Tag Archive: anti-nuclear

Friends of the Earth Adelaide > anti-nuclear

SA LABOR ON NUCLEAR: WRONG WAY, GO BACK

November 3, 2015

Members of the SA antinuclear coalition gathered outside the ALP state conference on 24 October to ask Labor to maintain the ban on any expansion of the nuclear industry.  Friends of the Earth campaigner Nectaria Calan gave interviews to the ABC, Channel 9 and 10.

MEDIA RELEASE

Friday 23rd October 2015

SA LABOR ON NUCLEAR: WRONG WAY, GO BACK

Members of South Australia’s anti-nuclear coalition will gather outside the South Australian Labor Party’s State Conference at Adelaide’s Festival Theatre tomorrow morning at 8am, calling on the SA Labor Party to keep legislation in place banning nuclear waste dumps in South Australia, and to keep the state on its path to becoming a global leader in renewable energy.

The State Government’s formation of a Royal Commission into the expansion of the nuclear industry in SA has led to concerns that a national or international nuclear waste dump is back on the cards for SA, a little over a decade after the last proposal for a waste dump near Woomera was defeated.  This followed an extended campaign opposing the project, spearheaded by senior Aboriginal women – the Kupa Piti Kungka Tjuta.

In 2000, in response to growing public opposition to the proposal, the then Liberal Government passed legislation banning the disposal of certain types of nuclear waste in the state.  This legislation was extended by the incoming Labor Government in 2003 to include all nuclear waste. The stated objective of the legislation is “to protect the health, safety and welfare of the people of South Australia and to protect the environment in which they live…”

“We are calling on the Labor Party to honour this commitment to protecting the health, safety and environment of South Australia,” said Nectaria Calan of the anti-nuclear coalition and Friends of the Earth Adelaide.  ”Nuclear waste is not a business opportunity, it’s an intractable problem.”

“SA Labour was known as the party who fights nuclear waste dumps, not the one that builds them.”

“Expansion of the nuclear industry into nuclear energy would also have an impact on the fast growing renewables sector in the state,” said Ms Calan.  “SA is already 40% renewable, and nuclear power is a poor partner because it does not have the flexibility needed to operate alongside renewable energy.  Nuclear power is also highly subsidised, and is therefore likely to absorb subsidies that could be going to the renewables sector. This is one opportunity cost of nuclear energy.”

For comment contact:

Nectaria Calan

SA anti-nuclear coalition

Friends of the Earth Adelaide

blackwallaby@gmail.com

Actions, Clean Futures, Nuclear

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Irati Wanti nuclear waste free SA exhibition 15 October

October 8, 2015

Dear Friend of the Irati Wanti campaign,

Emily Munyungka Austin, Kupa Piti Kungka Tjuta, and Karina Lester, granddaughter of Eileen Kampakuta Brown, invite you to attend a special event:

Talking Straight Out: Images and insights from the campaign that stopped South Australia from becoming a nuclear waste dump.

The Lyrics Room, Adelaide Festival Centre, Adelaide, Kaurna Land

Thursday 15 October, 2015

Doors open at 5pm, Inma, stories and speakers from 6pm

irati wanti

October 15, 2015 marks 62 years since the first atomic bomb test at Emu Junction, South Australia.  The Kungka Tjuta remember, “All of us were living when the Government used the country for the bomb.  Everybody got sick… They thought they knew what they were doing then…

In February 1998 the federal government announced its plan to build a national radioactive waste dump in the South Australian desert. In March a council of senior Aboriginal women from Coober Pedy, the Kupa Piti Kungka Tjuta, made an announcement of their own. “We say no radioactive waste dump in our ngura—in our country.”

For six years the women travelled the country, talking straight out.  They called their campaign Irati Wanti. “We all say enough is enough. Irati wanti—the poison leave it.”

They explained, they demanded, they marched and sang.  They told of extraordinary personal histories.  They worked with greenies and wrote passionate letters to politicians.

They won.

They published a book to share these stories with you. Now we are sharing them again.

There is talk again about radioactive waste dumps in South Australia. When word got to Coober Pedy, women again got together to talk, “We know the stories from the bomb. We know the history. We know the country. And it is crying for us. We will talk over and over and we won’t stop. For the kids and the land and for all the Kungkas that aren’t here. Everyone has to say no. Irati Wanti—the poison leave it”.

We hope that you can join us.

Please RSVP by emailing: iratiwanti@gmail.com or at the Facebook event here.

