would go the other way. My sister kept saying, “We’re going to win this one, we’re going to win this one!” My mind was set that the decision was going to be made in March next year. When I got the news, I was shocked that we won. I’ll travel back to Tennant Creek and celebrate this weekend. I’ll probably celebrate all week.

I believe that our case is similar to the Mabo case, and the legal struggles other communities have been fighting against the government for years to protect their land. That’s what we’re doing.

How many times has the government seen people fighting for their country, and yet they keep doing this. They have to understand us: our land means a lot to Aboriginal people because it’s ours, because it’s ours to protect.

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Muckaty station nuclear waste dump will not go ahead: Aboriginal Traditional Owners succeed in legal challenge

Maurice Blackburn statement, 19 June 2014

http://www.mauriceblackburn.com.au/about/media-centre/media-statements/2014/muckaty-station-nuclear-waste-dump-will-not-go-ahead-aboriginal-traditional-owners-succeed-in-legal-challenge/

Plans to build a nuclear waste dump on Aboriginal land at Muckaty Station near Tennant Creek will not go ahead after the Commonwealth agreed not to act upon the nomination of the site by the Northern Land Council (NLC).
Leading social justice law firm Maurice Blackburn has been acting for Traditional Owners opposed to the dump in a four-year legal fight that was two weeks into a Federal Court trial when it was resolved.
The parties plan to ask that Justice Anthony North of the Federal Court dismiss the proceedings, which were due to continue in Darwin next week. This settlement is without any admission of liability.
Elizabeth O’Shea, head of Maurice Blackburn’s social justice practice said:
“Aboriginal people at Muckaty have been fighting this plan for more than seven years and are overjoyed to have secured this outcome.
“We are thrilled to share in the relief and excitement our clients are feeling, knowing that their country will not be the site of the country’s first nuclear waste dump.”
The matter has been run by Maurice Blackburn on a pro bono basis.  Barristers including Ron Merkel QC and David Yarrow have also acted pro bono.
“Just like the class actions and other landmark cases brought by Maurice Blackburn, our pro bono cases provide access to justice and make a real difference in terms of public accountability”, Ms O’Shea said.
Lorna Fejo, a Traditional Owner said:
“I feel ecstatic. I feel free because it was a long struggle to protect my land. I feel really happy about this decision because my children, grandchildren and great grandchildren can go to Namerini safely. This is what Australia is: it is a free land and Traditional Owners must always be free to express what they want done on their land.
“My grandmother gave me that land in perfect condition and other lands to my two brothers, who are now deceased. It was our duty to protect that land and water because it was a gift from my grandmother to me. And now that I am 84 years old, and I have had to fight hard to protect this land for my grandchildren and great grandchildren, it is now a gift which I will be able to pass onto them in its perfect condition, like I had received it.”
LEGAL BACKGROUND
A fee simple estate in Muckaty Station was granted to the Muckaty Aboriginal Land Trust (MLT, a respondent to the proceeding) in 1999 following a claim under the Aboriginal Land Rights (Northern Territory) Act 1976 (Cth) (ALRA). The MLT holds Muckaty Station on trust under the ALRA for the benefit of the traditional Aboriginal owners of Muckaty Station and of other Aboriginal persons entitled to enter upon or use the land in accordance with Aboriginal tradition.
The Northern Land Council (NLC, also a respondent) is a body established under ALRA to supervise and administer Aboriginal land trusts in respect of areas in the Northern Territory including Muckaty Station.  The NLC is responsible under ALRA for giving lawful directions to and acting on behalf of the MLT for the benefit of the traditional Aboriginal owners of and the Aboriginal people holding an interest in Muckaty Station.
In June 2007, the NLC purported to nominate a portion of Muckaty Station as a potential site for the management and storage of radioactive waste.
Traditional Owners alleged in the action that the NLC failed to take appropriate steps to ensure the traditional Aboriginal owners understood the nature and purpose of the nomination, and failed to obtain proper consent before nominating the site.
Legal proceedings against the Commonwealth and the NLC were commenced in June 2010. The Federal Court trial began on 2 June 2014.

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Activists win seven-year fight to protect Muckaty, minister still seeks dump site

Saturday, June 21, 2014
By Mara Bonacci, Alice Springs

https://www.greenleft.org.au/node/56681
When Muckaty traditional owners first heard about a proposed waste dump on their land seven years ago, it didn’t seem like such a bad idea. Many thought it was a general rubbish tip that would recycle, sell reclaimed materials and provide work opportunities for people living in the remote area of the Northern Territory. Millions of dollars were promised for roads and scholarships. In an area with few employment prospects or education opportunities, it is little wonder the offer seemed attractive.
Then came the truth. The proposal was not for a tip, but for radioactive waste. The money would not go straight to traditional owners, but to the Northern Land Council (NLC) to be held in a charitable trust. It seemed there was more to the proposal than met the eye.
This month, a seven-year grassroots campaign against the dump and a four-year federal court challenge against the federal government and the NLC came to an end when the NLC withdrew its nomination of the Muckaty site. That eliminated the need for their officials to take the stand at court in Darwin after evidence was heard from traditional owners in Tennant Creek.
The first that Warlmanpa traditional owner Marlene Nungarrayi Bennett heard about the dump proposal was on the radio. One of the witnesses questioned in court at Tennant Creek, she told of her surprise at first hearing about it on the radio and how she set about educating herself, her family and community about the proposal. Once she learned the truth about the potential impacts of a radioactive waste dump, she was firmly opposed to it going ahead.
Traditional owner Dianne Stokes, who has been a staunch and tireless campaigner against the dump since it was nominated by the NLC in 2007, was also initially in favour of it because of the benefits it would supposedly bring to the community.
It was not until Beyond Nuclear Initiative (BNI) campaigners came to Tennant Creek and explained what the waste would be, how far it had to be transported to get there and the risks associated with it, that she realised it was not a proposal she could support.
In a statement she said: “We will be still talking about our story in the communities up north so no one else has to go through this. We want to let the whole world know that we stood up very strong. We want to thank the supporters around the world that stood behind us and made us feel strong.”
With the support of BNI, over the past seven years, the community has marched in Tennant Creek annually, hosted trade union delegations, written songs and poems, made films and toured photo exhibitions.
People have travelled tirelessly around the country to build awareness and support, having conversations in regional areas and lobbying ministers at Parliament House in Canberra. Supporters have held fundraisers and information nights around Australia.
Kylie Sambo, Milwayi Kurtungurlu and hip-hop artist, said: “I joined the campaign four years ago when I wrote my hip-hop song ‘Muckaty’. My sister always told me stories about our mothers dreaming, where it travelled to and from.
“That land means a lot to us, that’s why we stand up to protect it. My sister always encouraged me to stand up for our people and our country, my uncle and grandfather would be very happy and proud of what we have done.
“We are in Alice Springs with good news that we have won the fight. If you think something is not going the right way then you stand up and speak, because if we in the centre of the Northern Territory can stand up and win then so can you.”
The remote area where the dump was proposed may seem to the government, industry and city-dwellers to be a safe and reasonable place to dump radioactive waste. It has, however, a vibrant community, strong Aboriginal culture and many people call it home. Radioactive waste is not something anyone wants next door. This is possibly part of the reason the government wants to relocate the waste from where it is now stored at Lucas Heights in southern Sydney.
A successful campaign by the Kupi Piti Kungka Tjuta to stop a nuclear dump in South Australia 10 years ago led the federal government to push for a dump in the Northern Territory. The risk remains that a dump may be proposed elsewhere in Australia.
Although the federal government has withdrawn its push for a radioactive waste facility at Muckaty, Minister for Indigenous Affairs Nigel Scullion said: “I would hope it [the end of court action] would offer opportunities for a second nomination of a northern site.”
The people of Muckaty and anti-nuclear activists say: “Not here, not anywhere.” This people-powered fight will continue if another site is nominated.
[Mara Bonacci is an anti-nuclear campaigner based in Alice Springs.]

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Parliamentary speech by Greens Senator Scott Ludlam

http://scott-ludlam.greensmps.org.au/content/speeches-parliament/muckaty-congratulations-speech-parliament

Senator LUDLAM (Western Australia): Tonight, I want to pay my respects to the Aboriginal elders of the Muckaty lands in the Barkly region, their families and their supporters around the country. I understand that only a tiny handful of MPs in this place could even find Muckaty on a map and bear no knowledge of the rich history of the place. For white politicians on the other side of the continent, the Barkly region is essentially regarded as the absolute middle of nowhere. There is nowhere better to park Australia’s 60-year inventory of spent nuclear fuel, which is industrial waste that will still be carcinogenic a thousand generations from now, decaying silently away into future geological ages. Everything it touches, for all those future lifetimes of people who will never know our names, becomes not just contaminated but contaminating.

Every country that embarked on the nuclear experiment that lit up the mid-20th century with the light of a thousand suns has its own millennial legacy of spent nuclear fuel and reprocessing wastes. No country has come up with a solution that will keep it isolated for tens of thousands of years. Presently, nearly all of Australia’s radioactive waste is banked adjacent to the Lucas Heights reactor on the outskirts of Sydney. A small amount of it is contracted to return to Australia from Europe next year. This impending shipment was the trigger for the process that came to a dramatic end in the federal court in Melbourne last week.

Late in 2005, the Howard government used its command of the numbers in both houses of parliament to ram through a bill mandating that Australia’s radioactive waste would be trucked into the Northern Territory and dumped at one of three possible defence department sites-in other words, on land stolen from people who had been living and singing that country since before the last ice age. The Greens opposed this bill. The Democrats opposed it. The Labor Party stridently opposed it. But numbers matter in here and, on that night, we didn’t have them.

I want to acknowledge the communities of people who spoke up for each of those three sites, the pressure and uncertainty placed on you, the stress on your families, and the leadership you showed in stepping up and saying no. All of you were unfairly targeted in a process with no procedural, scientific or democratic legitimacy.

Within a year, the fatal flaws in this bankrupt proposal were evident even to senior members of the Howard government. An amendment bill was pushed through here late in 2006 to add an illusion of due process to this amoral preamble: communities can now volunteer a site for the dump. Only sites in the Northern Territory, constitutionally weaker than the states, would be considered. Within what seemed like mere hours, a site was nominated by the Northern Land Council, and this place, Muckaty, which no whitefella outside the Barkly Region had ever heard of, was suddenly at the top of the Commonwealth government’s target list. The cause and effect, and who really originated the Muckaty nomination, we will probably never know. But we do know that, from day one, this was a process driven from Canberra, not Tennant Creek.

Fourteen years earlier, the High Court had struck down the offensive legal fiction of terra nullius; but, even so, when government bureaucrats and politicians with more immediate things on their minds go looking for somewhere to dump the nation’s most poisonous garbage, they go looking for empty lands, places in the middle of nowhere, places like Muckaty Station. And when they climb out of their shiny land cruisers, they discover that it is not empty at all. They discover it is a real place, not just a rectangle on their GPS-a place with a history and a story that proceeds history and many stories told in languages they will never bother to learn. Imagine their surprise to discover that this terra nullius is inhabited-inhabited by the formidable Dianne Stokes and her family, by Bunny Ngaparula, an elder who somehow seems to get younger every year, and by the deadly Kylie Sambo. They are confronted by Mark Lane Jangala and Ronald Brown and by Lorna Fejo and Dick Foster. They are challenged by mighty allies from further afield-Mitch from Arrende country and Donna Jackson from the Larrakia nation, and many, many others. Collectively, these unwelcome strangers are told to pack up their cars, their fancy maps and their 100,000-year-contamination nightmare and go the hell home.

If you are going to be thrown into a campaign like this without warning, you are going to need allies. Profound respect to Nat Wasley, her partner Paddy and up and coming anti-nuclear campaigner, Jalinyba. Natty, you are one of the most kickass organisers I have ever had the honour to work with. There is my dear friend Dave Sweeney, who has long been the backbone of the Australian Conservation Foundation’s anti-nuclear work and is the author of the best one-liners in the business. There is also Jim Green from Friends of the Earth in Melbourne, one of the country’s most dedicated and tenacious campaigners. There are so many others, but to name just a few: Cat Beaton and Lauren Mellor, Hillary Tyler and Justin Tutty, you stepped up when the old people needed your help. Ellie Gilbert and Peter Sutton, Leanne Minshull and Michael Fonda, you saw the need and did not look away. There is Jagath Dheera-Sekara, Rod Lucas and everyone at the Jumbunna Indigenous House of Learning, and dear Dimity Hawkins. My Western Australian Anti-Nuclear family – Jo Vallentine and the staunch BUMP crew – just one powerful piece of a national campaign that finally delivered. And then there is everyone at the Arid Lands Environment Centre and the Environment Centre Northern Territory, FoE Melbourne and ACE campaigners – nearly all of them volunteers. For every demonstration, every banner drop, every early morning occupation of Martin Ferguson’s electorate office, it has all been worth it.

There is Felicity Ruby, who worked with me for years. As we discovered, after the 2007 election, those Labor politicians who had been so staunch from opposition, turned silent when they actually had a chance to do something about Muckaty from government. They maintained their silence as Minister Martin Ferguson took this piece of procedural abuse designed by Prime Minister John Howard and then stepped up the aggression. We held off the Rudd government’s waste dump legislation for two years. But in 2012 the Labor Party took legislative responsibility for driving this obscene theft of country over the raised voices of traditional owners and their supporters-and we will not forget this.

The appalling behaviour of the Labor Party in sliding seamlessly from condemnation to continuity makes recognition of the handful of ALP members who did buck the party line that much more important. I particularly want to acknowledge local MPs Gerry McCarthy and Elliott Macadam, backed by NT Chief Minister Paul Henderson; and, federally, Senator Louise Pratt, who tragically had to give her valedictory speech earlier this evening; Melissa Parke, the member for Fremantle; and, more recently, Senator Nova Peris, who brings heart and history to her opposition to this project. The rest of the Labor caucus stand condemned by your silence and by the votes you cast when you finally combined with the Abbott opposition to defeat the Greens in March 2012.

I also want to acknowledge those in the trade union movement who stood up when it mattered, particularly the ACTU and Unions NT, and also the MUA, the ETU and the Fireys, representing those first on the scene when things go horribly wrong at facilities like this. The failure of parliament to uphold its obligations to the mob, yet again, left it to the community movement and to a small but focused legal team as the last line of defence. George Newhouse, Mark Cowan, Steven Lennard and David Yarrow, thanks are owed for your generosity and your expertise. Ron Merckel QC, Julian Burnside QC and the brilliant Lizzie O’Shea, lawyer to the people-last week, you did it, and broke the Commonwealth government’s resolve in the Federal Court and brought this shameful episode to an end. As a quick aside, you could have followed and supported this whole extraordinary contest if you were listening to the radioactive show on radio 3CR. Thank goodness for the community broadcasters.

There is a reason why the nuclear industry seeks high isolation sites for its proposed waste dumps: stable geology, deep groundwater, low seismic activity, no people, no mineral resources. Muckaty actually meets none of these preconditions, but put that down to a jittery government running before an artificial deadline. The reason the industry likes these remote, high isolation sites is that there is no form of engineered barrier that can contain spent nuclear fuel for such immense periods of time. They know this material will burn its way out eventually, and so they want to put it as far from the suburbs in which they live as possible.

What the mob in the Barkly want to know is, if it is too dangerous to leave where it is, guarded by a Federal Police detail and ticking away under 24/7 monitoring by technicians with lab coats and PhDs, how does dumping it in a shed surrounded by a chain-link fence on a cattle station somehow make it safe?

