Author Archive: roman

Friends of the Earth Adelaide > Articles by: roman

Radioactive Exposure Tour 2018

January 12, 2018

The Radioactive Exposure Tour is a journey through Australia’s nuclear landscape.

Run by Friends of the Earth, this year’s Tour will take place from Friday 30th March to Sunday 8th April, 2018

We will visit communities in Kimba and the Flinders Ranges in South Australia, who are stopping a radioactive waste dump on their land.

We’ll head for Arabunna country, watch the sunset over Lake Eyre and see the Mound Springs — oases which are fed by the underlying Great Artesian Basin and host unique flora and fauna. Sadly, some of the Mound Springs have been adversely effected or destroyed altogether by the massive water intake of the Olympic Dam mine.

The Tour will visit BHP Billiton’s Olympic Dam uranium mine at Roxby Downs, the largest uranium deposit in the world. The mine is a longstanding environmental and social disaster.

In Woomera, we’ll hear first-hand accounts of the British nuclear bomb tests at Maralinga and Emu Field from nuclear veteran and whistle-blower Avon Hudson. We’ll also stop by Nurrungar, the desert surveillance base that closed in 1999.

Participants get to experience consensus decision making, desert camping and vegetarian cooking in affinity groups while travelling to some of the most beautiful and ecologically significant environments in Australia. If you’re interested in learning about the industry or anti-nuclear campaigning, the “Rad Tour” is an essential start or refresher.

The costs are: concession $600 / waged $800 / solidarity $1000.
$200 deposit option available. Full payment due by 28th Feb 2018.

The Radioactive Exposure Tour is a drug and alcohol-free event. Kids are welcome. Dogs need to stay at home. Tour vehicles only.

If you would like to register your interest in taking part in the 2018 Radioactive Exposure Tour, please complete the form posted at www.melbournefoe.org.au/radtour2018 and we will be in touch. Please note that completing the form does not guarantee you a place on the tour.… Read more >>

Adelaide FoE Notes, Nuclear

Ban the Bomb!

December 15, 2017

There was an excellent talk by Professor Thakur, Director of the ANU Centre for Nuclear Non-proliferation and Disarmament on the new UN treaty to outlaw nuclear weapons, Building Nuclear Peace. You can hear the whole speech in the Hawke Centre podcast of the event, or get a quick overview in this interview from 3d’s Environment Show.

Also of considerable interest is the acceptance speech last Sunday night, as ICAN was awarded this year’s Nobel Peace Prize. It starts at the 50:51 mark in the ceremony video.

Adelaide FoE Notes

A New Threat to Charities and Environmental Organisations

December 15, 2017

December 7th: the Turnbull Government announced a new threat to Environmental organisations and Australia’s charity sector.

After a long-running campaign waged by the Minerals Council and the hard right to strip environmental organisations of their charitable status, the Turnbull government has appointed a known ideological warrior as head of the charities commission.

The Turnbull government has appointed Gary Johns to lead the federal charities regulator, the Australian Charities and Not-For- Profits Commission (ACNC).

TAKE ACTION to Defend Enviro Orgs: Call on PM Turnbull to stare down the hard right on charities

The ACNC monitors the compliance of charities and maintains a list of registered organisations. It also ensures charities abide by the laws in the Charities Act.  Assistant treasurer Michael Sukkar announced the appointment at Parliament House on Thursday morning.

Over 100 Australian charities wrote an open letter in June to the Prime Minister after Assistant Minister Sukkar failed to re-appoint Susan Pascoe as Commissioner, despite very strong positive recommendations for her reappointment.  The Assistant Minister had refused to meet with anyone from the ACNC for over six months even though he is responsible for the agency, and did not even meet with Susan Pascoe prior to not renewing her contract.

Gary Johns’ track record on charities

The former Labor MP has expressed controversial views about charities in the past. He previously argued that advocacy should not count as a charitable purpose and backed an unrealised Abbott government promise to remove it.

Such a reform would be devastating for environmental charities. He was Senior Fellow at the conservative Australian think tank the Institute of Public Affairs (the IPA), and the head of its Non-Government Organisation Unit. He joined the IPA in 1997 and left in 2006. The IPA has had a long term interest is seeing green groups lose government funding (background here).… Read more >>

Adelaide FoE Notes, Clean Futures

Trade deals must not be negotiated in secret

December 15, 2017

Trade deals affect people’s everyday lives from the food we eat to the energy we use, and should not be discussed in secret, behind closed doors. Yet sadly, this is exactly what is happening at this year’s upcoming World Trade Organization meeting in Buenos Aires from 10-13 December.

Friends of the Earth International has been advocating for a fair and sustainable trade agenda for over two decades, yet this is the first time we have been banned from participating in the WTO.

In an unprecedented move, the Argentine government revoked our accreditation, together with 60 individuals from a diverse range of trade unions, farmers’ and consumer rights organisations.

The official reason for our ban is that we have “been making explicate calls for violent protests on social media, desiring to create scenes of chaos and intimidation.” Yet this information can be disproved simply by checking our Twitter account, which has never made incitements to violence.
“Locking people out of the WTO will only further undermine its legitimacy.”

At the same time, we do not shy away disagreeing with many of the pro-corporate policies and deals being pushed by the WTO and the Argentine government, which are often stumbling blocks for action on climate change.

When India’s National Solar Mission, which aims to bring energy to millions of people by building 100 GW of solar energy, was found “guilty” by the WTO of creating local jobs, we spoke up.

We have also protested WTO policies that penalise and prohibit developing countries from undertaking public stockholding programmes. This blocks food sovereignty for the world’s poorest, and livelihoods for peasant, indigenous and small-scale farmers, yet allows the EU and USA to provide massive global market distorting subsidies that beef up agribusiness interests while ruining farmers abroad.

A crackdown on our rights to debate and oppose such trade policies is an attack on our ability to decide what kind of world we want to live in.… Read more >>

Adelaide FoE Notes, Sustainability, trade