Anti-uranium picket of ALP

Anti-uranium picket of ALP

SYDNEY — NSW anti-uranium groups will picket state ALP headquarters on June 20, following reports that sections of the party plan to change its policy to expand mining at the upcoming national conference.

The picket is being organised by the Coalition for a Nuclear Free Australia, an umbrella group that includes the Movement Against Uranium Mining and Friends of the Earth.

CNFA spokesperson Murray Matson said, "We are not willing to stand by and see the uranium issue decided by the backroom intrigues that decide the power struggle between Bob Hawke and Paul Keating."

Matson called on NSW delegates to the national conference to attend the picket and to state whether they would call for an end to uranium mining.

FoE Sydney's uranium researcher, John Hallam, condemned the idea that decisions on uranium mining and nuclear power should be left to the market. "In the US already", he said, "the uranium industry has shown itself to be quite incapable of making rational market decisions, and its inability has cost billions of dollars and ruined large areas of the western US".

From GLW issue 16