The campaign to support Dianne and the Muckaty mob was born out of this dismal injustice; racism, with a 25,000-year half-life. The NLC negotiated for $12 million for the 300-year head lease. It works out at a little bit over $800 a week, with the land passing back to the mob sometime in the 24th century. Beads and blankets, not laced with smallpox but with caesium.

We must never do this to an Australian community again. The Muckaty mob won this time, but it cost them, in stress to families, division in the community and time away from home. The Kunkas in South Australia had to go through this trauma a decade earlier. They won too. The mob at Cosmo Newberry were in the firing line when Pangea came calling in 1999 with a proposal to dump 20 per cent of the world’s spent nuclear fuel. It took us a year to beat that. The Navajo prevailed over a similar project at Yucca Mountain in Nevada in the United States. What do all these projects have in common? The expectation that it is aboriginal communities that should bear the burden. This has to stop.

The Greens propose a new way forward. Its most important element is that it does not assume, as a foregone conclusion, that it should fall to some remote Aboriginal community to take responsibility for this poisonous time capsule. In fact, the most important thing we could do now would be to admit that there is no scientific or community consensus that a remote shed surrounded by barbed wire is anything like an appropriate management strategy for this material. It is time, as Dave Sweeney would put it, for a process, not a postcode.

We propose therefore an independent commission on radioactive waste management to run an open, deliberative process that acknowledges, as a starting condition, that if material is dangerous in Sutherland Shire, it will still be dangerous in the Barkly. It is time to leave the politics outside the room and bring together the best minds in the country, learning from 60 years of overseas experience, to design a long-term strategy of custodianship and eventually, perhaps, isolation of radioactive waste. It will confront us with the question of whether we should be producing this material at all.

Yes, it has to go somewhere. Maybe it ends up in Synroc bricks. Maybe it ends up two miles below the surface. Maybe it stays right where it is while smarter people than us work out how to contain it for periods approaching eternity. But, as we have been saying for nearly eight years, it will not be going to Muckaty. You mob were too deadly. You beat them. Take a rest and tell your story, and maybe this time a few more people will be listening.

Above and below – Former Labor MP Martin Ferguson drove legislation through parliament permitting the imposition of a dump with no Aboriginal consultation or consent. Mr Ferguson ignored countless requests for meetings with Muckaty Traditional Owners.

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Muckaty Mob Win Battle To Stop Nuclear Dumping Ground

By Chris Graham, 19 Jun 2014

https://newmatilda.com//2014/06/19/muckaty-mob-win-battle-stop-nuclear-dumping-ground

The Warlmanpa people of Central Australia are this morning celebrating a sensational legal victory over government plans to dump nuclear waste on their land. Chris Graham reports.

The ‘Mob from Muckaty Station’ have scored a stunning victory over attempts by the Northern Land Council and the Commonwealth Government to dump nuclear waste on their land.

In what was shaping up as a true ‘David vs Goliath battle’, the Commonwealth this week pulled out of ongoing litigation over plans to build a nuclear waste dump on the land of the Warlmanpa people, north of Tennant Creek in Central Australia.

And the fall out is going to be huge, particularly for the Northern Land Council (NLC).

For the last seven years, the NLC has been maintaining it obtained the proper consent of Traditional Owners of land at Muckaty Station to build the Commonwealth waste dump.

But the Warlmanpa people – who have an interest in the land – say they were never properly consulted, and never gave their agreement.

They challenged the NLC’s claims around consent in the Federal Court, which is already two weeks into hearings. The case was set to re-convene in Darwin on Monday, and run for at least another two weeks.

But last night, the Warlmanpa people received confirmation the Commonwealth had guaranteed it would not rely on the consent nominations provided by the NLC.

The withdrawal comes just days before Northern Land Council officials were due to take the stand to face the same sort of intense grilling senior Warlmanpa custodians had been subjected to by NLC lawyers in Tennant Creek last week.

The shock withdrawal has fuelled speculation the NLC was seeking to avoid damaging scrutiny of its handling of the nomination process.

Ron Merkel QC, for the Warlmanpa people, had already told the Federal Court that an anthropology report which underpinned the waste dump nomination – and which had been changed significantly – should be considered to have been written by the NLC’s principal lawyer, Ron Levy.

Paddy Gibson, a researcher with the Jumbunna Indigenous House of Learning at the University of Technology, Sydney has been working with the Warlmanpa people since the dump was first announced.

“The Warlmanpa people who opposed the dump had been subjected to a fierce cross examination by NLC barristers, who were trying to denigrate their cultural knowledge,” Gibson told New Matilda.

“But the Traditional Owners have held the line, and they’ve insisted all along that the anthropology report underpinning the nomination was wrong, and that the process that the NLC used was completely inadequate.

“People said in their evidence that they felt intimidated and shut out of the process.

“The NLC are refusing to admit wrongdoing as part of this deal. However, by avoiding the Darwin court hearings I firmly believed they’ve dodged a bullet.”

By withdrawing, the Federal Court made no determination on the matter, and the NLC and Commonwealth also avoided having both a judgment and costs awarded against them.

“Today in a Darwin press conference, NLC CEO Joe Morrison said that he did not want anymore Traditional Owners to be subjected to the fierce cross examination that took place in Tennant Creek,” Gibson said.

“It was an NLC barrister who did that. It was an NLC barrister who attempted to denigrate the cultural knowledge of senior Warlmapna people for three hours in these cross examination sessions.”

For their part, the Warlmanpa people are celebrating. Kylie Sambo, a young Warlmanpa leader told New Matilda this morning her people were relieved the matter was finally over.

“I feel relieved that we don’t have to keep going. We’re happy and we’re proud. That land means a lot to us because of our culture, our beliefs and our totems and dreaming that went through there,” Sambo said.

“I believe [the NLC] didn’t want to go through that humiliation of what they really done. But it’s better now that they actually backed off. It’s good for us.”

But Sambo said her people weren’t quite done fighting yet. They’re now turning their attention to getting the Northern Territory land council boundaries shifted, so they no longer come under the jurisdiction of the NLC.

“Hopefully we can continue to try and push the boundary for the NLC back up north a bit.

“We had a good trust there but then they broke it. It’s going to be tough, we stood and fought for eight long years and I think we can take on anything now.”

The Warlmanpa are also considering a push by Traditional Owners for the Commonwealth to honour an agreement reached as part of the process which would provide education benefits in exchange for land.

It emerged during proceedings that the federal Department of Education had been involved in negotiations with Traditional Owners to provide $1 million in scholarships for local children, if they agreed to make their land available for the waste dump.

“I think that is very, very stupid idea for us to sell our land to get better education and scholarships,” Sambo said.

“As an Australian we should be already entitled to that.”

The Commonwealth Government will now have to look elsewhere for somewhere to dump their nuclear waste, after also earlier losing a battle with the South Australian Government.

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Lauren Mellor (ECNT), 20/6/14:

Bob Gosford: the conduct of the NLC has been an absolute disgrace over 8 long bitter years in which they made no attempt to reconcile, settle or include the majority of muckaty traditional owners in discussions on this highly divisive and contested project. Easy to scapegoat so-called ‘out-side interests’ as interfering, perhaps you missed the years of public outreach events led by Muckaty mob opposed to the dump calling for support to have this nomination overturned? The NLC has played an even more divisive role than the federal government amongst the community to try and push through its dodgy nomination, and senior staff that facilitated this nomination would have been raked over the coals in court next week if they hadn’t offered to settle. The hearings in Tennant clearly proved NLC did not gather the correct evidence on which to nominate muckaty – court next week would have proved that that was a deliberate act. There’s not a scrap of credibility left to cling to for either gov or NLC over this long running debacle – a sad missed opportunity to reform a thoroughly rotten organisation by Joe Morrison.

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Maritime Union of Australia:

Dumped! National Radioactive Waste Won’t Be Disposed Of At Muckaty

June 19, 2014

http://www.mua.org.au/dumped_national_radioactive_waste_won_t_be_disposed_of_at_muckaty

After a long campaign by traditional owners, unions and progressive organisations across the country, the Commonwealth Government has committed not to pursue plans for a national radioactive waste dump at Muckaty, 120km north of Tennant Creek in the Northern Territory.

The campaign to oppose the dump began in 2005, with strong support and involvement of the MUA.

Upon hearing the news, Assistant National Secretary Ian Bray dispatched the following message to traditional owners:

“Dear Muckaty Traditional Owners,

On behalf of the Maritime Union of Australia I want to warmly congratulate you on your historic victory to protect your land from radioactive waste.

When the Commonwealth Government first announced plans to use Muckaty lands as a dump for nuclear waste, it was simply assumed by most that it was an inevitability – a done deal.

Yet your spirit, smarts and sheer tenacity have resulted in a great Australian victory for the underdog.

I know that Muckaty Traditional Owners – and many others who supported your cause – have travelled tirelessly across the country to build awareness and support.

I know that behind the scenes many have worked diligently on organising continual letters, rallies, meetings, community conversations, trips to Tennant Creek, fundraising gigs, and movie nights.

What a magnificent thing it is that all this effort has finally paid off handsomely.

MUA members are often required to move radioactive waste, so it is an issue that resonated strongly with our members from the start.

We are proud to have stood with you in your fight and we are overjoyed that you have been successful.

I am certain that the bonds we have forged during this long struggle will remain strong for many, many years to come.

Your great victory is an inspiration to all of us who fight for justice in the face of overwhelming power.

I hope you celebrate long and hard – you truly deserve it.

Yours sincerely,

Ian Bray

MUA Assistant National Secretary

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The Northern Land Council has played a disgraceful role, selling out Traditional Owners. To give just one example − of many − the NLC supported legislation by John Howard and Martin Ferguson that allows the imposition of a nuclear waste dump on Aboriginal land with no Aboriginal consultation of consent. Below is an asinine, self-serving statement from the NLC and see also an even worse NLC statement at this link.

Northern Land Council settles Muckaty claim

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NLC settles on Muckaty

http://www.nlc.org.au/media-releases/article/nlc-settles-on-muckaty/

June 19, 2014

NLC CEO Joe Morrison addresses the media today.

OUT of concern for relations among the Aboriginal clans which comprise the Muckaty Aboriginal Land Trust, the Northern Land Council has agreed to settle the Federal Court challenge to the Commonwealth Government’s proposal to establish a nuclear waste facility at Muckaty.

The settlement, offered by the lawyers representing opponents of the facility, was signed off by the parties in Melbourne late yesterday.

In June 2007, the NLC nominated a site for the facility on 225 hectares in the south-east section of the Muckaty Aboriginal Land Trust area. The Commonwealth approved the site in September 2007.

“The NLC notes that its acceptance of the offer is done without any admission of liability – that is, without any admission that the nomination was made in error,” said NLC Chief Executive Officer Joe Morrison.

Mr Morrison said the NLC remains satisfied that it made the nomination with the consent of traditional owners and after consultation with other Aboriginal people with interests in the land.

“In fact, the applicants’ own evidence, heard in Tennant Creek last week, acknowledged that the NLC had consulted broadly and appropriately, with the involvement of all affected groups, and that consent was given to the nomination in accordance with Aboriginal tradition,” he said.

“The NLC maintains that the nomination was not affected by any relevant error and that the legal challenge would have failed.

“However, it is apparent for various reasons – largely due to outside pressures, including pressures caused by divisive litigation – that a number of individuals have shifted their position since the nomination and no longer want the facility to be constructed on the nominated land.

“Because of the divisions within the Aboriginal community, the NLC is now of the view that it would be preferable if the Commonwealth did not act on the nomination. The Commonwealth has agreed with our proposition.

“This position has, of course, been endorsed by the NLC’s Executive Council, which now wants to help the restoration of good relations among the Muckaty families.”

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Muckaty radioactive waste dump plan dumped

ACF Media Release, 19 June 2014

http://www.acfonline.org.au/news-media/media-release/muckaty-radioactive-waste-dump-plan-dumped

The Federal Government’s decision to end the plan for a national radioactive waste dump at Muckaty, north of Tennant Creek in the NT, is a win for Traditional Owners, the environment and responsible radioactive waste management in Australia, the Australian Conservation Foundation said today.

The Federal Government today committed not to act on the Northern Land Council’s contested nomination of Muckaty as the site for a national radioactive waste dump.  The decision comes during a Federal Court hearing initiated by Traditional Owners opposed to the dump plan and conducted on a pro bono basis by law firm Maurice Blackburn.

“Muckaty was always a bad deal – it is a profound relief it will now never be a done deal,” said ACF nuclear free campaigner Dave Sweeney.

“This result is a tribute to the tenacity and courage of the many Traditional Owners who have been tireless in their defence of country and culture for more than seven years.

“It is also a stark reminder of the failure of successive federal governments to adopt an effective and responsible approach to radioactive waste management and highlights the need for a new approach to this old problem.

“After decades of division and secrecy it is time to do things differently and better.  Instead of searching for a vulnerable postcode for a dump it is now time to advance a credible process for management of radioactive waste,” he said.

ACF and other civil society groups, including the ACTU and the Public Health Association, have long called for an independent, expert and public national commission to explore options for responsible radioactive waste management in Australia.

“Muckaty is the latest in a series of failed attempts to impose a dump on unwilling communities in both South Australia and the NT,” Dave Sweeney said. “It was a secretive and ill-considered deal that has properly failed the test.

“We can all be pleased this proposal is finished, but no other Australian community should have to face the pressure and heartache the Muckaty community has experienced.

“It is time to stop the flawed and failed search for a short term political fix and instead adopt an open, evidence-based approach on how to manage a long term human and environmental health hazard.”

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Muckaty nuclear dump defeat is a huge victory for Aboriginal Australia

Elizabeth O’Shea (Maurice Blackburn lawyer)

19 June 2014

http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2014/jun/19/muckaty-nuclear-dump-defeat-is-a-huge-victory-for-aboriginal-australia

Today, the Commonwealth Government has agreed not to act upon the nomination of land at Muckaty Station as a site for Australia’s first radioactive waste dump. The resolution comes seven years after the nomination, four years after the court case was started, and two weeks into a seven week trial. The matter has settled with no admission of liability. Maurice Blackburn’s social justice practice conducted this case on a pro bono basis, and we couldn’t be prouder of the outcome or happier for our clients.

Muckaty Station, 110km north of Tennant Creek, is an Aboriginal land trust under the Aboriginal land rights act. In the 1990s, the Aboriginal land commissioner, justice Gray, was tasked with working out who were the traditional owners of that particular country and the nature of land tenure under customary law. He wrote a report and handed the land back to Aboriginal people on the basis of his findings.

This means the land is owned outright by Aboriginal people, like most people own their homes. Under the law, the land is dealt with according to customary law or agreed processes. The idea is that Aboriginal people are in charge of their land, with the Northern Land Council (NLC) acting on their behalf. It is a statutory scheme that now seems quite visionary, especially in relation to the small minded attitudes that underpinned the Intervention and its successor, the Stronger Futures regime.

Understandably, the return of land to Aboriginal people is a source of immense pride for many. Aboriginal people treat their customary obligations seriously and with dignity, undercutting many of the old lines about Aboriginal people from the reactionary songbook.

In relation to Muckaty, there may be many Aboriginal people who have an interest in the land under customary law. The NLC is charged with dealing with land according to certain rules. They have legal duties to obtain informed consent from people who have primary spiritual responsibility for country, but also to give those with an interest in the land the opportunity to express their views.

