Kathy Newnam
The "green" propaganda campaign being run by the nuclear industry and its political backers in both major parties has intensified as uranium prices have doubled over the past 12 months. This price increase has prompted a surge in the number of uranium companies exploring across Australia — from five in 2003 to more than 70 today.
This is the context in which Martin Ferguson, Labor's shadow resources minister, is leading the charge to overturn the ALP's three-uranium-mine policy at its 2006 National Conference. At last year's Australian Uranium Conference, he said: "We as a community have to be part of the ever-complex question of how we clean up the world's climate. And part of that debate is going to be nuclear power."
The debate over uranium, which has simmered away inside the ALP for decades, is now being given new life by Ferguson as he and the pro-nuclear lobby attempt to capitalise on growing concerns about climate change to win support for their dangerous agenda.
In August 2005, the federal government took control of the approvals process in the Northern Territory. Approvals for
new mines in the Labor-controlled states will require a change in ALP policy, currently prohibiting the development of some of the largest uranium deposits in Queensland and Western Australia.
The "nuclear as a solution to climate change" argument is not new. For instance, in 1990 former ALP national secretary Bob Hogg used it in his unsuccessful campaign to overturn Labor's three-mine policy. Others keen on opening up new uranium mines include new party president Warren Mundine, national executive member and Queensland secretary of the Australian Worker's Union, Bill Ludwig, and former NSW premier and now Macquarie Bank consultant Bob Carr.
South Australia — the yellowcake state
The 2005 South Australian ALP State Conference unanimously endorsed a motion against new uranium mines and an expansion of enrichment processing. But the SA minister for minerals development, Paul Holloway, and deputy premier Kevin Foley have publicly opposed the party's policy.
In addition, the SA Labor government and Premier Mike Rann are strongly supporting the expansion of the Olympic Dam mine, which will allow the BHP/Billiton-run mine to quadruple its uranium output to become the largest uranium mine
in the world.
Friends of the Earth says that since Olympic Dam opened in 1988 it has generated 60 million tonnes of radioactive waste. This is dumped on site and there is no long-term waste management plan. The mine currently uses more than 30 million litres of water daily from the Great Artesian Basin — destroying some of the mound springs that depend on the basin. The mine's expansion will require up to 100 million more litres of water a day, which could also be drawn from the Murray River and desalinated water from the Spencer Gulf.
Despite its stated opposition to new mines, the Rann government has allowed the Honeymoon mine to proceed. It gained approval from the previous Liberal state government. South Australia is also home to Beverly, the only new uranium mine opened since the Coalition government was elected in 1996.
Thin edge of the wedge
Howard's first environment policy statement was to quash Labor's three-mines restriction. The Coalition's move to open new mines sparked widespread resistance; the proposed development of Jabiluka mine, first by Pancontinental and then by Energy Resources of Australia (ERA), in Kakadu National Park was eventually halted by the traditional Mirrar owners in conjunction with a concerted national and international campaign.
The development of Jabiluka had long been in the sights of ERA, which runs the nearby Ranger mine but had been prevented from expanding by Labor's three-mine policy. While the policy did limit the expansion of the uranium industry it was, in fact, a betrayal of the anti-nuclear movement, which had played a crucial role in getting the ALP elected in 1983 on a platform that included total opposition to uranium mining. The adoption of the three-mine policy in 1984 prompted large numbers of ALP members to resign, many going on to join the newly created Nuclear Disarmament Party.
The three-mine policy allowed for the Ranger and Narbalek mines in the Northern Territory. An amendment, engineered by Hogg, allowed for the future opening of the Olympic Dam mine in SA.
After the Coalition victory in 1996, the ALP adopted a "no new mines" policy — replacing its "phase-out" policy, which would have ensured that uranium mining ceased after the three mines were exhausted. But really, Labor's intention was always to leave the door open to the future expansion of the industry.
Widespread anti-uranium sentiment continued after Labor's three-mine policy sell-out, expressed most clearly by the hundreds of thousands of people who turned out to the annual Palm Sunday peace marches in the 1980s.
Close the nuclear industry
The arguments used to support the "no new mines" policy then echo those used today. They include the statement that "closing existing mines would be economically irresponsible". Labor leader Kim Beazley said last October that the ALP will not "impose on the mining industry a sovereign risk issue". While distancing himself from Ferguson's crude pro-uranium push, Beazley has talked up Australia's role as "a player in the international uranium business". But at his February 1 National Press Club address he ruled out nuclear power under a federal labor government. Some interpret this to mean he does not want a debate over uranium mining, nuclear power and how to dispose of the waste — at least for now.
Much of the opposition to a policy change within the ALP is not based on a principled stand against uranium mining. Queensland Premier Peter Beattie, for example, opposes the industry's expansion because he is worried about it competing with the coal industry.
Some inside the party are concerned about the likely electoral fallout, and the continued seepage of ALP members to the Greens. Australian Manufacturing Workers Union national secretary Doug Cameron told the ABC last September that "if the Labor Party is to win the next election it will need the votes of environmentalists ... I think the Labor Party needs to differentiate itself from the Howard government, not with some tame imitation of the government, and by simply adopting a policy to support uranium mining, when none of the environmental issues have been properly dealt with."
The contradiction for Cameron and the ALP left is that their party already supports uranium mining, albeit on a restricted basis. But Ferguson, in cahoots with the nuclear industry, will do away with that restriction unless they are stopped by a concerted public campaign opposing all uranium mining. Jabiluka shows it has been done, and it can be done again.
From Â鶹´«Ã½ Weekly, February 8, 2006.
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