Vested interests shaping government policy ON LINE Opinion Simon Roz , 24 April 2008 - "You have to hand it to the Greenhouse Mafia, aka the Australian Greenhouse Industry Network (AGIN). In their submission to Professor Ross Garnaut, among their justifications for doing as little as possible to address climate change, they drop little pearlers such as: "leaving aside the moral dimension of the issue" and the "Interim Report's initial views on equity are of concern".

To the AGIN, the issue is only about least-cost abatement and the economic impacts of an Emission Trading Scheme (ETS). They also took a swipe at the Mandatory Renewable Energy Target (MRET) when they stated it had "features that should not be repeated" in an ETS.Their simple suggestion: leave it to the markets to discover the solutions.

................the worrying aspect is that this industry lobby group may have just as much clout in shaping policy under a Rudd Labor Government as they did under the climate sceptic-riddled Howard government. In their submission, AGIN suggest that the Productivity Commission be the official body responsible for examining which of the existing climate measures should be axed once an Emissions Trading Scheme commences, such as the MRET.
It was the Productivity Commission that attempted to discredit the 2006 Stern Review earlier this year.Among its claims, the Commission pointed to "value judgments and ethical perspectives" that distorted Stern's analysis and said that Stern had "exaggerated" the likely impacts of increasing greenhouse emissions.............................

Kevin Rudd and Penny Wong will need to root out any remaining bureaucracies infected with climate sceptics - such as those in the Productivity Commission. Erasing these sad remnants of the Howard legacy will begin to diminish the Australian Greenhouse Industry Network's influence over Australian climate policy. That will allow those who know what the real solutions to climate are to start delivering the emission reductions we need to see.

The Australian publishes deliberate misuse of scientific data GreensBlog April 23, 2008 by Tim Hollo - "Those of you who might still read The Australian would have seen that they splashed on their opinions page and in the news pages today the claims of Phil Chapman, Australia's first astronaut, that climate change is bunkum and an ice age cometh.
Apparently global warming has stopped, we are now cooling, and it's all down to sunspot activity.

The story might be worthy of consideration were it not for the fact that it is based on a completely inexcusable misuse of scientific data.
………………………………Chapman's claim takes the weather vs climate confusion a step further. Instead of comparing trends, or even yearly averages, he is comparing January 2007, one of the hottest months on record, with January 2008, 0.7C cooler and one of the coolest Januaries in recent years thanks to La Nina. This comparison has about as much bearing on climate science as whether this Monday happened to be cooler than last Monday ………
……………….To the second point, Chapman's misuse of the data was deliberately calculated to disguise that fact that all four of the respected bodies he cites concluded that, far from being "exceptionally cold", 2007 was the equal second or third hottest year on record around the globe.

.........................................The real question is, why does The Australian continue to publish this stuff which a basic fact check would show to be not only wrong but a deliberate falsification of science? .........................................."

British nuclear test photos challenge official findings Sydney Morning Herald Jonathan Dart April 21, 2008 - "KEN PALMER and Michael Rowe remember being on HMAS Murchison as naive 18-year-old national servicemen almost 60 years ago, while it was patrolling the West Australian coast near the Monte Bello Islands.
The day was October 3, 1952, and they were ordered on deck, wearing what Mr Rowe remembers as "standard navy uniform" - shorts, thongs and no shirt - to witness Britain's first detonation of an atomic bomb.

Since then, the Department of Defence has told them they were never on the Murchison and, lately, that the ship was too far away to be affected by the blast……

……….Now they and nine other members of the ship's crew are ready to lobby the Government with evidence of their claim: previously unpublished photographs taken by Mr Rowe from the decks on the day of the explosion, showing the bomb's mushroom cloud.

The photos challenge the conclusions of a royal commission into official records of the tests, which found that the Murchison was more than 112 kilometres from the blast. '

That is just absurd' Mr Rowe said.'There's no chance that a camera that size, with such primitive technology, could have captured what we did at that distance'…………

…………….Last week Mr Griffin met members of the Australian Nuclear Veterans Association, which is demanding comprehensive health care and formal recognition of their service from the Federal Government……………………..The association's president, Ric Johnstone, said the experience of Murchison veterans was common among those who took part in the tests.He is preparing to take a class action against the Federal Government in case it fails to meet his group's demands for compensation......

..................'The problem has always been governments stalling by either putting on studies or royal commissions or forming new committees to waste time,'he said. 'Previous governments have spent millions in their own defence and yet they could have written this problem off 30 years ago by saying, 'OK, your service was hazardous and we'll give you a gold card [entitling the bearer to comprehensive health cover]'.........". .

told there was "no logical reason" to carry out radiation or health tests, even though the organisation already knew of the radiation threat.........................………..Documents, stored in the National Archive since they were found in 1977 by the then deputy leader of the federal opposition, Tom Uren, show a pattern of stalling and playing down the risks, despite the fact that radiation tests showed that someone living at No. 11 could have been exposed to 26,500 millirems in a year. The annual dose considered safe is 100 millirems..

