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UK campaigners call on Australian PM to withdraw Kimba nuke dump threat

UK campaign groups opposed to nuclear waste dumps were ‘delighted’ to hear that their counterparts in Australia, the Barngarla Determination Aboriginal Corporation, have just won their court case against the imposition of a similar dump on their Traditional Lands.

In a historic judgement given earlier this week (18 July), Her Honour Justice Charlesworth in the Federal Court of Australia handed down a decision to quash Federal Government plans to move nuclear waste from the reactor at Lucas Heights to an unwanted waste dump at Napandee near Kimba in South Australia. Justice Charlesworth charged government officials with ‘pre-judgement’ and ‘apprehended bias’.

In March, the UK/Ireland Nuclear Free Local Authorities joined Radiation Free Lakeland, Millom against the Nuclear Dump / South Copeland against GDF, and Guardians of the East Coast, which are local groups fighting plans to locate a so-called Geological Disposal Facility in either West Cumbria or East Lincolnshire, wrote a joint letter to the Australian Government to raise their international objections to the plan.

Our objections were that there was no need for such a dump as the facility at Lucas Heights has capacity to take the waste and that the rights to the land by the Traditional Owners were being wilfully and shamefully disregarded, contrary to international law, with the government giving no proper consideration to the position of the Barngarla.

The attempt to impose a nuclear waste dump is all par for the course in Australia with the ill-treatment of Indigenous Peoples by corporations, political elites and the military over nuclear matters having an established history, with First Nation territories ravaged by uranium mining or shattered by British atomic weapon testing.

Following the damning judgement, the four British organisations have today written to the Prime Minister of Australia Anthony Albanese asking him to ‘take the honourable and courageous course of action’, withdraw the plan and ‘leave the Barngarla in peace’.

A copy of the letter and a message of solidarity will be sent to the Barngarla Determination Aboriginal Corporation. more https://www.nuclearpolicy.info/news/uk-campaigners-call-on-australian-pm-to-withdraw-kimba-nuke-dump-threat/

July 22, 2023 - Posted by Christina Macpherson | Uncategorized