Despite clear opposition from the Aboriginal traditional owners, the push for a nuclear waste dump at Muckaty Station, 120 kilometres north of Tennant Creek in the Northern Territory, continues.
The campaign led by traditional owners to stop the waste dump is gearing up for the next stage in the fight.
On 26 August, the Federal Court set June 2014 for a case to be heard on whether the nomination of the site for the waste dump followed due process. The nuclear free campaigner for the Australian Conservation Foundation, Dave Sweeney, told Red Flag:
“The case has been brought by a group of senior Aboriginal traditional owners who argue that both the Commonwealth and the Northern Land Council (NLC) have failed in their statutory duty to identify, engage and obtain consent from the appropriate Aboriginal owners. They are seeking to have the existing nomination ruled invalid.”
Muckaty was nominated by the NLC with the support of only one of the five clan groups holding ownership and cultural ties to Muckaty Station.
The Rudd-Gillard Labor government has used divide and rule tactics, former resources minister Martin Ferguson boasting at one stage that he had offers for numerous locations across the NT for a waste dump if Muckaty Station fell through.
Opposition ignored
Barb Shaw, an Aboriginal activist with connections to Muckaty Station, told Red Flag, “There has always been opposition to the nuclear waste dump on Muckaty … There has been a campaign running ever since the site was nominated and announced. There has been big opposition from Aboriginal and non-Aboriginal people, from right across Australia.”
Shaw explained: “People from four of the clan groups have travelled around Australia talking about the nuclear waste dump. There has been a nuclear-free ride from Lucas Heights all the way to Muckaty … People are aware of it and do oppose it, because they know it is wrong and that the waste hasn’t come from this country, yet they want to put it in the country. Aboriginal people are very culturally and traditionally connected to the land … any form of nuclear waste is not part of our culture.”
Shaw is concerned by the nomination process and the role of the NLC. “There is a need for free, prior and informed consent in this issue, but there was no information given to the people. They weren’t properly informed about the waste dump, and they haven’t been able to give full consent if they want a nuclear waste dump there or not”, she said.
Spurious excuses
The rationale for the dump is spurious. There is no compelling scientific or public safety necessity for one to be built.It has been repeatedly claimed that a specialised waste dump is required to safely store low level waste (LLW) and long lived intermediate level waste (LLIW).
Most of the LLW is derived from medical isotopes used in hospitals and clinics, while the LLIW comes almost exclusively from the nuclear reactor at Lucas Heights in Sydney. It is this latter type of waste that is of most concern because it is highly toxic and radioactive for a lengthy period.
Sweeney explains further: “In the 1990s there was a departmental decision made that the best way to manage Australia’s radioactive waste was through developing a centralised remote dump or store. This decision was made by unelected bureaucrats and has since been uncritically adopted and advanced by successive federal governments. A remote dump is one way to manage waste; it is not the only way and has never been proven to be the best way.”
The push for a nuclear waste facility also ties in with a desire by the Australian ruling class to maintain a stake in the global nuclear industry. Aboriginal rights, the safety of workers and environmental concerns are being quashed or ignored in order to pursue profit.
The justification for storage of medical waste is also a complete furphy. Sweeney told Red Flag, “The medical myth is a deeply disturbing aspect of the Muckaty story. Both major parties have consistently misrepresented the situation by claiming that the Muckaty dump is needed to ensure Australians have access to nuclear medicine for therapeutic and diagnostic reasons.
“This is not the case – and medical waste is not the driver for the planned dump. Medical and public health bodies including the Medical Association for the Prevention of War and the Public Health Association of Australia have repeatedly condemned the conflation of these issues”, he said.
The promotion of the waste dump on an economic basis, including for local Aboriginal communities, also deeply concerns Shaw. “It is disgusting to talk about a nuclear waste dump as being part of economic development because there is no economic development in nuclear waste dumping”, she said.
“People around the country need to do their homework. They need to look at Mother [Nature] at work, especially when we have had accidents like Chernobyl, the tsunami in Japan and Fukushima, and of course there is the bombing of Maralinga here. The general public needs to think about whether they want to have nuclear waste travelling through their towns and their states, because accidents do happen.”
Whatever the outcome of the legal proceedings, Sweeney says that a public campaign needs to continue, including a transparent discussion about what to do with existing nuclear waste – simply passing unjust legislation and railroading Aboriginal and community rights is not the answer. “We need to move from the failed search for a vulnerable postcode to a genuine commitment to a credible process. Radioactive waste lasts longer that any politician’s promise, and we need to get its management right. This needs to be based on sound science and open and inclusive decision making and reflect international best practice. None of this is occurring at Muckaty.”