In the NSW Health Commission letter of February 9, 1977, a senior public servant told officials that radiation testing should continue 'provided that in so doing we do not conspicuously draw attention to ourselves and we do not discuss the matter with other persons, such as the council, until further advised'...............................".

Fury at nuclear waste disgrace for Sydney News.com.au By Simon Benson January 29, 2008 - "THE NSW Government is planning to excavate a secret radioactive dump on premium harbourfront real estate and truck the dangerous material to Sydney's western suburbs.

More than 30 years after discovering it was emitting significant levels of radiation, NSW Health is attempting to dump its nuclear problem on the people of western Sydney so it can sell a multi-million dollar block of land.

Decaying away on the modest residential block at Nelson Pde, Hunters Hill, 5km west of the CBD, is an estimated 1000 tonnes of radioactive waste buried under a few centimetres of soil.
According to the Department of Environment's records, the land contains tailings of uranium 238, thorium 230, lead 210 and radium 226.

Both the Department of Environment and NSW Health maintained the site was completely safe.

But a company contracted by The Daily Telegraph just last week detected radioactive gamma rays of up to 10 times higher than acceptable exposure levels at the site - which residents are now only learning was once home to Australia's first uranium processing plant. ………

…………'This site is effectively a nuclear waste dump,' said Liberal MP Michael Richardson, who obtained documents under Freedom of Information revealing authorities have known about it for decades. ……………

………….Government documents dating back to 1978 reveal a 30-year history of inaction and cover-up by successive governments of the waste dump containing 1000 tonnes of radioactive tailings stockpiled on the site since 1915 by the then Radium Hill Company.

A NSW Health Commission warning of October 28, 1978 to a neighbouring resident revealed that testing uncovered radioactive readings twice the acceptable level on their property as well………………………The land was never decontaminated. .

Russia's nuclear propaganda targets Australia
The Russian government clearly understands that it's trying to pull a fast one on the Australian public and on the world.Enerpub by Robert Amsterdam 8 Nov 07"......................a recent issue of VESTNIK ATOMPROMa, a Russian 'magazine about the nuclear industry'.......Clearly, the real organization behind the magazine is the historically extremely secretive Rosatom - Russia's Federal Agency for Atomic Energy, formerly known as Minatom............

........The cover of issue No.5 (of VESTNIK ATOMPROM) dated September 2007 sports a full-page photo of Rosatom head Sergei Kiriyenko having an intense discussion with his boss, Vladimir Putin, against a backdrop of the Russian and Australian flags.

The cover story, entitled 'The Australian Success of Russia', naturally has nothing but praise for the controversial Australia-Russia Nuclear Cooperation Agreement, The article actually shows several photos of the environmental devastation caused to Aboriginal lands by the giant open-pit operation at Rio Tinto's Ranger site in the Northern Territory, but you'd never guess from this breezy text, a single paragraph of which simultaneously manages to suggest that the dirt-poor Aboriginals are wealthy and to belittle their religious beliefs as mere childish superstition standing in the way of human progress..................................................................."

Scientists silenced over BHP desal plant: MP
ABC News Oct 26, 2007 A South Australian State MP says Government scientists are being gagged from speaking out about the environmental impact of a proposed desalination plant in Upper Spencer Gulf.BHP Billiton wants to build the largest desalination plant in the southern hemisphere to supply water for its proposed Olympic Dam expansion.

The Member for Flinders, Liz Penfold, says she has been told scientists, including those at the South Australian Research and Development Institute (SARDI), are being gagged about its impact.

She says it is a disturbing situation, given the region's environmental importance and value to the fishing and aquaculture industries.

We must make sure that the environment out there in the ocean is going to be sustainable and the best people to tell us are our very own marine scientists," she said.
'It concerned me greatly when I heard that they are not allowed to say anything adverse about the desalination plant."

Nuclear Politics: Taking the A Train By: Alison Broinowski
NewMatilda.com Monday 1 October 2007 - "..............nothing earthshaking, region-transforming, or climate-changing happened during APEC. But quietly, during the summit, Australia agreed to sign on to George Bush's Global Nuclear Energy Partnership (GNEP), and to sell uranium to Russia...................................A select bunch of nuclear weapons states - plus non-nuclear Japan and Australia - went to Vienna after APEC and signed up to GNEP........................But it's when they get to the storage of waste that all eyes turn to Australia, whose official line is to allow the export of uranium, but not to import nuclear waste. In Vienna, Australia agreed to 'expand nuclear power to help meet growing energy demand in a sustainable manner and in a way that provides for safe operations of nuclear power plants and management of wastes.'