In 2005, the Howard government introduced legislation to facilitate the building of Australia’s first radioactive waste dump. The Commonwealth had sites that it owned already and could use, but the NLC lobbied to introduce a provision which permitted Aboriginal people to volunteer a site.

In 2006, the NLC began negotiations with the Commonwealth about a nomination of a site on the Muckaty land trust. The proposed nomination was immediately contentious. Eventually, the Commonwealth offered $12m in the event that the nomination was declared to be the site of the dump. The NLC say they obtained consent and consulted with the right people. The deal was signed in 2007.

There is no doubt that some traditional owners consented to the nomination. It is easy to see why – these are some of the poorest people in Australia and this is a lot of money, though it starts to look quite miserly when compared with international examples.

However, there are five key dreamings on Muckaty that are relevant to this site. The NLC’s stated position was that one sub-branch of one dreaming group were exclusively able to consent to the nomination. Representatives of every other dreaming oppose the dump.

This contrasts with justice Gray’s report, which clearly articulates how decisions about country in the Central Desert area are made collectively, by consent. It is also troubling for other reasons. This proposal is not a microwave tower, or a railway or even a mine. This proposal involves burying radioactive waste on country, within a short distance from a significant sacred site. Even if, as the Commonwealth maintains, it will be safe within a couple of hundred years, it arguably involves permanent sterilisation of land under customary law. The consultation for a proposal of this significance should have been thorough, so people knew exactly what it was they were consenting to, but also that any dissent was treated seriously and as potentially a reason not to proceed with the proposal.

The court heard evidence last week from traditional owners and witnesses on behalf of the applicants seeking to stop the dump. The court was presented with a united front from traditional owners, who explained that the consultation process was confusing and unclear, with people not certain about the location of the proposed dump or who that land belonged to. Meetings were very tense and people felt like they weren’t listened to. The witnesses told the court that they were not told who would be getting the money or how it would be managed.

The NLC maintains it has done everything properly. The traditional owners maintain that they were ridden over roughshod and the anthropology which identified the relevant people to speak for country was mistaken. Hopefully, this is an opportunity for the NLC to reflect on their processes and try to get it right.

This has been hard fought litigation and we are proud to have given voice to the resilience and determination of our clients. In the seven years since this nomination was made, the movement to stop a dump on Muckaty has grown. Local council, unions, community groups all got on board and stood firm in their opposition to the dump.

But the truth is that this is a much bigger issue than the court case. This is an opportunity to rethink these issues from a public policy perspective. These remain some of the most important discussions we can have. If you are a person who places importance on the rights of Aboriginal people, the protection of the environment or simply good governance, you have a duty to be part of them.

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More on this story

Muckaty nuclear dump plan shelved by Northern Land Council

Muckaty nuclear dump will sever Indigenous ties to heritage, court hears

Indigenous landowner claims she was threatened over Muckaty nuclear dump

Nuclear waste dump would ‘dispossess’ Indigenous landowners in NT

Indigenous elder speaks out at NT nuclear waste dump trial

Muckaty station compensation no ‘bucket of money’, court told

Traditional owners fear nuclear waste will poison land, court told

Traditional landowners fighting nuclear waste dump get their day in court

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Muckaty Station: Northern Land Council withdraws nomination of site of first nuclear waste dump

June 19, 2014

http://www.abc.net.au/news/2014-06-19/northern-land-council-withdraws-muckaty-creek-nomination/5535318

The Northern Land Council has withdrawn its nomination of Muckaty Station north of Tennant Creek as the site for Australia’s first nuclear waste dump.

A small section of Muckaty Station, about 600 kilometres north of Alice Springs, was put forward by the council to store Australia’s low and intermediate-level nuclear waste.

The waste is currently stored at Lucas Heights in Sydney before being sent to France.

The NLC nominated the site on behalf of members of the Ngapa group eight years ago, but four other clans have laid claim to the land and say it is adjacent to a sacred site.

Those traditional owners have been challenging the nomination in the Federal Court, arguing they were not consulted and did not give their consent.

Traditional owner Kylie Sambo says the court action came after eight years of fighting, and played a pivotal role in the NLC’s decision.

“We had a really strong argument. We haven’t been consulted properly for our own country. We know our land, the story, the songs, the dreamings. That’s why we stand up and spoke for ourselves,” she told ABC News 24.

We haven’t been consulted properly for our own country. We know our land, the story, the songs, the dreamings. That’s why we stand up and spoke for ourselves

Traditional owner Kylie Sambo

“There would be no way in the world that I would let a nuclear waste dump come to my grandfather’s country, because I have fought very hard to get the country back and we’re not just going to give it away just like that.”

She says the NLC should have been “upfront and honest with the people of the country”.

“I was surprised that they did things the wrong way. I knew at the start that they did wrong things, but I didn’t know that it was this bad until I heard it in court, of how they went about the nomination.

“But what I strongly believe is that they should’ve done it better instead of doing it under the table or behind closed doors as people say.”

She says she is proud by how the community came together to fight the proposal.

“When [the NLC] came up they saw most of our friends and family and extended family members standing up, talking strong to the media. I think they got scared,” she said.

“There’s going to be a big celebration. Other families and other supporters from around Australia could come and celebrate this victory with us.”

NLC seeks to ‘reconcile’ with divided families

NLC head Joe Morrison maintains the land council consulted the right groups, but says it is a tragedy the nomination has divided families.

“That division and argument are the most unfortunate consequences of this whole case being brought about and its being whipped up by special interests groups, pursuing their own agendas,” he said.

“I am determined that those relations at Muckaty be now repaired.

“The most pressing task for the Northern Land Council is to bring families back together and reconcile.”

Lizzie O’Shea from Maurice Blackburn lawyers, which represents the traditional owners, says the Commonwealth flagged the decision in recent days.

“We’ve always felt that these concerns about the process for the nomination were valid and that they needed to be put before a judge and considered carefully so we’re thrilled that we’ve had the opportunity to do that,” she said.

“But the Commonwealth has now decided not to rely on the nomination.”

The Federal Court has dismissed the case and both parties have agreed to pay their own costs.

The Commonwealth had promised about $12 million in compensation to the NLC if the dump proceeded.

More on this story:

Muckaty Station land rights challenge begins in Federal Court

Court hears cultural stories at proposed nuclear dump site

Muckaty Station owners reject $12m waste dump offer

Related Story: Muckaty Station land rights challenge begins in Federal Court

Related Story: Court hears cultural stories at proposed nuclear dump site

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Muckaty Radioactive Dump defeated at last

http://scott-ludlam.greensmps.org.au/muckaty

After eight long years, the hard fought battle to keep Muckaty free of radioactive waste, is over.

This is an extraordinary win for the elders and their families who have sought to protect country on behalf of all of us. They should never have had the burden of dealing with Australia’s radioactive waste laid on them, first by the Howard Government, and then by the Rudd/Gillard Government. Now that burden is lifted.

It is essential that Australia’s disgraceful history of targeting Aboriginal communities to host our 60-year legacy of spent reactor fuel is never repeated again.

The Greens propose the Commonwealth Government immediately establish an independent Commission on Radioactive Waste Management to undertake a deliberative process that is procedurally fair, scientifically rigorous, and properly informed.

In the meantime, this win belongs to all those who stood up against this appalling proposal.
(read more about the Waste Commission proposal here: http://greens.org.au/nuclear-waste)

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Media release by Industry Minister Ian Macfarlane

National Radioactive Waste Management Facility

19 June 2014

http://www.minister.industry.gov.au/ministers/macfarlane/media-releases/national-radioactive-waste-management-facility

The Australian Government will not proceed with the nomination of the Muckaty Station site for the construction of a National Radioactive Waste Management Facility.

The National Radioactive Waste Management Act 2012 requires the voluntary nomination of a site and an agreement to any nomination from people or groups with relevant rights and interests.

The Government has agreed to a request from the Northern Land Council that the site, which was nominated in 2007, should not be considered for a waste management facility.

The Government will hold further discussions to identify a suitable alternative site. If a suitable site is not identified through these discussions the Government will commence a new tender process for nominations for another site in accordance with the Act.

[NB: FOLLOWING SENTENCE IS NOT TRUE] The Government is committed to ensuring Australia has an appropriate facility for the management of radioactive waste that is created within Australia, largely as a result of medical procedures.

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Statement from Labor Senator Nova Peris congratulating Muckaty Traditional Owners

Follow the link: https://twitter.com/NovaPeris/status/479556196223823874/photo/1

Senator Peris is one of a very small number of ALP politicians who spoke out – contraulations also to Gerry McCarthy. Most voted for Martin Ferguson’s racist legislation permitting the imposition of a nuclear dump on Aboriginal land with no consultation or consent.

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Northern Territory Muckaty waste dump plan abandoned

The Australian, June 19, 2014, Pia Akerman

http://www.theaustralian.com.au/news/nation/northern-territory-muckaty-waste-dump-plan-abandoned/story-e6frg6nf-1226959705496

THE federal government will persevere with plans for a nuclear waste dump in the Outback despite losing its preferred site during a protracted legal challenge.

Muckaty Station, 110km north of Tennant Creek, was chosen as a potential waste site by the Howard government in 2007.

The site was volunteered by the Northern Land Council, in a deal that was estimated to deliver the NLC $11 million and the Northern Territory government an initial $10m, plus about $2m a

year from other governments once the facility was operational.

A legal challenge by some elders who say they did not consent to the proposed nuclear waste facility was launched in 2010, with the trial running this month in Melbourne and the Northern Territory.

Today the Federal Court has been asked to dismiss the proceedings, on the basis that the commonwealth has agreed not to act upon the Muckaty nomination.

Industry Minister Ian Macfarlane said the site was off the agenda following a request from the NLC.

The council will be given the opportunity to nominate an alternative location.

“The government will hold further discussions to identify a suitable alternative site,” Mr Macfarlane said.

“If a suitable site is not identified through these discussions the government will commence a new tender process for nominations for another site in accordance with the Act.

“The National Radioactive Waste Management Act 2012 requires the voluntary nomination of a site and an agreement to any nomination from people or groups with relevant rights and interests.

“The government is committed to ensuring Australia has an appropriate facility for the management of radioactive waste that is created within Australia, largely as a result of medical procedures.”

The NLC said it had agreed to settle the case out of concern for relations among the Aboriginal clans which comprise the Muckaty Aboriginal Land Trust.

“The NLC notes that its acceptance of the offer is done without any admission of liability — that is, without any admission that the nomination was made in error,” said NLC chief executive officer Joe Morrison.

Mr Morrison said the NLC remained satisfied that it made the nomination with the consent of traditional owners and after consultation with other Aboriginal people with interests in the land.

“The NLC maintains that the nomination was not affected by any relevant error and that the legal challenge would have failed,” he said.

“However, it is apparent for various reasons — largely due to outside pressures, including pressures caused by divisive litigation — that a number of individuals have shifted their position since the nomination and no longer want the facility to be constructed on the nominated land.

“Because of the divisions within the Aboriginal community, the NLC is now of the view that it would be preferable if the commonwealth did not act on the nomination. The commonwealth has agreed with our proposition.”

The settlement will be without any admission of liability and Maurice Blackburn, which has represented the dump’s opponents, will not seek costs.

The firm’s social justice practice head Elizabeth O’Shea said their clients were thrilled.

“Aboriginal people at Muckaty have been fighting this plan for more than seven years and are overjoyed to have secured this outcome,” she said.

Australian Conservation Foundation anti-nuclear campaigner Dave Sweeney said the government could not begin again with a search for a “vulnerable postcode” to dump on.

“Muckaty was a bad idea from day one,” he said.

“We now need to move away from a 20-year failed search for a vulnerable community to dump on.”

The trial heard there was no realistic alternative to the Muckaty site.

Ron Merkel QC, representing Mark Lane Jangala and other opponents of the waste dump, said the case would have been dropped by now if there was any realistic alternative to Muckaty.

“Everything has been explored,” he said, adding that the prospect of a nuclear waste dump was inconsistent with a duty owed to ancestors to care for the land, and nuclear waste was akin to introducing “poison” to the soil.

Traditional owner Lorna Fejo said she had fought hard to protect the land for her children and grandchildren.

“My grandmother gave me that land in perfect condition and other lands to my two brothers, who are now deceased,’’ she said in a statement.

“It was our duty to protect that land and water because it was a gift from my grandmother to me.’’

She said she would now be able to pass it on in perfect condition.

With AAP

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Land council abandons Muckaty dump push

June 19, 2014, Neda Vanovac

http://news.smh.com.au/breaking-news-national/land-council-abandons-muckaty-dump-push-20140619-3af4c.html

The Northern Land Council (NLC) has abandoned its push to locate a national nuclear waste dump on Muckaty Station in the Northern Territory.

A surprises settlement was offered by lawyers for opponents of the dump and was signed off on Wednesday in Melbourne.

It comes halfway through a roving series of Federal Court hearings to take evidence from a number of Aboriginal clans from the station, 120km north of Tennant Creek, who said their wishes were overruled by a fifth clan and the NLC, who worked together to nominate the site.

The groups have been battling the dump for seven years since Muckaty was formally nominated in 2007.

The NLC says it settled out of concern for relations among the clans.

“The NLC notes that its acceptance of the offer is done without any admission of liability – that is, without any admission that the nomination was made in error,” CEO Joe Morrison said on Thursday.

Lawyers for the traditional land owners at Muckaty Station said their clients were overjoyed with the outcome.

“Every step of the process was opposed by people on the ground, and that may be one reason why they’ve decided to no longer rely on litigation,” Maurice Blackburn lawyer Elizabeth O’Shea told reporters in Melbourne.

Traditional owner Lorna Fejo said she had fought hard to protect the land for her children and grandchildren.

“My grandmother gave me that land in perfect condition and other lands to my two brothers, who are now deceased,” she said in a statement.

“It was our duty to protect that land and water because it was a gift from my grandmother to me.”

She said she would now be able to pass it on in perfect condition.

The Australian government has subsequently dumped plans to locate the facility at Muckaty.

Following a request from the NLC the site is off the agenda, Industry Minister Ian Macfarlane said.

The council will be given the opportunity to nominate an alternative location.

“If a suitable site is not identified … the government will commence a new tender process for nominations for another site,” Mr Macfarlane said.

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Muckaty could still house nuclear dump

AAP, 19 June 2014

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/wires/aap/article-2661965/Muckaty-house-nuclear-dump.html

Opponents of a nuclear waste dump in the Northern Territory have won the battle, but perhaps not the war.

The Northern Land Council has three months to nominate another site for Australia’s nuclear waste storage facility after abandoning the Muckaty site, following a seven-year battle with Aboriginal traditional owner groups who launched a Federal Court challenge against the NLC for what they said was inadequate consultation and a failure to obtain informed consent from all traditional owners.

The NLC settled with opponents of the dump midway through a trial that had travelled from Melbourne to Tennant Creek and Muckaty, and was due in Darwin next week.

“The NLC have walked away without being held truly accountable,” said Gerry McCarthy, local member for the Barkly tablelands, of which Muckaty is a part.

He now hopes for a scientific approach to locating the dump, which previous reports said would suit conditions in the northwestern corner of South Australia.

“Science will prove this facility needs to go to the driest part of this continent, (with) a water table very deep and preferably contaminated by salt, and also an area of minimal infrastructure that provides access to what will be low to intermediate-level waste coming home from France shortly,” he said.

