Dissenting Report by Senator Scott Ludlam
Australian Greens Senator for Western Australia
These dissenting remarks are restricted to citations or
comments in the Committee’s report that exaggerate the prospects of the uranium
market in the Indian Ocean Region or which erroneously refer to nuclear as a
clean energy source.
The Department of Resources and Energy falsely states that
uranium is the “sleeping giant of Australian export commodities.” While the
indestructible optimism of the Department may have therapeutic value, it is
simply not grounded in reality.
Uranium accounts for only 0.29 per cent of national export
revenue and less than 0.015 per cent of Australian jobs in the decade to 2011.
Further, companies like BHP and Cameco are mothballing their uranium projects.
The fact is that the nuclear industry has been badly shaken
by the global financial crisis, its spiralling costs, the ongoing Fukushima
disaster and overwhelming competition from renewable energy.
Market growth forecasts conjured by the Department project
Asia outpacing the US for Australia’s uranium. That forecast is predicated on
selling uranium to states like India, a nuclear weapon state with an appalling
track record on nuclear safety that produced its arsenal from a Canadian-supplied
reactor it pledged to use only for ‘peaceful purposes’.
While the Department describes Australia as “well placed to
benefit” of such sales, the Indian people do not benefit. The Auditor General
of India has condemned the Indian nuclear industry in part because there is no
national policy on nuclear and radiation safety, and inspections, safety
standards, emergency response plans, the supervision of licensing of nuclear
sites, and the disposal of nuclear waste are all dangerously sub-standard.
Just eight years ago, K. Subrahmanyam, former head of the
national security advisory board in India, said: ‘...it is to India's advantage
to categorise as many power reactors as possible as civilian ones to be
refuelled by imported uranium and conserve our native uranium fuel for
weapons-grade plutonium production'. Australian uranium will benefit only
India's nuclear weapons capacity.
In India, hundreds of thousands of men and women have
mobilised in peaceful anti-nuclear protests - and they have been subject to
severe, brutal repression from police. Five of the activists have been murdered
since 2010 in the struggle against the nuclear industry in Koodankulam (Tamil
Nadu), Jaitapur (Maharashtra) and Gorakhpur (Haryana).
The “benefits” described by the Department of Resources
should not be countenanced when they will be gained from thrusting this
material and technology upon unwilling communities at gunpoint.
The myth that Australian uranium in nuclear reactors would
assist India with a low carbon technology is not credible when uranium mining,
the building of nuclear power plants and their ongoing running are all carbon
intensive, as is the storage of nuclear waste for up to 250,000 years in the
case of plutonium.
The NT Government’s reference to nuclear energy as clean is
also absurd. Nuclear reactors routinely emit radiation as a normal part of
their operation. Radiation is uniquely hazardous, persistent and
indiscriminate, damaging our DNA which is passed on to future generations.
Nuclear facilities are an obvious strategic or terrorist target – they turn
conventional weapons into potential 'dirty bombs'. Accidents are a fact of
life that no amount of engineering can completely overcome. Serious accidents
at nuclear power plants can be catastrophic – potentially killing tens of
thousands of people and rendering vast tracts of land uninhabitable for
hundreds of years.
The only sustainable long term solution is to phase out the
use of fossil fuels and phase in the use of renewable energy and energy efficiency
technologies. Not only will this help to protect the climate and reduce the
pollution and health effects of fossil fuels, it will also create independence
for countries in the Indian Ocean Region currently reliant on fossil fuels from
unstable areas such as the Middle East.
No one need be killed or injured for want of a wind turbine
or solar panel and for this reason it is appropriate to call renewable energy
peaceful and clean. Every country has abundant indigenous sources of their own
renewable energy. The Indian Ocean Region has abundant solar radiation that
could power solar thermal power plants, providing sustainable, reliable and
independent energy. Australia providing that form of technology and
assistance, rather than uranium, would provide tangible and material benefits
to both Australia and the countries of the Indian Ocean Rim
Senator Scott Ludlam
Australian Greens
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