No-one in Sydney or Vienna mentioned a line of dots glowing in the dark

. It starts from Lucas Heights (where, by the way, Australia's only nuclear reactor has malfunctioned and been shut down for more than three months). It leads westward to Adelaide, then north to the Olympic Dam uranium mine, on through the desert past nuclear waste sites, military bases, and Aboriginal land, to the port of Darwin. The line completing the circuit and connecting the dots is the new north-south railway. ............

............The sole tender for construction of the line was KBR, a subsidiary of Halliburton, the US company that Dick Cheney headed before he became Vice-President. Cheney visited Australia in the late-90s to negotiate the deal...................

..............The north-south railway passes between the largest uranium deposits in the world. In late 2006, just as Howard endorsed a report advocating nuclear power for Australia, a consortium of mining industry leaders announced their intention to build a nuclear power plant near Port Augusta, northwest of Adelaide. One of them, Howard admitted, had discussed it with him six months earlier.

The railway would presumably be a vital link, carrying uranium ore to Darwin for export and processing overseas, and bringing it back to Port Augusta as nuclear fuel. The spent fuel could then either be transported to Darwin for export or carried south for disposal at a waste site in central Australia. .........................

.................Dr John White, who has advised Howard and heads Australian Nuclear Fuel Leasing, told Macken the United States would be the biggest customer for storage, and would be so appreciative of access to the dump that Australia would never again be obliged to send troops to join American coalitions. ..............................

..............................More speeches from Howard are likely, leading up to the election, about Australia being a 'global energy superpower' that is traveling on the 'energy superhighway.' Some Australians will feel good about that, as well as about their country's part in defending freedom. But on and around the Adelaide-Darwin railway, a lot more is happening than we will find in the election slogans."

Danger: nuke cover-up Herald Sun Richard Broinowski and Tilman Ruff September 03, 2007 THE agency dealing with Australia's uranium exports is making an absurd claim. The Australian Safeguards and Non-Proliferation Office says Australia sells uranium only to countries with "impeccable" non-proliferation credentials.

In fact, Australia has uranium export agreements with nuclear weapon states that are failing to fulfil their disarmament obligations under the Non-Proliferation Treaty.
Australia is also dealing with states with a history of covert nuclear weapons research based on their "civil" nuclear programs.
The Australian Government permits uranium sales to countries, including the United States, which are blocking progress on the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty and the proposed Fissile Material Cut-Off Treaty.
This is supported by the Safeguards Office and the Government proposes allowing uranium sales to India, which is not a signatory to the Non-Proliferation Treaty.
This is a serious blow to the international non-proliferation regime, yet has been met with silence from the Safeguards Office.
.........................Perhaps the most misleading of the claims made by the Safeguards Office is its repeated assertion that nuclear power does not present a weapons proliferation risk. ................At worst, the Safeguards Office serves the commercial interests of the nuclear industry and the political interests of those who promote it. It contributes more to the problem of nuclear weapons proliferation than to the solutions.
We call on the Federal Government to establish an independent public inquiry to review all aspects of the Safeguards Office......................................."

Australian Nuclear Fuel Leasing ?

In The Age 1/3/07, it is reported that " a key adviser to the Howard Government on uranium policy, Melbourne businessman John White, registered a nuclear company in October last year. Mr White headed the Howard Government's uranium industry framework, which recommended a significant expansion of uranium mining in Australia.

Australian Securities and Investments Commission documents show Mr White registered Australian Nuclear Fuel Leasing Pty Ltd only weeks before Mr Switkowski released a draft report recommending Australia builds nuclear reactors. ("Costello 'backed' nuclear "idea " by Katharine Murphy.}

'Billions' in nuke storage - Herald Sun George Lekakis - February 28, 2007 Melbourne businessman John White, a former chief executive of Visy Industries and Transfield Defence Systems, is applying to international regulators to win approval as a nuclear services provider. Mr White is the principal of Australian Nuclear Fuel Leasing, which was formed in October last year to market uranium to offshore power plants under lease deals.

Under lease contracts, Mr White's company would undertake to manage nuclear fuel at all stages of production from extraction of uranium to disposal of waste. It would remain the technical owner of the nuclear fuel and would earn revenue by managing the transfer of spent nuclear fuel rods to waste dumps. ....................

.Companies such as Australian Nuclear Fuel Leasing are likely to flourish regardless of whether Federal and State governments allow nuclear generation to proceed in Australia. Such companies are effectively "middlemen" in the nuclear fuel industry and are likely to be sustained so long as the volume of Australian uranium exports is maintained or increased. ..................."