Australian Conservation Foundation spokesman Dave Sweeney told AAP that for 20 years, successive governments had tried to find a “remote and vulnerable community and a remote place to dump Australian waste”.

He said the federal government needed “an open, inclusive, evidence-based assessment of the range of radioactive waste management options available” for responsible and effective long-term storage.

Clan members think the NLC capitulation is not the end of the matter, with Marlene Bennett saying they were “still feeling slightly apprehensive”.

Both sides maintain they would have won, with NLC CEO Joe Morrison saying it walked away to protect the Muckaty clans.

Five groups lay claim to the site nominated for the facility, with interwoven dreamings and intermarriages, resulting in divided families.

“I was disturbed by the fractures created in the community,” Mr Morrison said.

“At stake here is the fundamental right of Aboriginal people to decide for themselves how their land is to be used; (they) should be able to arrive at those decisions without the influence of outside groups who have their own agendas.”

But Natalie Wasley of the Beyond Nuclear Initiative said if concern for the community was so strong, the NLC could have acted seven years ago when the schism first appeared.

She denied her organisation had influenced traditional owners.

“It’s patronising to say traditional owners have been pushed around, told what to say and manipulated by interest groups, because clearly people are intelligent, articulate and able to make up their own minds about this decision,” she told AAP.

Federal Minister for Indigenous Affairs Nigel Scullion told ABC he hoped for another nomination of a northern site at Muckaty, not susceptible to the conflicts of the first.

Mr McCarthy said the NT couldn’t refuse the dump, which “should never be forced on a community due to constitutional exploitation”.

Spent nuclear fuel rods are due to be returned to Australia from France by mid-2015, and traditional owners are ready to continue their fight if Muckaty is circled again.

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Civil debate needed next time around

Centralian Advocate, Editorial, 20/06/2014

THE longwinded debate over the proposed nuclear waste dump at Muckaty Station is finally over.

The traditional owners have spoken and their voices have been heard with the Northern Land Council yesterday revoking its controversial offer to the Federal Government.

Some onlookers may suggest the closing decision was a result of a carefully constructed argument pitched by the defendants’ legal team, but it was the voice of the people that inevitably prevailed.

Fighting for what you believe in may not always be the easiest task. It can, however, be extremely rewarding if time, effort and dedication is maintained.

The Muckaty case has proven that even in the roughest times and in the toughest circumstances, individuals will unite and stand up for their rights. The traditional owners, and the greater community, have pushed their way through a prolonged and often painful battle.

It has also proved that no amount of money – no matter how great or small – can buy a communal treasure.

The Federal Government put their offer on the table, but refusal was inexorable – they weren’t going to budge. Small town community groups – in all their shapes, sizes and forms – will always have a voice. They will rise above the hardest circumstances, influence decision-making to the best of their ability, and continue to lobby against those who pose a potential threat.

In this case, they have challenged the Big Guys and come out on top.  …

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Muckaty dumped

Centralian Advocate, 20/06/2014

A LANDMARK swing by the Northern Land Council to dump Muckaty Station as its site of choice for storing nuclear waste has ended seven years of division among traditional owner groups in Central Australia. The NLC, which nominated the site about 120km north of Tennant Creek in 2007, made the shock announcement yesterday morning stating they were withdrawing the nomination because of divisive litigation and because “a number of individuals have shifted their positions”.

Warlmanpa woman Marlene Nungarrayi Bennett said she was shaking with excitement. “Today will go down in the history books of indigenous Australia on par with the Wave Hill Walk -off, Mabo and Blue Mud Bay,” she said. “We have showed the Commonwealth and the NLC that we will stand strong for this country. The NLC tried to divide and conquer us but they did not succeed.”

Reports say a surprise settlement was offered by lawyers for opponents of the dump and was signed off on Wednesday in Melbourne. The case was scheduled to be heard next week in Darwin.

Campaigner Paddy Gibson, who attended the court proceedings, said Darwin would have been a “bloodbath”. “The NLC didn’t have a leg to stand on.”

Lawyers supporting those against the site argued the NLC did not consult the relevant dreaming groups who passed through the land and its nomination was therefore invalid.

But Chief Executive Officer Joe Morrison said the NLC stood by its nomination processes. “The NLC maintains that the nomination was not affected by any relevant error and that the legal challenge would have failed,” he said.

Maurice Blackburn’s lawyer Lizzie O’Shea, who represented the opponents of the dump, said it was their view the NLC did not comply with the law.

“The clients presented a united front and told the judge the process had been flawed,” she said.

“This has been a hard fought litigation, not an easy battle by any stretch.”

The NLC will be given the opportunity to nominate an alternative location.

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Muckaty: A Little Lift For An Otherwise Black Day

By Chris Graham, 20 Jun 2014

Muckaty: A Little Lift For An Otherwise Black Day

Tomorrow is a black day for Aboriginal Australia. But at least one mob from the red centre have something to celebrate, writes Chris Graham.

Saturday marks the 7th anniversary of the Howard government launching an unprecedented assault on the lives of Aboriginal people in the Northern Territory.

Shortly after midday on June 21, 2007 – in the shadow of a federal election that threatened the annihilation of the Liberal-National Government – Prime Minister John Howard and Indigenous Affairs Minister Mal Brough announced the Northern Territory intervention, a policy that, with the backing of Labor, saw the suspension of the basic human rights of some of the nation’s most vulnerable citizens.

Seven years on, virtually every aspect of Aboriginal life in the Territory is demonstrably worse. School attendance is down. Alcohol-related violence is up. Unemployment and homelessness is entrenched. Incarceration rates are at world record levels. And reports of attempt suicide and self-harm have more than quadrupled.

The NT intervention continues today, having been extended by the Rudd and Gillard governments for another decade.

Not much to celebrate in that.

But some Central Australian blackfellas will be celebrating tomorrow… and the day after that… and the day after that.

Earlier this week, the Warlmanpa people – Traditional Owners of land in and around Muckaty Station, north of Tennant Creek – won a stunning victory in the Federal Court.

If you’re looking for a happy Aboriginal story to finish off an otherwise depressing political week, then watch this video, which explains what happened.

The law firm which ran the case pro-bono – Maurice Blackburn – has posted the video on YouTube. And a warning to New Matilda readers: It’s a bit of a tear-jerker, albeit a really happy one.

Elizabeth O’Shea, an Associate with Maurice Blackburn is interviewed in the video about the legal struggle.

“Aboriginal people have been fighting against a nomination of their land to be Australia’s first nuclear waste dump,” O’Shea says.

“That nomination was made seven years ago and they’ve been fighting every step of the way, which has ultimately now been resolved with the Commonwealth agreeing not to rely on that nomination.

“They’ve shown real courage and determination standing up to two really significant figures of authority in their lives (the Northern Land Council and the Commonwealth Government).

“That determination I think was not lost upon the Commonwealth in the evidence given in recent days.

“This has been hard fought litigation. We’ve had to struggle against the Commonwealth and the Northern Land Council every single step of the way.

“It’s taken four years to get to trial and our clients have shown resilience and determination, and we’ve tried to reflect that in the way we’ve approached this legal case.

“So we’re really proud to have taken it this far, and to have gotten a really good result for our clients.”

The most touching moment of the video is the moment when Nat Wasley from the Beyond Nuclear Initiative – a key group which backed the Warlmanpa people – breaks the news of the legal victory to Warlmanpa elders earlier this week.

The last word, however, belongs to Dianne Stokes, one of the senior Warlmanpa women who has helped lead the fight against the waste dump from day one.

“Adam Giles (Chief Minister of the Northern Territory), I want to let him know that if he wants to ignore our stories, our informations, he’s not going to keep the report from us,” says Stokes.

“Let him come and listen to us what we gonna tell him. We gonna tell him right here on this land.”

Land that is now safe from radioactive waste.

Happy Friday people!

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Muckaty could still house nuclear dump

AAP, 19 Jun 2014

http://www.sbs.com.au/news/article/2014/06/19/muckaty-could-still-house-nuclear-dump

The Northern Land Council has abandoned its push to locate a national nuclear waste dump on Muckaty Station in the Northern Territory.

Marlene Bennett might be “popping out of her skin” with relief that a national nuclear waste dump will not be located on her ancestors’ lands, but her people remain wary.

The Northern Land Council (NLC) announced on Thursday that it had settled with opponents of the dump and that Federal Court proceedings currently underway would be dismissed.

“We’ll probably have one of the first good sleeps we’ve had in eight years,” Ms Bennett told AAP.

“However, we’re still wary.”

Plans to locate a national radioactive waste storage facility at Muckaty have been in development since 2006, with several Aboriginal clans from the Muckaty Land Trust challenging the NLC’s determination that the Lauder family of the Ngapa clan were rightful owners of the land that would house the dump, 120km north of Tennant Creek.

There has been no admission of liability in settling the court case, with the NLC maintaining it consulted properly and obtained informed consent.

Opponents say it was secretive and shut out rightful owners of the site in favour of the Lauders.

“I think NLC should be thoroughly ashamed of themselves,” Ms Bennett said.

“They’re supposed to be there to protect the interests of indigenous people, protect the land, law, culture, rights. They’re not there to try and divide family groups, damage their relationships, all for that big dollar sign.”

The federal government offered $12 million, including a charitable trust for the whole community, a new road and
educational scholarships, but that will now be scrapped.

Kwementyaye Lauder, who has since passed away, was key in negotiating the dump.

“Like many people in this region she understood poverty and understood the importance of opportunity; it was this she was trying to create for the families of the region,” NLC CEO Joe Morrison said.

Healing a fractured community was the main reason given for dropping the case, but may be easier said than done.

“We need to forgive that cousin for what she’s done, because she was used,” Ms Bennett said.

“Rich and powerful people will do what they want because they have the money; they don’t care who they hurt, they just have to find the right person for the right price. I think it’s insulting that they targeted her and had discussions with her under the table.”

The NLC maintains these claims are fraudulent.

“I feel sad we have been fighting all these years,” said senior Milwayi traditional owner Bunny Nabarula, 84.

“They tried to separate people. This hurt my feelings.”

It took a Federal Court challenge to make the NLC listen, said Kylie Sambo.

“If you keep committing to the fight and keep going and never stop then the victory will be yours,” she told AAP.

But she echoed the comments of a number of family members that the NLC had broken their trust; they are seeking a boundary shift so Tennant Creek might once again be part of the Central Land Council, which has been sympathetic to their battle against the facility.

Although the federal government has accepted the withdrawal of the Muckaty site nomination, federal Minister for Indigenous Affairs Nigel Scullion told the ABC he hopes a second nomination can be made.

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Federal Court goes to Muckaty

June 14, 2014
By Mara Bonacci

https://www.greenleft.org.au/node/56628

Seven years after Muckaty Station was nominated as a radioactive waste dump site, a Federal Court challenge has begun in Tennant Creek, 500 kilometres north of Alice Springs and 120 kilometres south of the proposed dump site.
In 2007, the Northern Land Council (NLC) nominated Muckaty to the Commonwealth. The Federal Court challenge is based on the argument that the traditional owners were not properly consulted and they did not give consent.
The case began in Melbourne on June 2. Ron Merkel QC, appearing for traditional owners opposed to the waste dump, said the NLC’s nomination was a breach of the rights of traditional owners under the Aboriginal Land Rights Act NT (ALRA).
He said the federal government could not be considered an “innocent third party” in this breach of rights, given its close collaboration with the NLC through the nomination process.
Under ALRA, for a nomination to progress, the full council of the NLC needs to be satisfied that there is consent from traditional owners whose land will be affected. Such a resolution did pass council, but Merkel told the court: “The explanation provided to Full Council [about the nature of the agreement] was so woefully deficient that it doesn’t meet any standards of bona fides … and moves into maladministration.”
Merkel cited email correspondence in which the NLC’s legal officer, Ron Levy, said further consultations would have been “fraught with political risk” because they would give opportunity for “dissidents” within the Muckaty group to cause “mayhem”.
The Commonwealth Radioactive Waste Management Act (2005) was clearly designed to shut down legal avenues for Aboriginal people wanting to challenge the nomination of their land for a waste dump. The John Howard government went out of its way to ensure Aboriginal traditional owners were explicitly stripped of their rights in the 2005 act.
The land council produced two anthropological reports for the waste dump commission in 2006. The first report was 50 pages and the second was 20. The emphasis in the original report on shared responsibility for sites across Muckaty by all clan groups was absent in the second report. It was the second report that was eventually given to the minister to substantiate the NLC’s contention that exclusive traditional ownership of the nominated waste dump site is held by the narrow “Lauder branch of the Ngapa clan”.
The week of court proceedings in Melbourne focused on technical and anthropological evidence. However, the court has agreed to sit for two weeks in Tennant Creek to provide an opportunity for Justice Anthony North to see and experience the country being talked about and hear evidence from traditional owners. Questioning has focussed on the nomination process and their connections to the land.
The court was taken to the proposed dump site on June 9. Senior Warlmanpa man Dick Foster, one of the applicants challenging the waste dump, explained the dreaming stories that are significant to the nominated site and how these impact on the rights and responsibilities of different clan groups.
Bunny Nabarula, an 84-year-old Warlmanpa elder who has been a leading spokesperson in the campaign against the dump for seven years, also gave evidence on site. Nabarula alleged that the NLC have strongly supported the small family group who nominated the dump, while trying to exclude those opposed to the waste dump from access to some consultation meetings.
Nabarula argued that her clan, the Milwayi, have primary responsibility for the nominated site, but also that numerous clans have overlapping dreamings and responsibilities in the area, meaning that they would all need to be involved in major decisions such as the introduction of a nuclear waste dump.
Court proceedings will continue in Darwin.
If the government’s argument is accepted by the Court, the nomination of Muckaty as a nuclear waste dump will stand even if the traditional owners are found to have never consented to the nomination.
It may be months before a decision is made on this case. Justice North made it clear that his final decision could not in any way be based on the morality of putting a nuclear waste dump at Muckaty: “I’m not sitting here looking at the moral arguments, if I was I would have an easy answer.”

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The bipartisan nuclear war against Aboriginal people

Jim Green, Online Opinion, 11 July 2014

http://www.onlineopinion.com.au/view.asp?article=16489&page=0

The nuclear industry has been responsible for some of the crudest racism in Australia’s history. This radioactive racism dates from the British bomb tests in the 1950s and it has been evident in more recent debates over nuclear waste.

Since 2006 successive federal governments have been attempting to establish a nuclear waste dump at Muckaty, 110 kms north of Tennant Creek in the Northern Territory. A toxic trade-off of basic services for a radioactive waste dump has been part of this story from the start. The nomination of the Muckaty site was made with the promise of $12 million compensation package comprising roads, houses and scholarships. Muckaty Traditional Owner Kylie Sambo objected to this radioactive ransom: “I think that is a very, very stupid idea for us to sell our land to get better education and scholarships. As an Australian we should be already entitled to that.”

While a small group of Traditional Owners supported the dump, a large majority were opposed and some initiated legal action in the Federal Court challenging the nomination of the Muckaty site by the federal government and the Northern Land Council (NLC).

The Howard government passed the Commonwealth Radioactive Waste Management Act, overriding the Aboriginal Heritage Act, undermining the Aboriginal Land Rights Act, and allowing the imposition of a nuclear dump with no Aboriginal consultation or consent. ‘Practical reconciliation’ was the Howard government’s mantra.