Jon Lamb

Cathy Lawless

No NT nuclear waste dump!

Western Australian Liberal Premier Colin Barnett has given the green light to local and multinational mining companies to expand exploration and commercial production of shale gas reserves found in the Canning Basin in the Kimberley region. In doing so, he has demonstrated his government’s ongoing commitment to ride roughshod over Aboriginal rights and environmental concerns in order to stitch up money-grubbing deals for mining and construction companies.
Ranked among the top five shale gas deposits in the world, the fields of the Canning Basin are a potential super-profits bonanza for Australian and overseas mining corporations. The deposits cover a huge area – over twice the size of Victoria. According to the United States Energy Information Administration, the known deposits in the Canning Basin are more than double Australia’s offshore reserves and represent the most promising location for unconventional gas extraction outside the United States.
The gas will be extracted by hydraulic fracturing (“fracking”), which involves pumping sand, water and chemicals into underground rock formations to create fractures through which the gas can be released. The process risks ground water contamination and other environmental impacts. It was banned in France two years ago.
The expansion of mining operations in Western Australia will dramatically increase the number of fracking wells and pipeline and road construction stretching over tens of thousands of square kilometres of Aboriginal land. The area includes the second largest artesian basin in Australia. In many places aquifers are adjacent to the strata where fracking operations will take place.
Community opposition
Lack of consultation with traditional owners and concerns over the spread of fracking wells has sparked community opposition. Jabir Jabir woman Lorna Kelly told Red Flag that people are not aware of the extent of current exploration, let alone future plans. “There wasn’t proper info on the ground for the public, so while we were trying to protect James Price Point, they were actually working on other deals which were taking place, which actually started in 2010.”
Kelly is deeply concerned about the impact of mining. “The fracking is a major concern within our community and has a major impact on our environment – it can lead to deformity and impacts all living things. One of the major issues is that we Aboriginal people still hunt and live off the land.”
Legal challenges are being prepared by clan and family groups from the Yawuru, Nyikina Mangala and Karajarri. Wayne Bergmann, a spokesperson for KRED Enterprises, which is representing traditional owners, told reporters on 19 June: “We are concerned that the agreement creates a new form of tenure for the companies and has major effects on the procedural rights afforded to the traditional owners under the Native Title Act … The act is flimsy enough as it is without the state government trying to circumvent it to support the interests of big multinational companies over Aboriginal people.”
The Barnett government has also passed legislation securing land at James Price Point for a future gas processing facility, which has been at the centre of a campaign by a coalition of Aboriginal and environmental activists who have fought to protect sacred sites and unique coastal areas. The mining companies and the government have sought to divide and manipulate the community.
Kelly points to some of the current mining practices and impacts around the Fitzroy Crossing area of the Kimberley: “With regards to water, with regards to employment and our people working in different places, the town [Fitzroy Crossing] is showing an ugly side. There is a lot of red neck stuff going on that our people have to put up with if they try to do some training to get into work which is rubbish.”
‘Third World situation’
“You have got those who are trying to protect the environment and those who are trying to stay alive and stay afloat with their family”, Kelly told Red Flag. “There needs to be consciousness and awareness raised in regards to the Canning Basin and the shale gas and fracking going on. We don’t want that in our community. We don’t want that in our region. A lot of our people still live in a Third World situation, you know. Australia is a very rich country and Western Australia holds considerable wealth, so how come we are still living a Third World lifestyle today? It doesn’t measure up.”
“We still have to prove today, through the process of native title, who we are – when we know where we come from and who we are and how we are attached to country”, she said.
Whatever crumb-like benefits may be offered from the expansion of projects in the Kimberley, it will do little to overcome decades of abject poverty and exploitation. The poor track record of the Barnett government on Indigenous rights, along with the policies of previous Labor state governments, has led to serious social breakdown and trauma for Aboriginal people across WA.
Youth suicide rates are among the highest in the world. Aboriginal leaders have described the situation as “an absolute epidemic”. At the same time, the rate of incarceration of Indigenous youth is steadily rising, adding to the dislocation of a generation. Aboriginal youth in WA are 43 times more likely to be detained than non-Aboriginal youth.
Kelly told Red Flag that the fight against the mining companies and the government is “a matter of protecting our humanity. It’s our human rights – our right to live on this planet, our right to look after what we have without being run over by mining companies and the government. The government needs to see who we really are. We make this country, we are not just herds of cattle. We are human.”

