Legal Challenge as Australian Govt Sneaks in Nuclear Waste Dump Plan

The Senate is due tomorrow to debate the National Radioactive Waste Management Bill, which if passed will open the way for the government to build the dump on Muckaty station, 120 kilometres north of Tennant Creek.Ownership of nuclear waste site disputed.

the government’s secret and divisive process to build the dump on Muckaty would be strongly resisted in Tennant Creek as well as nationally and internationally.

Ownership of nuclear waste site disputed, Lindsay Murdoch in Tennant Creek, Sydney Morning Herald, May 9, 2011 DOCUMENTS unearthed in the National Archives challenge the Gillard government’s push to build a nuclear waste dump on disputed Aboriginal land near Tennant Creek, lawyers say.

Martin Hyde, a senior associate of the law firm Maurice Blackburn, says the discovery of documents showing that one Aboriginal family group does not exclusively own the land raises serious questions about the nomination of the site by the Northern Land Council.

”This is vital information for the case,” said Mr Hyde.

Traditional owners have begun a challenge to the nomination in the Federal Court.

……The Senate is due tomorrow to debate the National Radioactive Waste Management Bill, which if passed will open the way for the government to build the dump on Muckaty station, 120 kilometres north of Tennant Creek.Yesterday Aborigines opposed to building the dump on Muckaty and environmentalists staged a symbolic blocking of a bridge near Tennant Creek to signal they will blockade the site if the dump is built there.A traditional owner, Dianne Stokes, said the passing of the bill would be only the start of a fight by her Warlmanpa tribe. ”We will never give up … people have given away land that doesn’t belong to them,” she said…..Under a deal struck with the land council, the family of Amy Lauder will receive $12 million from the government.

Dave Sweeney, a nuclear campaigner for the Australian Conservation Foundation, who attended yesterday’s protest, said the government’s secret and divisive process to build the dump on Muckaty would be strongly resisted in Tennant Creek as well as nationally and internationally.

”There should be an independent and comprehensive assessment undertaken into how best to manage Australia’s nuclear waste,” Mr Sweeney said.

Despite opposition from the Greens, the bill appears certain to pass with Coalition support.

Mr Hyde said the unearthed documents showed the Muckaty site was not exclusively owned by Ms Lauder’s family, as claimed by the Northern Land Council.

He said they also reveal that the council’s own anthropological experts tendered evidence before the Aboriginal Land Commissioner showing that Muckaty was owned by three family sub-groups.

Mr Hyde said the legal challenge to the nomination will continue regardless of the passage of the legislation.

A West Australian Greens senator, Scott Ludlam, who was at Tennant Creek for the protest, said the government was trying to ram the bill through on budget day with minimum debate.

He said scientific experts had said the dump should not be built at a remote site far away from emergency services…..

Ownership of nuclear waste site disputed

May 9, 2011 - Posted by Christina Macpherson | AUSTRALIA, politics

1 Comment »

Australia shouldn’t have this dump at all, if so Canberra can have it!

Comment by Carrol | February 27, 2012 | Reply

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