Labor voted against the Commonwealth Radioactive Waste Management Act, with Labor parliamentarians describing it as “extreme”, “arrogant”, “draconian”, “sorry”, “sordid”, and “profoundly shameful”. At its 2007 national conference, Labor voted unanimously to repeal the legislation. Yet after the 2007 election, the Labor government passed legislation − the National Radioactive Waste Management Act (NRWMA) − which was almost as draconian and still permitted the imposition of a nuclear dump with no Aboriginal consultation or consent. Hooray for hypocrisy.

Then Prime Minister Kevin Rudd highlighted the life-story of Lorna Fejo (a.k.a. Nanna Nungala Fejo) during the National Apology in February 2008. At the same time, the Rudd government was stealing her land for a nuclear dump. Fejo said: “I’m very, very disappointed and downhearted about that [Muckaty legislation]. I’m really sad. The thing is − when are we going to have a fair go? Australia is supposed to be the land of the fair go. When are we going to have fair go? I’ve been stolen from my mother and now they’re stealing my land off me.”

Shamefully, the NLC supported legislation disempowering the people it is meant to represent. (The NLC is also facing a legal challenge from Traditional Owners in relation to the bauxite mine in north-east Arnhem Land.)

Labor’s Resources Minister Martin Ferguson drove the disgraceful NRWMA through parliament. He refused countless requests to meet with Traditional Owners opposed to the dump. Muckaty Traditional Owner Dianne Stokes said: “All along we have said we don’t want this dump on our land but we have been ignored. Martin Ferguson has avoided us and ignored our letters but he knows very well how we feel. He has been arrogant and secretive and he thinks he has gotten away with his plan but in fact he has a big fight on his hands.”

Dianne Stokes has not been alone. Many Traditional Owners were determined to stop the dump and they have been supported by the Beyond Nuclear Initiative, a pro bono legal team led by legal firm Maurice Blackburn, the Australian Nuclear Free Alliance, key trade unions including the Australian Council of Trade Unions, church groups, medical and public health organisations, local councils, the Australian Greens, and environmental groups such as Friends of the Earth, the Australian Conservation Foundation and the Environment Centre NT.

The Federal Court trial finally began in June 2014. After two weeks of evidence, the NLC gave up and agreed to recommend to the federal government the withdrawal of the nomination of Muckaty for a nuclear dump. The Abbott government accepted the recommendation (Tony Abbott himself might have been called to appear at the trial had it proceeded).

As a result of their surrender, the NLC and the Commonwealth did not have to face cross-examination in relation to numerous serious accusations raised in the first two weeks of the trial − including claims that the NLC rewrote an anthropologists’ report. Kylie Sambo said: “I believe [the NLC] didn’t want to go through that humiliation of what they really done. But it’s better now that they actually backed off. It’s good for us.”

Lorna Fejo said: “I feel ecstatic. I feel free because it was a long struggle to protect my land.”

Marlene Nungarrayi Bennett said: “Today will go down in the history books of Indigenous Australia on par with the Wave Hill Walk-off, Mabo and Blue Mud Bay. We have shown the Commonwealth and the NLC that we will stand strong for this country. The NLC tried to divide and conquer us but they did not succeed.”

Dianne Stokes said: “We will be still talking about our story in the communities up north so no one else has to go through this. We want to let the whole world know that we stood up very strong. We want to thank the supporters around the world that stood behind us and made us feel strong.”

After the celebrations, one immediate challenge for Muckaty Traditional Owners is to continue their campaign to have land council boundaries shifted so they can be represented by the Central Land Council instead of the NLC. Kylie Sambo said: “Hopefully we can continue to try and push the boundary for the NLC back up north a bit. We had a good trust there but then they broke it. It’s going to be tough, we stood and fought for eight long years and I think we can take on anything now.”

What did self-styled Aboriginal leaders such as Warren Mundine and Noel Pearson have to say about the Muckaty dispute? Nothing. In eight years they never once spoke up in support of Muckaty Traditional Owners. Likewise, Australia’s self-styled ‘pro-nuclear environmentalists’ − Adelaide University’s Barry Brook, uranium industry consultant Ben Heard, and others − never once voiced concern about the imposition of a nuclear dump on an unwilling Aboriginal community and their silence suggests they couldn’t care less about the racism of the industry they so stridently support.

Dumping on South Australia

The failed attempt to establish a dump at Muckaty followed the failed attempt to establish a dump in South Australia. In 1998, the Howard government announced its intention to build a nuclear waste dump near Woomera in South Australia. Leading the battle against the dump were the Kupa Piti Kungka Tjuta, a council of senior Aboriginal women from northern SA. Many of the Kungkas personally suffered the impacts of the British nuclear bomb tests at Maralinga and Emu in the 1950s.

The proposed dump generated such controversy in SA that the federal government hired a public relations company. Correspondence between the company and the government was released under Freedom of Information laws. In one exchange, a government official asked the PR company to remove sand-dunes from a photo to be used in a brochure. The explanation provided by the government official was that: “Dunes are a sensitive area with respect to Aboriginal Heritage”. The sand-dunes were removed from the photo, only for the government official to ask if the horizon could be straightened up as well. Terra nullius.

In 2003, the federal government used the Lands Acquisition Act 1989 to seize land for the dump. Native Title rights and interests were extinguished with the stroke of a pen. This took place with no forewarning and no consultation with Aboriginal people.

The Kungkas continued to implore the federal government to ‘get their ears out of their pockets’, and after six years the government did just that. In the lead-up to the 2004 federal election − after a Federal Court ruling that the federal government had acted illegally in stripping Traditional Owners of their native title rights, and with the dump issue biting politically in SA − the Howard government decided to cut its losses and abandon the dump plan.

The Kungkas wrote in an open letter: “People said that you can’t win against the Government. Just a few women. We just kept talking and telling them to get their ears out of their pockets and listen. We never said we were going to give up. Government has big money to buy their way out but we never gave up.”

The Kungkas victory had broader ramifications − it was a set-back for everyone who likes the idea of stripping Aboriginal people of their land and their land rights, and it was a set-back for the nuclear power lobby. Senator Nick Minchin, one of the Howard government ministers in charge of the failed attempt to impose a nuclear dump in SA, said in 2005: ”My experience with dealing with just low-level radioactive waste from our research reactor tells me it would be impossible to get any sort of consensus in this country around the management of the high-level waste a nuclear [power] reactor would produce.” Minchin told a Liberal Party council meeting that ”we must avoid being lumbered as the party that favours nuclear energy in this country” and that ”we would be political mugs if we got sucked into this”.

Nuclear War

Muckaty Traditional Owners have won a significant battle for country and culture, but the problems and patterns of radioactive racism persist. Racism in the uranium mining industry involves ignoring the concerns of Traditional Owners; divide-and-rule tactics; radioactive ransom; ‘humbugging’ Traditional Owners (exerting persistent, unwanted pressure); providing Traditional Owners with false information; and threats, including legal threats.

One example concerns the 1982 South Australian Roxby Downs Indenture Act, which sets the legal framework for the operation of BHP Billiton’s Olympic Dam uranium mine in SA. The Act was amended in 2011 but it retains exemptions from the SA Aboriginal Heritage Act. Traditional Owners were not even consulted. The SA government’s spokesperson in Parliament said: “BHP were satisfied with the current arrangements and insisted on the continuation of these arrangements, and the government did not consult further than that.”

That disgraceful performance illustrates a broader pattern. Aboriginal land rights and heritage protections are feeble at the best of times. But the legal rights and protections are repeatedly stripped away whenever they get in the way of nuclear or mining interests. Thus the Olympic Dam mine is largely exempt from the SA Aboriginal Heritage Act. Sub-section 40(6) of the Commonwealth’s Aboriginal Land Rights Act exempts the Ranger uranium mine in the NT from the Act and thus removed the right of veto that Mirarr Traditional Owners would otherwise have enjoyed. NSW legislation exempts uranium mines from provisions of the NSW Aboriginal Land Rights Act. Native Title rights were extinguished with the stroke of a pen to seize land for a radioactive waste dump in SA, and Aboriginal heritage laws and land rights were repeatedly overridden with the push to dump nuclear waste in the NT.

Most of those laws are supported by the Coalition and Labor. Radioactive racism in Australia is bipartisan.

The Muckaty battle has been won, but the nuclear war against Aboriginal people continues − and it will continue to be resisted, with the Aboriginal-led Australian Nuclear Free Alliance playing a leading role.

The future of uranium – higher prices to come? May 2014 article

6 May 2014, Steve Kidd, Nuclear Engineering International Magazine

Steve Kidd is an independent nuclear consultant and economist with 17 years of work in senior positions at the World Nuclear Association and its predecessor organization, the Uranium Institute.

www.neimagazine.com/opinion/opinionthe-future-of-uranium-higher-prices-to-come-4259437/

Predictions of the rise in price of uranium are unjustified; they do not fully appreciate the segmented nature of the market.

The world uranium market has fallen back substantially from the highs it sustained in the period around 2005-2010, when the spot price peaked at over $130 per pound in summer 2007. After the Fukushima accident in 2011, the price drifted down further and has been stable at the $35 per pound level since last summer. Although this is well above the $10 per pound that prevailed for the long period from the late 1980s up until 2003, it is universally agreed that very few (if any) new mines can be developed at today’s price level. The suggestion is therefore made (particularly by uranium producers and their financial sector backers) that with rising demand, there will be shortages of supply in future unless we soon have much higher prices to encourage new production. On the demand side, a lot of attention is currently being to the upcoming Japanese reactor restart programme, in terms of timing and number of reactors.

A recent report from my company (East Cliff Consulting, ‘The Fifth Age of Uranium’) shows why the case made by the uranium bulls is in reality full of holes. We are now more likely to see a long period of relatively low prices, in which uranium producers will find it hard to make a living.

Substantial oversupply in the Fourth Age

The starting point is to understand the full history of uranium supply and demand. This is covered in the WNA’s biennial fuel market report, which identifies four distinct ages running from 1945 until today. The fourth of these began in 2003, when prices started rising sharply to mark the end of the third age, which was the long period of inventory rundown and constrained production lasting from the late 1980s. Talk in 2003 was of a “renaissance” of nuclear power and lots of new mines were apparently needed to meet their fuel requirements, while previously abundant secondary supplies would gradually wither away. Not so different from what the optimists are saying about uranium today.

World production certainly responded strongly to the obvious price signal back then and it had risen by half by 2010. One curious feature, however, was that the increase was almost entirely concentrated in only one country, namely Kazakhstan. Apart from this, hundreds of “junior” uranium companies suddenly appeared but the only company successful in establishing new large-scale production facilities was Paladin, with Langer Heinrich in Namibia and Kayelekera in Malawi. The others succeeded in mining only the financial markets.

Another remarkable fact was that despite all the hype about nuclear growth plans, the level of underlying uranium demand did not rise at all during this period. This is even without the adverse impact of the accident at Fukushima in 2011. Shutdowns of ageing reactors in various countries were just balanced by the commissioning of new units (increasingly in China). Another crucial factor has been a fundamental realignment in the relationship between uranium and enrichment requirements. The closure of the inefficient gaseous diffusion enrichment plants removed the high marginal cost production which had propped up prices, while notably higher uranium prices in themselves encouraged the use of higher enrichment (through reducing the optimum “tails assay”). Enrichment is now expected to remain cheap and abundant as centrifuge plants are modular and capacity can be expanded relatively easily to meet demand, so this substitution of enrichment for uranium will continue to be important.

The impact of much higher production combined with static demand during this fourth uranium age is substantial over-supply in the world uranium market, with prices naturally falling back to lower levels. The other obvious corollary of this period has been a renewed upsurge in uranium inventory levels in the United States, Europe and (with the shutdown of reactors since Fukushima) Japan. Some of this has been entirely voluntary on the part of the fuel buyers, who want more security of supply. The biggest increase has been in China, which has been building huge inventory balances to provide security for the anticipated fuel requirements of its rapid reactor building programme. On the other hand, some of the accumulation (such as in Japan) has been involuntary and this material can be used to balance the market over the next period, effectively at the expense of fresh production.

In fact China can be seen as the mirror image of the production growth in Kazakhstan, as the majority of Chinese imports have been sourced from there. The rest of the world has continued much as before, with no overall nuclear growth and not much of any real substance happening in the development of new uranium mines, except a few key projects such as Cigar Lake in Canada.

Uranium demand to increase in China and Russia

The uranium bulls continue to point to the prospects for nuclear growth to 2030. The problem is that most of this will be concentrated in China and Russia. Over half will likely be in China and the Chinese may also become important in supplying reactors to other countries in the 2020s. The Russian domestic nuclear programme is now progressing quite well, and they too will be a key supplier of reactors to other countries in the period to 2030. When the Russians supply a reactor, they invariably include long-term fuel contracts. What is important is that uranium demand will almost certainly fall in the key markets in Western Europe and North America, which are satisfied by the established uranium producers. Many Japanese reactors will undoubtedly restart but it will take a long time to unwind the inventory accumulation there.

Those who believe in higher uranium prices take an over-optimistic demand scenario. It can now be argued that the range of possibilities has actually narrowed considerably and it is appropriate to centre discussion on just one main case to 2030. Upper scenarios showing rapid nuclear growth in many countries including plants starting up in new countries now look very unlikely, certainly before the late 2020s. If there is to be a nuclear renaissance, it is now much more likely to happen later, and with a new generation of reactors. On the other hand, predictions that another major accident would shut down nuclear in lots of countries have been negated by the experience of Fukushima. Although there remain some uncertainties, the outlying upper and lower cases are much less credible than before.

Uranium market split into three

So we are entering a fifth era of uranium, where the market is split into three.

The Chinese will favour investing directly in mines to satisfy their requirements. These (like Husab in Namibia) will not necessarily be at the low end of the cost curve: there are important geopolitical considerations too and the Chinese are keen to get involved directly in the economic development of many countries, particularly in Africa. They are also not going to “play ball” with the established uranium market. Although they will maintain a presence in the spot market and sign further long-term supply contracts with producers, they have learned their lesson from the iron ore market. In that sector their heavy dependence on imports from BHP Billiton, Rio Tinto and Vale has given these producers fantastic profits.

The Russians will continue to be significant nuclear fuel exporters but their own market will remain essentially closed to outsiders. They still have secondary supplies to tap into (plenty of surplus HEU remains to be down-blended) and they will follow the Chinese and invest directly in uranium assets if their own domestic production remains constrained. Their recent acquisition of the producer Uranium One can be seen very much in this vein.

The established uranium producers will have the remainder of the market to satisfy and that will likely be declining in magnitude. There are bright spots are South Korea and the Middle East (where Saudi Arabia may join the UAE in having a nuclear programme) but the prospects in North America and Europe are not so good. In the United States, the number of operating reactors will fall by 2030, with a small number of new units not sufficient to compensate for closures due to cheap shale gas and the incursion of subsidised renewable energy into power markets. Although reactors may well be licensed for up to 80 years, they will not operate unless the economic fundamentals are right. In Canada too, it seems unlikely that all three nuclear stations in Ontario will be refurbished, and there is a strong possibility that Pickering will close. In Europe, even in France the future of the currently operating units is now in question. It is likely that there will be a gradual reduction in the nuclear share of electricity in France towards 50% and so older units (beyond Fessenheim) will likely close by 2030. New-build in the United Kingdom will only compensate for units shutting down, while further new units will only happen in a few countries such as Finland and (possibly) the Czech Republic. So with countries like Belgium and Switzerland following Germany into a nuclear phase-out, the overall European situation is one of gentle decline.

