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Police helicopters, security escorts, midnight shipments: A window to Howard's nuclear vision
Monday 18 December 2006
The transport of ten containers of lethal nuclear waste across Sydney last night is a window to Australia's nuclear future if John Howard's vision of enrichment and twenty-five reactors around the country is made real, Australian Greens nuclear spokesperson Senator Milne said in Hobart today.
"Far from being 'safe', nuclear materials are now prized by terrorist organisations and that is why police helicopters and escorts accompanied this deadly cargo.
"The sleeping residents of Sydney were mostly oblivious to the threat posed by the movement of ten containers of nuclear waste across the city to Botany Bay and transfer onto a ship to the U.S.
"If John Howard follows the advice of the nuclear lobby and takes Australia down the nuclear path, this scenario will become a regular feature of life in Australia and especially for the twenty-five communities and regions across the country with a reactor in their backyard.
"Being a nuclear fuel supplier and waste dump in George Bush's
nuclear vision has huge security ramifications for Australia and the
region.
"Has the Prime Minister consulted our Pacific neighbours about this shipment of high level waste through the Nuclear Free Pacific?
"Like Australian communities, Pacific islanders recognise just how dangerous this waste is and do not want it transported in their territorial waters.
"How long will it be before heavily armed personnel are deployed to accompany high level nuclear waste coming in from overseas via Darwin en route to a nuclear waste dump in the Northern Territory?
"Australia should reject the Prime Minister's notions about an increased role in George Bush's Global Nuclear Energy Partnership and instead get behind renewable energy which is safe, and needs no police helicopter or midnight operations to deal with intractable waste," Senator Milne said.
Contact: Cassy O'Connor 03 6234 4566 or 0437 587 562
18/12/06
