Protest against NT enrichment plant

Justin Tutty, Darwin

Members of the Northern Territory's No Waste Alliance (NWA) attended the annual Country Liberal Party conference on August 27, urging the party to disendorse federal CLP MPs intent on turning the territory into a nuclear wasteland.

Protesters distributed information sheets to conference-goers and passersby. "We are calling upon the CLP to fully acknowledge the concerns of Territorians about further development of nuclear facilities", said NWA Alice Springs activist Nat Wasley. "There is strong opposition to the proposed Commonwealth nuclear waste dump, yet CLP elected representatives seem to be forging ahead with their own grand visions of a nuclear territory."

The CLP conference voted to investigate whether the NT could support a uranium enrichment industry to produce nuclear-fuel rods. The NWA protesters warned that setting up such a facility would further entrench the NT in the nuclear cycle, generating much more radioactive waste, destined to be dumped somewhere in the territory.

Three days before the CLP conference, NT Labor business minister Paul Henderson told the media: "For the Northern Territory to be badged as the centre of the world's nuclear power and uranium industry — from mining through to nuclear waste depositories to somewhere where you refine the product — I think we've got other areas for this economy to go. To badge our economy as a nuclear dominated economy, what's that going to do to our tourism industry? I reckon it would decimate it."

From GLW issue 682