This market segmentation and the way the Chinese and Russians will operate means that the two prime analytical devices utilised in the uranium market are both now useless. First, calculated annual world supply-demand balances (miraculously often showing a shortage after 3-5 years) are irrelevant in a segmented market, where key actors with expanding demand choose to go it alone. For a time in the early 2000s, it looked as if a globalised world nuclear fuel market could emerge, but this has not happened and it is arguably now going into reverse. Secondly, uranium supply curves (based on mine cost data), demonstrating the need for higher prices as demand expands, are also invalidated. China and Russia (and probably India too, if it eventually gets its nuclear act together) will develop uranium assets wherever it best suits them. They have the confidence to bypass the conventional market, which could increasingly become merely a sideshow.

Another issue to watch is the persistence of secondary supplies beyond Russia. Only part of the 2.5 million tonnes of uranium mined since 1945 has been utilised. Almost 2 million tonnes of depleted uranium is an attractive resource while there is overcapacity in enrichment and cheaper prices. In the very long term, China, Russia and India are committed to reprocessing their used fuel and will probably eventually succeed in tempering their uranium use by building large reprocessing plants. Any substantial replacement of uranium, however, will have to await the next generation of reactors, which will be fuelled very differently from today’s large light water designs.

Fifth Age price predictions

In this fifth age of uranium, prices will essentially be determined by the cash costs of production of operating mines (and not by the full costs of future mines). This means a reversion to the long period of low (but relatively stable) uranium prices of the late 1980s and 1990s (the third age), but at a higher level to reflect the greater level of production now, the escalation of mining costs and the movements in currency exchange rates. The shortages predicted by many analysts (leading to rapid price increases to provide good rates of return on their favourite projects) are purely a mirage.

The outlook is therefore not favourable for either current or prospective uranium producers. Only those with low-cost operations will prosper. Others will struggle to stay in business and further mine closures (beyond Paladin’s Kayelekera which is now on “care and maintenance”) are definitely on the horizon. A high-profile mine closure is one factor that could cause the price to spike, but historical experience is actually rather different: once mines get into operation, owners will usually withstand short-term financial losses so long as they are convinced that there are better times around the corner. And they tend to be incurable optimists.

Fukushima apologies and apologists

Jim Green, Climate Spectator, 12 March 2014

www.businessspectator.com.au/article/2014/3/12/energy-markets/fukushima-apologies-and-apologists

It has been a sad and sorry year in Japan’s Fukushima Prefecture. Three years after the March 2011 nuclear disaster and Japan is nowhere near recovering.

ABC journalist Mark Willacy neatly described the recurring pattern: “At first TEPCO denies there’s a problem at the crippled Fukushima plant. Then it becomes obvious to everyone that there is a problem, so the company then acknowledges the problem and makes it public. And finally one of its hapless officials is sent out to apologise to the cameras.”

In February 2013, TEPCO president Naomi Hirose apologised for false information which led a parliamentary panel to cancel an on-site inspection of the Fukushima plant. TEPCO even managed to lie in its website apology, according to the Asahi Shimun newspaper.

In March 2013, a rat found its way into an electrical switchbox resulting in a power outage that left 8800 nuclear fuel assemblies without fresh cooling water for 21-29 hours. TEPCO delayed notifying the Nuclear Regulation Authority and local municipal officials about the incident. “We sincerely apologise. We are deeply regretful over the delay in reporting the incident and for causing anxiety to residents,” said TEPCO representative Yoshiyuki Ishizaki.

On March 29, TEPCO belatedly acknowledged that the company’s failings were responsible for the Fukushima disaster. Hirose apologised: “Our safety culture, skills, and ability were all insufficient. We must humbly accept our failure to prevent the accident, which we should have avoided by using our wisdom and human resources to be better prepared.”

In April, TEPCO discovered that at least three of seven underground storage pools were seeping thousands of litres of radioactive water into the soil. Hirose travelled to Fukushima to apologise for the leaks.

TEPCO acknowledged a further five leaks and spills of contaminated water in April, including a spill of around 110,000 litres from a polyethylene-lined tank (TEPCO waited two days before informing the Nuclear Regulation Authority about this spill). Some of the leaks were continuing because TEPCO was unable to locate their source. Hirose apologised for the fiasco: “We have been causing tremendous trouble. We are very sorry.”

After finding high levels of tritium and strontium in an observation well in June, TEPCO withheld the information for nearly three weeks. TEPCO executive Akio Komori visited the Fukushima prefectural government office on June 19 to apologise.

In July, it was revealed that TEPCO knew about radioactive groundwater leaks into the ocean a month before it publicly disclosed the problem. TEPCO’s general manager Masayuki Ono apologised: “We would like to offer our deep apology for causing grave worries for many people, especially for people in Fukushima.” TEPCO president Hirose also apologised: “We’ve been trying to reform, but we repeated the same mistake. Obviously, our effort is not enough. We are really sorry.”

Also in July, Hirose apologised to two local mayors for seeking permission from the Nuclear Regulation Agency to restart reactors at the Kashiwazaki-Kariwa nuclear plant without first consulting local officials: “We sincerely apologise for your having had cause to criticise us for making hasty and sloppy decisions without giving considerations to local opinions.” In October, Niigata Prefecture governor Hirohiko Izumida − who effectively holds a veto over reactor restarts at Kashiwazaki-Kariwa − said TEPCO must address its “institutionalised lying” before it can expect to restart reactors.

In early August, TEPCO apologised to residents in Fukushima Prefecture, the surrounding region and the larger public for causing inconveniences, worries and trouble arising from contaminated water leaks.

At an August 21 media conference, TEPCO executive Zengo Aizawa apologised for the latest tank leak and said: “The problem of contaminated water is the largest crisis facing management and we will place priority on dealing with the issue.” At an August 26 media conference, Hirose apologised: “Contaminated water has been leaking from tanks. What should never happen, has been happening, and we deeply apologise for the repeated worries that we have caused. We are very sorry.”

On August 29, Hirose apologised to fishermen whose livelihoods have been affected by radioactive pollution from the Fukushima plant. But Hiroshi Kishi, head of a federation of more than 1000 fisheries cooperatives nationwide, said his members had no faith in TEPCO’s ability to fix the mess it had created. “We think your company’s management of contaminated water has collapsed,” he said. “We are extremely worried as it’s creating an immeasurable impact on our country’s fishing industry and will continue to do so in the future.”

In September, Hirose offered a blanket apology: “We deeply apologise for the greater anxiety caused by the accident at Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power station.”

Also in September, Dale Klein, former head of the US Nuclear Regulatory Commission and current chair of TEPCO’s ‘Nuclear Reform Monitoring Committee’, told TEPCO that it was stumbling from “crisis to crisis” and that: “It appears that you are not keeping the people of Japan informed. These actions indicate that you don’t know what you are doing … you do not have a plan and that you are not doing all you can to protect the environment and the people.” Hirose apologised: “I apologise for not being able to live up to your expectations.”

In October, Hirose apologised to the Nuclear Regulation Authority for sloppy standards at Fukushima, as yet another problem with radiation-polluted water emerged. “The problems have been caused by a lack of basic checks,” NRA secretary general Katsuhiko Ikeda told Hirose. “I can’t help but say that standards of on-site management are extremely low at Fukushima Daiichi.”

In November, Hirose apologised to the estimated 150,000 local residents who have been forced to leave their homes due to radiation levels, and may in some cases never be able to return: “I have visited Fukushima many times, met the evacuees, the fishing union, the farmers, many people whose businesses have been damaged very much. I feel very sorry for them.”

In December, secretary-general of the ruling Liberal Democratic Party Shigeru Ishiba apologised after describing citizens participating in anti-nuclear protests outside the Japanese parliament as “engaging in an act of terrorism by causing excessive noise”. People were protesting against disgraceful new secrecy legislation which will deter nuclear whistleblowers from coming forward and deter journalists from reporting such information.

In December, another blanket apology from Hirose: “We deeply apologise to all residents around the Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Station, as well as the broader society, for the concern and anxiety that has arisen on account of the accident at the power station.”

Hirose began 2014 with a New Year’s speech in which he acknowledged that TEPCO was incapable of adequately dealing with problems in 2013, and was continually responding late to issues as they arose.

Hirose said TEPCO will do its best “not to have any problems” in 2014. Fat chance.

Nuclear apologists

Sadly, nuclear apologists have been slow to apologise for peddling misinformation. Adelaide-based nuclear advocate and conspiracy theorist Geoff Russell and Adelaide University’s Barry Brook insist that the Fukushima disaster was “deathless” despite a growing number of scientific studies giving the lie to that claim.

Last year the World Health Organisation released a report which concluded that for people in the most contaminated areas in Fukushima Prefecture, the estimated increased risk for all solid cancers will be around 4% in females exposed as infants; a 6% increased risk of breast cancer for females exposed as infants; a 7% increased risk of leukaemia for males exposed as infants; and for thyroid cancer among females exposed as infants, an increased risk of up to 70% (from a 0.75% lifetime risk up to 1.25%).

Estimates of the long-term cancer death toll include:

  • a Stanford University study that estimates “an additional 130 (15-1100) cancer-related mortalities and 180 (24-1800) cancer-related morbidities”;
  • an estimate of 1000-3000 cancer deaths by physicist Ed Lyman (based on an estimated collective whole-body radiation dose of 3.2 million person-rem to the population of Japan); and
  • an estimate of around 3000 cancer deaths, from radiation biologist and independent consultant Dr Ian Fairlie.

[Update: Dr Fairlie’s latest estimate is about 5,000 deaths, based on UNSCEAR’s March 2014 collective dose estimates.]

Indirect deaths must also be considered, especially those resulting from the failure of TEPCO and government authorities to develop and implement adequate emergency response procedures. A September 2012 editorial in Japan Times noted that 1632 deaths occurred during or after evacuation from the triple-disaster; and nearly half (160,000) of the 343,000 evacuees were dislocated specifically because of the nuclear disaster. A January 2013 article in The Lancet notes that “the fact that 47 per cent of disaster-related deaths were recognised in Fukushima prefecture alone indicates that the earthquake-triggered nuclear crisis at the Fukushima power plant caused extreme hardship for local residents.”

In Fukushima Prefecture, 1656 people have died as a result of stress and other illnesses caused by the 2011 disaster according to information compiled by police and local governments and reported last month. That number exceeds the 1607 people in Fukushima Prefecture who were drowned by the tsunami or killed by the preceding earthquake.

“The biggest problem is the fact that people have been living in temporary conditions for so long,” said Hiroyuki Harada, a Fukushima official dealing with victim assistance, “People have gone through dramatic changes of their environment. As a result, people who would not have died are dying.”

The claim by Brook and Russell that Fukushima was “deathless” has no basis in truth. They ought to take a leaf from Naomi Hirose’s book, bow deeply and apologise.

Jim Green is the national nuclear campaigner with Friends of the Earth, Australia.

Nuclear security and Australia’s uranium exports

Jim Green, 8 April 2014, Online Opinion

http://onlineopinion.com.au/view.asp?article=16197

The March 24−25 Nuclear Security Summit (NSS) in the Netherlands was attended by representatives from over 50 countries. The NSS issued a banal communiqué, almost all of which was decided in advance. The closest the communiqué comes to substance is to identify a range of “voluntary measures” which states “may consider taking” such as publishing information about national laws, exchanging good practices, and further developing training of personnel involved in nuclear security. Elsewhere the communiqué is beyond parody: “Sharing good practices, without detriment to the protection of sensitive information, might also be beneficial.”

To be fair, useful work is being done in some countries to tighten nuclear security. But it’s too little and too slow, and the concept of nuclear security is too narrowly defined. The very first dot-point in the NSS communiqué insists that “measures to strengthen nuclear security will not hamper the rights of States to develop and use nuclear energy for peaceful purposes”.

Victor Gilinsky, a former member of the US Nuclear Regulatory Commission, noted in 2009 that “even so-called arms controllers fall over themselves trying to establish their bona fides by supporting nuclear energy development and devising painless proposals …” That mentality was in evidence at the NSS. Gilinsky advocates a reversal of priorities: “Security should come first − not as an afterthought. We should support as much nuclear power as is consistent with international security; not as much security as the spread of nuclear power will allow.”

Nuclear security architecture

The NSS website says that Summit participants “laid the basis for an efficient and sustainable nuclear security architecture, consisting of treaties, guidelines and international organisations.”

But there was no discussion, and no outcomes, regarding vital architecture such as the flawed Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT). The security threats posed by nuclear weapons arsenals were beyond the scope of the NSS, and the discussion on nuclear weapons was vacuous and steered well away from the failure of the nuclear weapons states to fulfil their NPT disarmament obligations. US President Barack Obama’s ultra-lite contribution to the NSS went no further than a reworking of the old saying that a single nuclear bomb can ruin your whole day: “Just one nuclear weapon exploded in a city … would badly destabilize our security, our economies, and our very way of life.”

Nor did the NSS produce any outcomes regarding another vital piece of nuclear architecture: the flawed safeguards system of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA). A recent report about the safeguarding of nuclear fuel cycle facilities, by the Nuclear Proliferation Prevention Project at the University of Texas, concludes: “Theoretical solutions to improve IAEA safeguards have been discussed for decades. However, proprietary, economic, and sovereignty concerns have limited the extent to which countries and private companies have implemented these theoretical solutions. Even in states that cooperate with the IAEA and apply sophisticated accounting mechanisms, such as Japan, safeguards at fuel-cycle facilities currently cannot come close to achieving their explicit goal of providing timely warning of a suspected diversion of one bomb’s worth of fissile material. The prospects are even worse in states that resist cooperation and may wish to keep open their weapons option, such as Iran, and at facilities that employ first-generation safeguards.”

Yet the NSS did not even consider the safeguards system. The broad problem was succinctly explained by former South Australian Premier Mike Rann many years ago, before he decided that his political ambitions were more important than speaking truth to power: “Again and again it has been demonstrated here and overseas that when problems over safeguards prove difficult, commercial considerations will come first.”

Australia’s uranium customers

Nuclear security standards are demonstrably inadequate in a number of Australia’s uranium customer countries. Nuclear security risk factors in Russia include political instability, ineffective governance, pervasive corruption, and the presence of groups determined to obtain nuclear materials. A March 2014 report by Harvard University’s Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs notes that Russia has the world’s largest nuclear stock­piles stored in the world’s largest number of buildings and bunkers, and that underfunding raises serious questions about whether effective nuclear security and accounting systems can be sustained.”

In a 2011 report, the US Director of National Intelligence discussed nuclear smuggling in Russia: “We assess that undetected smuggling of weapons-usable nuclear material has occurred, but we do not know the total amount of material that has been diverted or stolen since the dissolution of the Soviet Union. We judge it highly unlikely that Russian authorities have been able to recover all of the stolen material.”

