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Mal Brough's concern

By: Ideflitch (Registered ) on 25-10-2007 00:02

While Senator Andrew Bartlett doesn't doubt Mal Brough's concern for Aboriginal children, I certainly have my doubts. 
I would like to quote an article written by Dr. Alison Bronwoski to show why I doubt his good intentions. 
"In late June and early July, just as the Howard Government was dispatching the 
 
army to Aboriginal communities to deal 
 
with sexual abuse, the U.S. military was involved 
 
for two weeks in northern Australia in 
 
the biggest ever joint exercise, Talisman Sabre. 
 
Most Australians saw no connection. 
 
Military training areas, uranium mines, sites 
 
for future nuclear waste dumps and now Aboriginal 
 
land seized by the Commonwealth are 
 
dots across the Australian map. 
 
Several of them are connected by the 
 
Adelaide-Darwin railway. Having been many 
 
times promised, the $1.3 billion link from Alice 
 
Springs to Darwin was surprisingly found viable 
 
in 1999. By January, 2004, the train was 
 
running. The only tenderer, according to research 
 
at University of Technology Sydney, was 
 
the FreightLink consortium led by Halliburton 
 
(then headed by US vice-president Dick 
 
Cheney), with state, territory and federal contributions. 
 
FreightLink owns the railway and 
 
can operate it for 50 years. It has contracted 
 
UK firm Serco, to staff and service the train. 
 
Serco, which manages British nuclear power 
 
plants, gained a reputation in 2000 for sacking 
 
workers without AWAs at Australian naval 
 
bases in Jervis Bay. 
 
In November, 2006, FreightLink was reported 
 
to be facing its third annual loss in a row. It 
 
tried to sell a majority stake in the railway for 
 
$360 million, without success. The owners 
 
promised to invest an additional $14 million 
 
over three years, presumably betting on the 
 
line's long-term profitability. 
 
It must expect - or have been promised - the 
 
railway will serve the potentially lucrative 
 
nuclear and defence industries. 
 
Between 2004 and 2006, the Australian and 
 
U.S. governments announced more collaboration 
 
between American forces and the ADF, 
 
including missile defence (Star Wars) training, 
 
and interoperability. Several defence facilities 
 
in northern Australia have been built or expanded: 
 
at Bradshaw and Delamere in the 
 
Northern Territory, Shoalwater Bay in Queensland, 
 
and Yampi Sound and Geraldton in 
 
Western Australia. The railway pas

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2nd half of comment

By: Ideflitch (Registered ) on 25-10-2007 00:04

The railway would take uranium 
 
ore to Darwin for export, enrichment and 
 
fabrication, and bring it back to Port Augusta 
 
as nuclear fuel for the reactor. The spent fuel 
 
would then go back by rail to Darwin for export, 
 
or return to the NT for disposal at a waste site. 
 
The only "suitable" sites for disposal of 
 
nuclear waste under federal government control 
 
are in the NT. If the Commonwealth takes 
 
control of as many as 80 Aboriginal communities 
 
through five-year leases in the name of 
 
protecting children, it will put vast land areas 
 
at the Federal Government's discretion. 
 
The Government has begun to repeal parts 
 
of its 1999 legislation prohibiting nuclear activities. 
 
But it is unlikely before the 2007 
 
election to say where or how Australian nuclear 
 
waste will be stored. 
 
The U.S., meanwhile, has more than 47,000 
 
tonnes of high-level nuclear waste to get rid 
 
of, because its new site at Yucca Mountain, 
 
Nevada, does not meet safety requirements. 
 
The controlling American interest in the railway 
 
indicates Australia will store American 
 
waste too. 
 
It takes more than the Ghan railway to 
 
connect the dots in an election year. A lot more 
 
is happening than Australians are being told. 
 
Dr Alison Broinowski is a former Australian diplomat 
 
and is now a visiting fellow at the Australian National 
 
University's Faculty of Asian Studies. Her latest book 
 
is Allied and Addicted.

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left with only disgust...

By: anne_elk (Registered ) on 25-10-2007 01:08

Thank you Ideflitch 
 
Your comment gives me cold shivers. 
I am disgusted. 
I have put it on the front page of my website. 
I hope this article is seen by EVERY AUSTRALIAN.

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Amended second comment.

By: Ideflitch (Registered ) on 25-10-2007 01:37

I'm afraid I left out some of the article in my second comment. Here is the amended version. 
Sorry about that. 
 
"The railway passes near 
 
several bases, the biggest uranium deposits in 
 
the world and the mines at Olympic Dam 
 
(Roxby Downs), Beverley, Ranger and Honeymoon. 
 
Freightlink's main business now is 
 
transporting iron ore, manganese and uranium 
 
to Darwin for export. 
 
In June, 2006, just before Prime Minster John 
 
Howard set up a nuclear power inquiry, 
 
businessmen Hugh Morgan, Robert Champion 
 
de Crespigny and Ron Walker registered Australian 
 
Nuclear Energy. 
 
It later emerged they had discussed with Mr 
 
Howard a plan to build a nuclear plant near 
 
Port Augusta. The railway would take uranium 
 
ore to Darwin for export, enrichment and 
 
fabrication, and bring it back to Port Augusta 
 
as nuclear fuel for the reactor. The spent fuel 
 
would then go back by rail to Darwin for export, 
 
or return to the NT for disposal at a waste site. 
 
The only "suitable" sites for disposal of 
 
nuclear waste under federal government control 
 
are in the NT. If the Commonwealth takes 
 
control of as many as 80 Aboriginal communities 
 
through five-year leases in the name of 
 
protecting children, it will put vast land areas 
 
at the Federal Government's discretion. 
 
The Government has begun to repeal parts 
 
of its 1999 legislation prohibiting nuclear activities. 
 
But it is unlikely before the 2007 
 
election to say where or how Australian nuclear 
 
waste will be stored. 
 
The U.S., meanwhile, has more than 47,000 
 
tonnes of high-level nuclear waste to get rid 
 
of, because its new site at Yucca Mountain, 
 
Nevada, does not meet safety requirements. 
 
The controlling American interest in the railway 
 
indicates Australia will store American 
 
waste too. 
 
It takes more than the Ghan railway to 
 
connect the dots in an election year. A lot more 
 
is happening than Australians are being told." 
 
Dr Alison Broinowski is a former Australian diplomat 
 
and is now a visiting fellow at the Australian National 
 
University's Faculty of Asian Studies. Her latest book 
 
is Allied and Addicted.

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Sell your shares while you still can.

By: anne_elk (Registered ) on 25-10-2007 02:38

to those with any sense of morality... 
sell your shares in Rio Tinto and Halliburton now. 
I am sure they will be very very crashing soon :-)

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