A public meeting on April 21 organised by the Beyond Nuclear Initiative and the Sydney Nuclear Free Coalition, at the University of Sydney, attracted 100 people.
Traditional owners Diane Stokes, Mark Lane and Mark Chungaloo from Muckaty, near Tennant Creek, explained their opposition to federal government plans to build a nuclear waste dump on their lands.
Stokes said the community wanted "no waste dump on our beautiful land… We are the traditional owners. We want to let them know that we will challenge them."
The Commonwealth Radioactive Waste Management Act was passed into law in 2005 under the government of former PM John Howard. The act overrides NT laws banning nuclear waste dumps in the Territory.
When in opposition, the ALP promised to repeal the act if elected. More than a year since the ALP took office, the act has still not been repealed. The federal government has refused to tell Indigenous communities when, or if, it will honour its promise.
WA Greens Senator Scott Ludlam also addressed the meeting. He dismissed the nuclear industry's claims that nuclear power is a solution to climate change. "The nuclear industry is deeply part of the problem", he said.
Ludlam attacked the pro-nuclear bias of ALP energy minister Martin Ferguson. "There is no effective [nuclear] policy difference between the ALP and the Liberals", he said.
Dave Sweeney, the Australian Conservation Foundation's nuclear-free campaigner, argued for an end to the mining and export of uranium in Australia.
The nuclear industry "diverts scarce resources away" from investment in renewable energy and could lead to the spread of nuclear weapons. "There is an inextricable link between civilian and military use of nuclear power", he said.
Genevieve Kelly, state secretary of the National Tertiary Education Union, said Sydney activists had an important role to play in stopping waste dumps in the NT.
"Eighty percent of the waste comes from Sydney's [Lucas Heights reactor]. The opposition has to come from here", she said.
Kelly explained the long campaign of residents in Sydney's Sutherland Shire to close down the Lucas Heights reactor. "The whole [nuclear] industry is based on lies", she said.
The next day, 60 people attended a protest against the 2009 World Nuclear Fuel Cycle Conference, held in the Sheraton on the Park hotel in Sydney's CBD. Protesters chanted: "Land rights, not mining rights. Break the nuclear chain."
[The Sydney Nuclear Free coalition meets monthly. For information visit or phone Nat on 0429 900 774.]