A fracking disaster for the Kimberley

Addressing Indigenous leaders in Yirrkala in the Northern Territory on 10 July, Kevin Rudd announced his intention to hold a referendum to recognise Indigenous people in the constitution. “I want us to agree on the question to be put to the Australian people”, he said. “No more delays, no more excuses, no more buck passing. It is time that the nation got on with this business.”
Few are being fooled by the new referendum agenda.
The annual NAIDOC (National Aborigines and Islanders Day Observance Committee) march on 12 July in Melbourne brought around 2,000 mostly Aboriginal people into the streets. Red Flag asked attendees about their thoughts on the proposed referendum, and the key issues facing Aboriginal people today.
“The referendum will not change anything, absolutely not. The Intervention in the Northern Territory needs to end, and those people who that racist policy is impacting on, they need to be listened to and given a voice, rather than those bureaucrats talking on their behalf.”
Wendy Crabbin, Wamba Wamba woman
"Things are no different from back in the days when the pastoralists took away our lands; actually things are getting worse. I honestly believe that it is getting worse. Standing up and fighting back is important. Fight and don’t give up, don’t let them win. This is our country, our land and it has been taken from us. Remember your identity, where you come from and never forget that you are Aboriginal and be proud. Stand up and be proud, all you Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islanders.”
Ngarri, from Western NSW, second generation stolen
“This land was illegally occupied in the first place. If the government isn’t going to acknowledge that fact, then I don’t expect that they are going to acknowledge anything else.”
Aunty Rio, Bundjalong and Jinibara woman
“I think it’s about the land at the end of the day, the land that they are mining on. What are [they] going to do about the destruction of our land? What are [they] going to do when it’s all gone and destroyed, then are [they] going to give it back to us?”
Callum Brown, Yorta Yorta, Gunditjmara and Wiradjuri man
“We are here to represent where we are from and to stand up for ourselves. It is important to stand up so that people know who we are and what our culture is and to get our rights. We are fighting for our land. The government is taking our land.”
Amelia and Sherrie, Kamilaroi clan
“We need to start associating incarceration with genocide. We need to start associating the taking of our children with genocide. We need to start associating native title/stolen land with genocide. We need to start associating sovereignty with right and the only way to successfully coexist on this continent! Fuck ‘con’stitutional inclusion of First Nations peoples!”
Young Brisbane tent embassy member 
“If within two years Rudd writes Aboriginal people into the constitution, I think that it will very much extinguish the rights of Aboriginal people in terms of sovereignty… We will become part of the Australian state, and therefore we would lose the basis for treaty and we would lose the basis for land rights – it’s going to be the biggest theft in the history of Australia.”
Sharon Firebrace, Yorta Yorta woman, long-term activist and member of the stolen generation

No NT nuclear waste dump!

A fracking disaster for the Kimberley

The con of constitutional recognition

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