Nuclear security lapses have repeatedly made headlines in the USA over the past two years. Examples include:

  • the Air Force removed 17 officers assigned to guard nuclear-armed missiles after finding safety violations, potential violations in protecting codes and attitude problems;
  • Air Force officers with nuclear launch authority were twice caught napping with the blast door open;
  • an inspection by the Department of Energy’s Inspector General found that Los Alamos National Laboratory failed to meet its goal of 99% accuracy in accounting for the lab’s inventory of weapons-grade nuclear materials, including plutonium;
  • a report by LBJ School of Public Affairs at Texas University detailed inadequate protection of US commercial and research nuclear facilities;
  • at least 82 missile launch officers from an Air Force base in Montana face disciplinary action for cheating on monthly proficiency tests or for being aware of cheating and failing to report it. Former missile-launch control officer Bruce Blair said cheating “has been extensive and pervasive at all the missile bases going back for decades”;
  • missile launch officers in two different incidents were found to have violated security regulations designed to prevent intruders from seizing their ICBM-firing keys;
  • nineteen officers at Minot Air Force Base, North Dakota, were forced to surrender their launch authority because of performance and attitude problems;
  • the Navy has opened an investigation into accusations of widespread cheating by sailors at an atomic-reactor training school in South Carolina;
  • the congressionally mandated Advisory Panel on the Governance of the Nuclear Security Enterprise says that drastic reforms are crucial to address “systemic” management shortcomings at the National Nuclear Security Administration; and
  • former military contractor Benjamin Bishop will plead guilty to providing nuclear-arms secrets and other classified information to his Chinese girlfriend.

Time magazine describes the most embarrassing lapse: “In the U.S. in 2012, an 82-year old nun and two other peace protestors broke into Y-12, a facility in Tennessee that contains the world’s largest repository of highly enriched uranium (HEU) in metal form and until the incident was colloquially known as “the Fort Knox of HEU” for its state-of-the-art security equipment. The nun bypassed multiple intrusion-detection systems because faulty cameras had not been replaced and guards at the central alarm station had grown weary of manually validating sensors that produced frequent false alarms. When the protestors started hammering on the side of a building that contains enough HEU for hundreds of weapons, the guards inside assumed the noise was coming from construction workers that they had not been told were coming. She and her fellow protestors were eventually challenged by a single guard.”

The United States’ credibility is also undermined by its failure to ratify the 2005 amendment to the Convention on the Physical Protection of Nuclear Materials and the International Convention on the Suppression of Acts of Nuclear Terrorism. Moreover US federal government budget requests and allocations for nuclear security have been reduced repeatedly since 2011, with programs such as the Global Threat Reduction Initiative, the International Material Protection and Cooperation program, Securing the Cities, and a program to replace HEU research reactor fuel with low-enriched uranium, suffering.

Another ‘good news’ story from the NSS was an announcement that Japan would send “hundreds of kilograms” of HEU and separated plutonium to the US. But Japan continues to expand its stockpile of 44 tons of separated plutonium (nine tons in Japan, 35 tons at reprocessing plants in Europe) and it continues to advance plans to start up the Rokkasho reprocessing plant which would result in an additional eight tons of separated plutonium annually. With no hint of irony, the US/Japan joint statement announcing the plan to send HEU and separated plutonium from Japan to the US concludes: “Our two countries encourage others to consider what they can do to further HEU and plutonium minimization.”

There is a long history of lax nuclear security in Japan. The US has raised concerns about inadequate security at Rokkasho and other nuclear plants in Japan. In November 2013, Japan’s Nuclear Regulation Authority admonished the Japan Atomic Energy Agency for failing to take appropriate measures to protect its Monju prototype fast-breeder reactor from potential terrorist attacks.

The March 2014 report by Harvard University’s Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs details significant nuclear security gaps in a number of countries that import uranium − or want to import uranium − from Australia. For example it states that India’s approach to nuclear security is “highly secretive”; the threats India’s nuclear security systems must confront “appear to be significant”; India faces challenges “both from domestic terrorist organizations and from attacks by terrorist organizations based in Pakistan”; India also confronts “significant insider corruption”; and the risk of theft or sabotage in India “may be uncomfortably high”.

So what is Australia doing?

So what is the Australian government doing about the vital problem of inadequate nuclear security standards in uranium customer countries? And what are the uranium mining companies operating in Australia doing about the problem? The short answer is: nothing. They adopt a head in the sand approach, just as they ignored the disgraceful nuclear safety standards in Japan that led to the Fukushima disaster.

There are simple steps that could be taken − for example uranium exports could be made contingent on customer countries ratifying the amendment to the Convention on the Physical Protection of Nuclear Materials, and the International Convention on the Suppression of Acts of Nuclear Terrorism.

Jim Green is the national nuclear campaigner with Friends of the Earth

Queensland campaign against uranium mining

Adam Sharah

Chain Reaction #120, March 2013, www.foe.org.au/chain-reaction

In October 2012, Queensland’s Liberal-National Party (LNP) government broke a commitment made repeatedly before and after the state election by overturning the ban on uranium mining. The Newman government set up an independent Uranium Mining Implementation Committee (UMIC) to investigate and implement a plan to open a uranium industry in Queensland.

The areas most likely to be mined are Westmoreland near the NT border, Valhalla and other sites near Mt Isa, and Ben Lomond located 50kms from Townsville, though evidence exists there are plans for exploration at numerous other sites throughout Queensland.

Unless Queensland ports are opened up to uranium shipments, yellowcake will be trucked over vast distances by road-trains across Queensland to ports in the Northern Territory and South Australia. In recent submissions the UMIC confirmed North Queensland Bulk Port’s capacity to manage the transportation, storage and shipping of radioactive yellowcake. If these submissions are successful radioactive yellowcake may be trucked through Queensland communities and shipped over the Great Barrier Reef via Mackay Port, Townsville Port or Abbott Point.

In a submission dated 17 December 2012, the Acting Deputy Chief Executive Officer of North Queensland Bulk Port Corporation, Gary Riches, stated: “The Port of Mackay is capable of handling the break bulk cargo typically associated with the development and maintenance of mining and associated infrastructure. The uranium industry is seen as an opportunity to utilise existing terminal capacity delivering economies of scale and improving economic activity in Central and Regional Queensland.”

Barry Holden, CEO of Townsville Port, told the ABC the port was capable of resuming uranium export: “It’s just another product, it’s handled in containers as we understand it. If it’s a legal trade in Queensland, given that we’re a government-owned corporation, then I’d expect it would be handled through the port, yes indeed.”

In an interview with the ABC in response to the submissions, Mark Bailey from Keep Queensland Nuclear Free stated: “The Ports have made it very clear in writing that they want to export radioactive uranium through the Port and across the Great Barrier Reef. This means radioactive yellowcake being regularly transported through the streets of either Mackay or Townsville. To protect tourism jobs, local residents and the reef we call upon the Newman government to rule out exporting uranium through the Ports. A very real risk is if there is a fiery accident involving a uranium truck, the local area could be contaminated with radioactivity.”

In early 2013, Queensland graziers expressed their concerns about Queensland resuming uranium mining. Due to inadequate clean-up efforts and the lack of containment of radioactive dust, to this day the former Mary Kathleen mine located on the Selwyn Range between Concurry and Mt Isa remains a toxic legacy. In 1984, over a million litres of saline, metal and radionuclide rich water was released from Mary Kathleen’s evaporation ponds during a wet season. Thirty years later, toxic waste water is still being drained via purposely-built seepage systems. At the Cameron River, due to the use of mined rocks sourced from the site for the construction of bridges, apart from weeds, plant species are unable to grow. Though it is common knowledge amongst locals that the creeks are not safe for swimming or fishing, there are no signs in place to warn of the dangers.

In December 2013, Mark Bailey and myself campaigned in Mackay, Cairns and Townsville to raise awareness about the dangers associated with uranium mining. Although Townsville’s burgeoning economy is entirely reliant on mining, the community response has been encouraging. In Townsville a local action group called CAMBL − Citizens Against Mining Ben Lomond − has formed. Due to a toxic spill in Townsville in the 1980’s, local residents are concerned about the transportation of uranium through a primary source of Townsville’s water, the Burdekin River catchment − the second largest catchment draining into the Great Barrier Reef after the Fitzroy River catchment.

A toxic spill in the Burdekin catchment could be catastrophic for the largest living structure on Earth, the Great Barrier Reef Marine Park, a unique ecosystem already under threat due to dredging to accommodate proposed port and shipping lane expansions. In April 2013, Tim Badman from the International Union for Conservation of Nature told the ABC that shipping yellowcake would be a “new threat to the Great Barrier Reef” and a “surprising activity to find in any natural world heritage site”. Russell Reichelt from the Great Barrier Reef Marine Park Authority agrees it would be a concern.

CAMBL is using a report issued by the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology to boost their objection to the Ben Lomond uranium mine: “With only six months to go until uranium mine applications are lodged in Queensland, we are deeply concerned that this isn’t enough time for proper peer reviewing of this new study and for any new knowledge to be applied to assessing any North Queensland uranium mines,” CAMBL spokesperson Mark Harrison said. “One of the aspects from this study is that in areas with high rainfall it spreads even further. We have that here. These mining companies are going to tell us that they’re going to do everything by the book, but they can’t guarantee 100 per cent that this can’t happen and that’s the main issue.”

French company Minatome undertook trial mining at Ben Lomond in the early 1980s. Federal MP Bob Katter spoke at length about Ben Lomond in Parliament on 1 November 2005. He noted that Minatome initially denied reports of a radioactive spill, but then changed its story and claimed that the spill posed no risk and did not reach the water system from which 210,000 people drank.

Katter continued the story: “For the next two or three weeks they held out with that story. Further evidence was produced in which they admitted that it had been a dangerous level. Yes, it was about 10,000 times higher than what the health agencies in Australia regarded as an acceptable level. After six weeks, we got rid of lie number two. I think it was at about week 8 or week 12 when, as a state member of parliament, I insisted upon going up to the site. Just before I went up to the site, the company admitted − remember, it was not just the company but also the agency set up by the government to protect us who were telling lies − that the spill had reached the creek which ran into the Burdekin River, which provided the drinking water for 210,000 people. We had been told three sets of lies over a period of three months.”

In 2014, the Australian Nuclear Free Alliance, Friends of the Earth and Keep Queensland Nuclear Free will extend the campaign to include central and far north west and central Queensland. The pro-mining right-wing political landscape, the economic apartheid and desperation experienced by remote Aboriginal communities, the geographical isolation of the proposed uranium mine sites and the sheer vastness of the areas threatened by mining exploration, combine to present a unique set of challenges for the campaign.

Many of the same Aboriginal family groups whose Traditional Lands are already mined for uranium in the NT, or are under threat due to the proposed national nuclear waste dump at Tennant Creek, have close cultural and family ties to groups in the regional towns located near the sites earmarked for uranium mining and exploration in Queensland. Providing a platform for resistance for Aboriginal groups opposed to uranium mining on their Country will require intensive and careful strategic planning and commitment and consistent funding.

Adam Sharah is an anti-nuclear campaigner with the Australian Nuclear Free Alliance.

More information:

  • Australian Nuclear Free Alliance: www.anfa.org.au
  • Keep Queensland Nuclear Free: https://www.facebook.com/KeepQldNuclearFree
  • Citizens Against Mining Ben Lomond: https://www.facebook.com/CitizensAgainstMiningBenLomondCambl

Fukushima apologies and apologists

Jim Green

Chain Reaction #120, March 2013, www.foe.org.au/chain-reaction

It has been a sad and sorry year in Japan’s Fukushima Prefecture. Three years after the March 2011 nuclear disaster at the TEPCO plant and Japan is nowhere near recovering.

ABC journalist Mark Willacy neatly described the recurring pattern: “At first TEPCO denies there’s a problem at the crippled Fukushima plant. Then it becomes obvious to everyone that there is a problem, so the company then acknowledges the problem and makes it public. And finally one of its hapless officials is sent out to apologise to the cameras.”

In February 2013, TEPCO President Naomi Hirose apologised for false information which led a parliamentary panel to cancel an on-site inspection of the Fukushima plant. TEPCO even managed to lie in its website apology according to the Asahi Shimun newspaper.

In March 2013, a rat found its way into an electrical switchbox resulting in a power outage that left 8,800 nuclear fuel assemblies without fresh cooling water for 21−29 hours. TEPCO delayed notifying the Nuclear Regulation Authority and local municipal officials about the incident. “We sincerely apologise. We are deeply regretful over the delay in reporting the incident and for causing anxiety to residents,” said TEPCO representative Yoshiyuki Ishizaki.

On March 29, TEPCO belatedly acknowledged that the company’s failings were responsible for the Fukushima disaster. Hirose apologised: “Our safety culture, skills, and ability were all insufficient. We must humbly accept our failure to prevent the accident, which we should have avoided by using our wisdom and human resources to be better prepared.”

In April, TEPCO discovered that at least three of seven underground storage pools were seeping thousands of litres of radioactive water into the soil. Hirose travelled to Fukushima to apologise for the leaks.

TEPCO acknowledged a further five leaks and spills of contaminated water in April, including a spill of around 110,000 litres from a polyethylene-lined tank (TEPCO waited two days before informing the Nuclear Regulation Authority about this spill). Some of the leaks were continuing because TEPCO was unable to locate their source. Hirose apologised for the fiasco: “We have been causing tremendous trouble. We are very sorry.”

After finding high levels of tritium and strontium in an observation well in June, TEPCO withheld the information for nearly three weeks. TEPCO executive Akio Komori visited the Fukushima prefectural government office on June 19 to apologise.

In July, it was revealed that TEPCO knew about radioactive groundwater leaks into the ocean a month before it publicly disclosed the problem. TEPCO’s general manager Masayuki Ono apologised: “We would like to offer our deep apology for causing grave worries for many people, especially for people in Fukushima.” TEPCO President Naomi Hirose also apologised: “We’ve been trying to reform, but we repeated the same mistake. Obviously, our effort is not enough. We are really sorry.”

Also in July, Hirose apologised to two local mayors for seeking permission from the Nuclear Regulation Agency to restart reactors at the Kashiwazaki-Kariwa nuclear plant without first consulting local officials: “We sincerely apologise for your having had cause to criticise us for making hasty and sloppy decisions without giving considerations to local opinions.” In October, Niigata Prefecture Governor Hirohiko Izumida − who effectively holds a veto over reactor restarts at Kashiwazaki-Kariwa − said TEPCO must address its “institutionalised lying” before it can expect to restart reactors.

In early August, TEPCO apologised to residents in Fukushima prefecture, the surrounding region and the larger public for causing inconveniences, worries and trouble arising from contaminated water leaks.

At an August 21 media conference, TEPCO executive Zengo Aizawa apologised for the latest tank leak and said: “The problem of contaminated water is the largest crisis facing management and we will place priority on dealing with the issue.” At an August 26 media conference, Hirose apologised: “Contaminated water has been leaking from tanks. What should never happen, has been happening, and we deeply apologise for the repeated worries that we have caused. We are very sorry.”

On August 29, Hirose apologised to fishermen whose livelihoods have been affected by radioactive pollution from the Fukushima plant. But Hiroshi Kishi, head of a federation of more than 1,000 fisheries cooperatives nationwide, said his members had no faith in TEPCO’s ability to fix the mess it had created. “We think your company’s management of contaminated water has collapsed,” he said. “We are extremely worried as it’s creating an immeasurable impact on our country’s fishing industry and will continue to do so in the future.”

In September, Hirose offered a blanket apology: “We deeply apologise for the greater anxiety caused by the accident at Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power station.”

Also in September, Dale Klein, former head of the US Nuclear Regulatory Commission and current chair of TEPCO’s ‘Nuclear Reform Monitoring Committee’, told TEPCO that it was stumbling from “crisis to crisis” and that: “It appears that you are not keeping the people of Japan informed. These actions indicate that you don’t know what you are doing … you do not have a plan and that you are not doing all you can to protect the environment and the people.” Hirose apologised: “I apologise for not being able to live up to your expectations.”