Clean Futures, Old_Notes

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FOE Australia tracks the Nuclear Royal Commission

August 18, 2015

In addition to our local Anti-Nuclear/Pro-Renewables campaign, you can keep an eye on Friends of the Earth Australia’s website for updates – thanks to our national Nuclear Campaigner Dr Jim Green.

http://www.foe.org.au/royal-commission

If you’d like to be on our local campaigner Nectaria Calan’spersonal nuclear email list please contact adelaide.office@foe.org.au

Climate, FoE, Mining, Nuclear, Old_Notes, Renewables, Sustainability, Weapons proliferation

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FoE Adelaide Annual Report 2014/15

August 13, 2015

Friends of the Earth Adelaide has two main collectives.  The Fair Food Adelaide collective works on food sovereignty issues including March Against Monsanto, and the Clean Futures Collective focuses on Mining and Energy; and is pro-renewables, anti-nuclear and anti-fracking.

Fair Food Adelaide

This financial year Fair Food Adelaide focussed on events for Fair Food Week held each October where we held two events – a bicycle community garden tour, and a forum on food poverty co-hosted with Foodbank SA. After a local food Long Table lunch and an end of year picnic, we’ve had a quieter 2015 as two of our main organisers have had to step down due to new jobs.  Our monthly Urban Orchard food swap is continuing, and instead of rallying on the anniversary of the first March Against Monsanto we wrote letters to SA’s Agriculture Minister to congratulate him on standing strong to continue SA’s GM moratorium and championing soil improvement rather than GMO crops.  We also lobbied the federal Agriculture Minister and Health Minister asking them to ban the weedkiller Roundup (glyphosate) in light of the recent announcement by the World Health Organisation that it probably causes cancer. We have received replies from Barnaby Joyce saying the approval status of glyphosate is under review.  We are also collecting signatures for a petition to Bunnings asking them to stop stocking the neonicotinoid pesticides that harm bees. We also work with the GM-Free Australia Alliance as one of its member groups. Member Kim Hill hosted workshop on The End of Agriculture at the Students of Sustainability conference in July.

We’ll continue to keep members up to date with information on our Facebook page, Facebook group, googlegroup and website.

See www.facebook.com/fairfoodadelaide and www.facebook.com/groups/MarchAgainstMonsantoAdelaide

Sign up for our fortnightly e-newsletter at the bottom left side of our home page www.adelaide.foe.org.au .

Clean Futures Collective

The Clean Futures Collective regrouped and decided to become more active in the area of renewables as an alternative to nuclear energy early in the year – just in time for the Royal Commission into the Nuclear Fuel “Cycle” to come along.  Our Premier Jay Weatherill thinks this is a way forward for the state with jobs and a solution to climate change that will help the economy – we strongly disagree with him and want to see a renewable future. The Royal Commission has taken up most of the group’s time since February. We have hired a part-time Campaigner for 6 months  to November and are meeting weekly to progress plans. We have a major fundraising appeal to extend the campaign to the end of the Royal Commission. We made two submissions into the Commission’s Terms of Reference, attended each of the three Adelaide based community ‘consultations’ and are currently writing submissions for each of the four issues papers on uranium mining, enrichment, electricity and nuclear waste.  Unfortunately the Adelaide Advertiser seems to be part of the formidable pro-nuclear campaign running articles with extremely biased and factually incorrect information such as nuclear power can provide free energy and abolish state taxes!  It has been very difficult to counter such propaganda with actual cold hard technical and economic facts.

We are working closely with the Conservation Council of SA and Nuclear Operations Watch Port Adelaide (NOWPA) and are an active part of the newly formed statewide anti-nuclear coalition. We also work closely with FOE Australia’s nuclear free campaigner Dr Jim Green. Once the Royal Commission submissions are complete by early August we will move towards more community campaigning against the nuclear fuel chain.  So far we’ve worked with the SA anti-nuclear coalition contributing to a fundraising poetry-slam picnic, a remembrance media conference on Fukushima Day March 11th, were part of a nuclear-free contingent at the March in March rally, held stalls at nuclear forums, supported Aboriginal people at a nuclear free forum in Port Augusta, and member Dr Philip White held a nuclear power workshop at Students of Sustainability conference along with Dr Jim Green. We participated in the ANFA led banner drop at SOS, and an action in Rundle Mall to support Aboriginal people around community closures/protecting the Murray River/protecting country from the nuclear industry.

We also made submissions to the Senate Inquiries into Wind Farms and the SA Inquiry into gas fracking.  We co-hosted a film evening with the Conservation Council, screening “Farmlands not Gaslands” about the success of the Victorian community campaign to keep their farmland free of gas fracking.

Members and friends can keep up to date with progress via our googlegroup, fortnightly e-newsletter, general Facebook page and website.

See www.facebook.com/friendsoftheearthadelaide and www.adelaide.foe.org.au

Sign up for our fortnightly e-newsletter at the bottom left side of our home page.

Contact Secretary Robyn Wood robyn.wood@foe.org.au for more information about either collective.

PDF version FOE Adelaide Report 2014-15

 

Clean Futures, Climate, FoE, Mining, Nuclear, Old_Notes, Publications, Renewables, Reports, Sustainability, Weapons proliferation

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