Media Release ‒ 25 June 2019 ‒ Friends of the Earth Australia

The ABC's Media Watch program last night took aim at Australia's pro-nuclear propagandists and the extreme bias of Australia's nuclear 'debate'.

Media Watch discussed HBO's hit miniseries 'Chernobyl', which tops IMDB's list of the greatest TV shows of all time, and took aim at Andrew Bolt and others for trivialising the death toll (discussed here) and for ignoring the broader impacts of the disaster such as the permanent relocation of 350,000 people and the thousands of children who suffered thyroid cancer due to exposure to radioactive fallout.

What do these politicians and ex-politicians have in common: Clive Palmer, Tony Abbott, Cory Bernardi, Barnaby Joyce, Mark Latham, Jim Molan, Craig Kelly, Eric Abetz, and David Leyonhjelm?

Small reactors are being heavily promoted but the economics don't stack up.

This year's Radioactive Exposure Tour (radtour), organised by FoE's Nuclear Free Campaign, was a big success.

Once again, the world finds itself in a dangerous place as one mad-man explodes increasingly powerful nuclear weapons and another mad-man threatens North Korea with "fire, fury and frankly power the likes of which this world has never seen before."

The two young co-founders of nuclear engineering start-up Transatomic Power were embarrassed earlier this year when their claims about their molten salt reactor design were debunked, forcing some major retractions.

The claims of MIT nuclear engineering graduates Leslie Dewan and Mark Massie were trumpeted in MIT’s Technology Review under the headline, ‘What if we could build a nuclear reactor that costs half as much, consumes nuclear waste, and will never melt down?’

It was with great sorrow that Friends of the Earth learnt of the passing of Yami Lester in July. Yankunytjatjara Elder, atomic test survivor, Aboriginal rights activist, father, grandfather and great-grandfather, Yami's voice and support will be sorely missed.

Conservation SA, the state's peak environment body, along with national environment groups Friends of the Earth Australia and the Australian Conservation Foundation, have today lodged a submission with the federal Department of Industry, Innovation and Science calling on the federal government to abandon any plan for a national nuclear waste dump in Kimba.

South Australian Premier Jay Weatherill made the announcement at a public forum at Victor Harbour this week, and pronounced the proposal to import 138,000 tonnes of high-level nuclear and 390,000 cubic metres of intermediate-level nuclear waste level waste from international nuclear states 'dead'.

This announcement has been welcomed by traditional owners, communities and environmental groups who have been opposed to the plans since the beginning of the South Australian Royal Commission into the Nuclear Fuel Cycle which began in early 2015. 

Friends of the Earth Australia is today releasing a detailed report on the National Radioactive Waste Management Act 2012 (NRWMA). The report ‒ written by Monash University fifth-year law student Amanda Ngo ‒ comes against the backdrop of the federal government's targeting of a site near Hawker in SA's Flinders Ranges for a national radioactive waste store and repository.