In October, Hirose apologised to the Nuclear Regulation Authority (NRA) for sloppy standards at Fukushima, as yet another problem with radiation-polluted water emerged. “The problems have been caused by a lack of basic checks,” NRA secretary general Katsuhiko Ikeda told Hirose. “I can’t help but say that standards of on-site management are extremely low at Fukushima Daiichi.”

In November, Hirose apologised to the estimated 150,000 local residents who have been forced to leave their homes due to radiation levels, and may in some cases never be able to return: “I have visited Fukushima many times, met the evacuees, the fishing union, the farmers, many people whose businesses have been damaged very much. I feel very sorry for them.”

In December, secretary-general of the ruling Liberal Democratic Party Shigeru Ishiba apologised after describing citizens participating in anti-nuclear protests outside the Japanese parliament as “engaging in an act of terrorism by causing excessive noise”. People were protesting against disgraceful new secrecy legislation which will deter nuclear whistleblowers from coming forward and deter journalists from reporting such information.

In December, another blanket apology from TEPCO President Naomi Hirose: “We deeply apologise to all residents around the Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Station, as well as the broader society, for the concern and anxiety that has arisen on account of the accident at the power station.”

Hirose began 2014 with a New Year’s speech in which he acknowledged that TEPCO was incapable of adequately dealing with problems in 2013, and was continually responding late to issues as they arose.

Hirose said TEPCO will do its best “not to have any problems” in 2014. Fat chance.

Nuclear apologists

Sadly, nuclear apologists have been slow to apologise for peddling misinformation. Adelaide-based nuclear advocate and conspiracy theorist Geoff Russell and Adelaide University’s Barry Brook insist that the Fukushima disaster was “deathless” despite a growing number of scientific studies giving the lie to that claim.

Last year the World Health Organisation released a report which concluded that for people in the most contaminated areas in Fukushima Prefecture, the estimated increased risk for all solid cancers will be around 4% in females exposed as infants; a 6% increased risk of breast cancer for females exposed as infants; a 7% increased risk of leukaemia for males exposed as infants; and for thyroid cancer among females exposed as infants, an increased risk of up to 70% (from a 0.75% lifetime risk up to 1.25%).

Estimates of the long-term cancer death toll include:

  • a Stanford University study that estimates “an additional 130 (15-1100) cancer-related mortalities and 180 (24-1800) cancer-related morbidities”;
  • an estimate of 1,000-3,000 cancer deaths by physicist Ed Lyman (based on an estimated collective whole-body radiation dose of 3.2 million person-rem to the population of Japan); and
  • an estimate of around 3,000 cancer deaths from radiation biologist and independent consultant Dr Ian Fairlie.

Indirect deaths must also be considered, especially those resulting from the failure of TEPCO and government authorities to develop and implement adequate emergency response procedures. A September 2012 Editorial in Japan Times noted that 1,632 deaths occurred during or after evacuation from the triple-disaster; and nearly half (160,000) of the 343,000 evacuees were dislocated specifically because of the nuclear disaster. A January 2013 article in The Lancet notes that “the fact that 47% of disaster-related deaths were recognised in Fukushima prefecture alone indicates that the earthquake-triggered nuclear crisis at the Fukushima power plant caused extreme hardship for local residents.”

In Fukushima Prefecture, 1,656 people have died as a result of stress and other illnesses caused by the 2011 disaster according to information compiled by police and local governments and reported in February 2014. That number exceeds the 1,607 people in Fukushima Prefecture who were drowned by the tsunami or killed by the preceding earthquake.

“The biggest problem is the fact that people have been living in temporary conditions for so long,” said Hiroyuki Harada, a Fukushima official dealing with victim assistance, “People have gone through dramatic changes of their environment. As a result, people who would not have died are dying.”

The claim by Barry Brook and Geoff Russell that Fukushima was “deathless” has no basis in truth. They ought to take a leaf from Naomi Hirose’s book, bow deeply and apologise.

Jim Green is the national nuclear campaigner with Friends of the Earth, Australia. A referenced version of this article is available from jim.green@foe.org.au

The People’s Movement Against Nuclear Energy in India

Gem Romuld

Chain Reaction #120, March 2013, www.foe.org.au/chain-reaction

Idinthakarai is a beautiful fishing village flanked by coconut and banana trees on one side and ocean on the other. Chooks, goats and cows roam the streets or stand tethered out the front of colourful houses whose front walls proudly proclaim who married who.

Festival music blares across the town of 15,000 people, fish are laid out to dry and women sit in doorways rolling beedis. Among the banana and coconut trees, slender wind turbines catch the breeze while on the flipside, perched on the ocean’s edge is the Koodankulam Nuclear Power Plant (KKNPP). While the Indian Government insists it is a measure of progress and power, viewed from Idinthakarai the KKNPP’s distinctive white and orange domes symbolise a long and anguished struggle.

I first heard about the KKNPP in 2012, when news reached Australia of over two thousand fisherfolk taking to the sea in their boats in protest, blocking the access channel to the plant. Situated near the southernmost tip of India in the state of Tamil Nadu, the KKNPP stares down the beach at the heart of the movement, the People’s Movement Against Nuclear Energy based in their proudly dubbed “Republic of Idinthakarai”. The KKNPP was first planned and agreed between the Indian Government and the Soviet Union in 1988. The subsequent dissolution of the Soviet Union held up the project for a decade, before its revival in the late 1990s and the beginning of construction in 2002.

Opposition has always existed, flaring up in the aftermath of Fukushima and with the spread of information about radiation contamination and its effect on health. The effects of radiation on health are well documented in India, courtesy of existing nuclear projects and in particular the uranium mine at Jadugoda, in the northern state of Jharkhand. Jadugoda has been mining uranium for over 40 years, enough time for radiation to damage genetic codes and work its way up the food chain via leaking tailings dams and the unlucky river into which they flow.

The people living around the KKNPP are acutely aware of their vulnerability. Ziggy Switkowski’s absurdist words ring in my ears, spoken three days after the Fukushima disaster: “the best place to be whenever there’s an earthquake is at the perimeter of a nuclear plant because they are designed so well” … but it’s not just the fear of disaster that enrages the local community; it’s also the quality of the construction itself and the effect of the plant’s discharge on fish. The fisherfolk are worried about the effect of the hot water discharge from the plant on the reproductive cycles of the fish that form the basis of their livelihoods.

Another catalyst for concern is the prosecution in Russia of the procurement director of ZiO-Podolsk, a Russian company supplying crucial components to nuclear power plants including the KKNPP, for corruption and fraud. Shutov, the procurement director, has been charged for purchasing low-grade materials and selling them as high-grade materials for components and parts. Even the official story of the plant is littered with defects and flaws and its “immediate commissioning” has been announced and re-announced so many times that it’s become a running joke with Idinthakarai residents.

The KKNPP has claimed several times to be generating power, but the locals beg to differ. The ‘tsunami colony’, a settlement of people displaced by the Asian tsunami of 2004, sits 500m from the plant. They keep a vigilant watch for steam, noise and any of the signs that they observed when it was running tests: nothing. The KKNPP is obviously troubled but the real concern is the determination of the Nuclear Power Corporation of India Ltd to get it working.

Repression

The full force of the government, the media and the police are behind the effort to stifle resistance. Bedazzling in its complexity and sophistication, nuclear energy has become a tool for the Indian establishment to demonstrate its modernity and progress. Nuclear energy is apparently vital to the national project and anyone opposed to it is therefore classified as “anti-national”.

But, despite suffering repression and slander, resistance to the KKNPP is alive and well. If the church bells ring in Idinthakarai, the fisherfolk come in from the sea and all the townspeople gather for a meeting or to take their grievances down the beach towards the nuclear plant. The protests against the KKNPP are strictly non-violent but police have responded with full force to intimidate and suppress the movement. There in the so-called “world’s largest democracy”, fisherfolk defending their livelihoods in peaceful opposition to a nuclear power plant are charged with “sedition” and “war against the Indian state” among many other political offences.

The local authorities have failed to comply with the Supreme Court verdict to drop thousands of false charges laid on protesters. So they are flies stuck in legalistic honey, some with as many as 190 charges against them, unable to leave the “Republic of Idinthakarai” for fear of arrest beyond the safe haven of the town. One of the movement leaders, Pushparayan, was not even permitted to travel to another village to attend his father’s funeral. He hadn’t seen his father for two years as he was under ‘village arrest’, and was denied a proper farewell.

People’s Movement Against Nuclear Energy

The People’s Movement Against Nuclear Energy headquarters sit opposite a majestic Catholic church with a large sheltered space for protest meetings. The thatched shelter is hung with info-sheets and photos, graphically depicting the victims of Hiroshima, Nagasaki and Chernobyl and the deformed children of Jadugoda town, which hosts India’s 45-year-old uranium mine. Banners also line the space, bearing signatures and faces pledging solidarity and commitment to shutting down the KKNPP.

There’s a board showing the number of days the relay protest fast has been running. It reached 900 days on January 31. Behind that board is a gold-framed picture bearing four faces − the people that have paid for dissent with their lives. Two people died during protests and two while held in police custody for protest charges because they were denied their medications. Alongside these horrific events of state repression runs the multi-faceted war of attrition, including the confiscation of passports, and the police harassment of the women of Idinthakarai.

The communities around the KKNPP have empowered several men, including S.P. Udayakumar and M. Pushparayan, to act as leaders and public spokespeople for the People’s Movement Against Nuclear Energy, however it is generally acknowledged that the steely determination of the women is what keeps the movement going. Sundari, an Idinthakarai local, spoke of the abuses she suffered in prison, and the openness with which the police admitted that they were making her an example with the intention of deterring other women from taking a stand against the KKNPP. The war of attrition led by the police will not stifle the battle of the women of Idinthakarai to defend their community and to reach out in solidarity to the other communities in India facing nuclear projects.

An open letter by the women and children of Idinthakarai states: “We realise more than ever that our struggle is not against nuclear energy alone. Our demand is to be allowed to pursue a life style based on truth, justice and hard work. Our adherence to this has made us raise crucial questions about democracy and governance, about the way decisions are being taken in our country and how the well being of the marginalised are neglected and trampled upon.”

The Australian and Indian governments are currently arranging a uranium export deal. In 2011, the Labor Party reversed its policy against uranium exports to countries that haven’t signed the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty, specifically to allow exports to India. The Coalition government is now carrying the project forward, despite popular opposition at mine sites, along the transport routes, at the sites of nuclear power stations and in places flagged for radioactive waste dumps in Australia and worldwide. Selling uranium to India makes Australia an accomplice in risky nuclear projects and cruel repression of the communities surrounding nuclear power plants. It also facilitates the expansion of India’s nuclear weapons arsenal − if not directly, then certainly indirectly: imported uranium frees up India’s domestic sources for use in weapons production.

In three days of conversations, impressions, shared walks and meals, we began to sense what life is like living a peoples’ movement against a nuclear power station. We recorded interviews and tried to act as conduits between anti-nuclear movements in Australia and this gorgeous town where we hope Australian uranium never lands.

It doesn’t really matter where the uranium comes from; the people of Idinthakarai are adamant that no uranium should fuel the KKNPP and that 2014 is the year to shut it down, completely.

Gem Romuld is co-ordinator of the Anti-nuclear & Clean Energy (ACE) collective at Friends of the Earth, Melbourne.

Australian yellowcake fuels Ukrainian fires

Dave Sweeney

Chain Reaction #120, March 2013, www.foe.org.au/chain-reaction

As the deeply disturbing events unfolding in the Ukraine highlight, troop mobilisations, sabre-rattling and suppression of civilian critics are becoming the hallmarks of President Vladimir Putin’s Russia.

Australia, along with most Western nations, has condemned the Russian escalation and called for restraint and dialogue. Such a call is important but needs to be accompanied by action to ensure it penetrates the thick walls of the Kremlin.

One clear and potent action that Australia could take to amplify our diplomatic dissent would be to halt our fledgling yellowcake trade with Russia. Uranium is a dual use fuel: it provides the power fuel for nuclear reactors and the bomb fuel for nuclear weapons − and the distinction between the two sectors is more one of political convenience than practical effect.

Russia’s arsenal of over 14,000 nuclear weapons has an explosive yield equivalent to 200,000 Hiroshima bombs and President Putin has stated that any reduction in these numbers would only serve make its nuclear arsenal “more compact but more effective”. Putin has declared that a nuclear arsenal “remains one of the top priorities of Russian Federation policy” and that Russia will develop “completely new strategic [nuclear] complexes.”

In both 2007 and 2008 Russia threatened Poland with nuclear strikes from missiles it would base at its enclave of Kaliningrad following Polish approval for US missile defence bases in Poland.

Australia’s connection with the Russian nuclear industry escalated in 2007 when Prime Minister John Howard and President Putin inked a uranium supply agreement at the APEC summit in Sydney.

The deal was widely criticised by environment, proliferation and human rights groups, delayed by the political fallout from Russia’s 2008 invasion of Georgia and subject to detailed assessment from the Joint Standing Committee on Treaties (JSCOT), the Federal Parliament’s watchdog of Australian treaty deals and international agreements.

JSCOT heard evidence highlighting concerns and deficiencies within the Russian nuclear industry, including an International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) estimate that only half of Russia’s nuclear materials have been reasonably secured. Informed by these real world concerns and evidence, JSCOT recommended a mix of caution and action in relation to planned Australian uranium sales.

The majority JSCOT report argued that the government should not advance any sales until a series of essential pre-conditions were met. These included a detailed analysis of Russia’s nuclear non-proliferation status, the complete separation of Russia’s civil and military nuclear sectors, reductions in industry secrecy, independent safety and security assessments of Russian nuclear facilities and action on nuclear theft and smuggling concerns.

Importantly JSCOT urged that “actual physical inspection by the IAEA occurs” at any Russian sites that may handle Australian uranium and recommended that “the supply of uranium to Russia should be contingent upon such inspections being carried out.”

Despite these concerns successive Australian governments have furthered the fiction that the Russian nuclear sector is secure and safe. And put undue and unproven confidence in the myth that nuclear safeguards − meant to stop the cross-pollination of the military and civil nuclear sectors − actually work. International inspections and scrutiny are limited or absent and perceived commercial interests have been given precedence over proven safety and security concerns.

In late December 2010 the first shipment of Australian uranium, sourced from Energy Resources of Australia’s troubled Ranger mine in Kakadu − itself the site of a spectacular and severe contamination event last December − arrived in Russia.

The former Chair of JSCOT, Labor MP Kelvin Thompson, has made an urgent called for the uranium sales deal to be reviewed in the light of current tensions between Russia and Ukraine. And it would appear most Australians agree with this common sense proposition. A 2008 survey found 62% of Australians opposed uranium exports to nuclear weapons states compared to 31% in favour. An International Atomic Energy Agency survey of 1,000 Australians in 2005 found 56% believed the IAEA safeguards system was ineffective − nearly double the 29% who considered it effective.

Putting the promises of an under-performing resource sector ahead of evidence-based assessment has seen Australia squander a real chance to advance nuclear non-proliferation − however, we still have the ability and the responsibility to make a difference. Foreign Minister Bishop must stop wringing hands and act decisively to halt any chance of fuelling arms.

President Putin’s civil atomic aspirations exceed the capacity of Russia’s nuclear sector while his military ones have no place on a habitable planet. Neither should be fuelled by Australian uranium.

Dave Sweeney is nuclear free campaigner for the Australian Conservation Foundation