Michael Rowney

  • Don't nuclear waste Australia, say activists

    Up to 100 people gathered in Wollongong on December 5 to witness the New South Wales government's costly operation to move 25 tonnes of highly radioactive nuclear waste through Port Kembla to the Lucas Heights facility in southern Sydney. After a welcome to country by a prominent traditional land owner and elder, we were addressed by representatives from the Maritime Union of Australia, the South Coast Labour Council and Beyond Nuclear initiative. Overnight and into the early morning, Greenpeace activists on flotillas witnessed the incoming shipment on their flotillas.

  • Oil rig disaster inquiry begins

    PERTH — Owners of the West Atlas oil-drilling platform announced a devastating fire on the rig was extinguished on November 3.

  • Oil giants talk tax to kill environment

    Evidence is mounting of a coordinated global oil industry effort to seize upon the international economic crisis as an opportunity to “rebel” against ecological controls and bludgeon concessions out of governments.

  • Corporate greed destroying human culture

    Aboriginal rock art found on Western Australia’s Burrup Peninsula is in danger of destruction. Friends of Australian Rock Art (FARA) released photographs showing the full extent of damage for the first time on October 25.

  • Major parties punished in WA elections

    After a boring, month-long state election campaign, Western Australian politics suddenly burst into life immediately after the September 6 poll, in which Labor won more seats than the Liberals but neither major party won a clear majority.

  • WA ALP promises uranium ban

    In a breakthrough for the WA anti-uranium movement, Premier Alan Carpenter has promised to legislate to ban uranium mining in the state if his government is re-elected at the September 6 state poll.

  • Socialist Alliance to run in WA state election

    The WA branch of the Socialist Alliance will stand Julie Gray, a nurse, as a candidate in the September 6 state election. Gray will compete for the Metropolitan North area of the Legislative Council.

  • WA uranium expansion planned

    PERTH — In November 2007, the WA Labor government passed legislation outlawing nuclear power plants in WA, and the ALP officially maintains its policy of not allowing the mining and export of uranium. Despite this, mining companies are planning at

  • The Piper Alpha disaster: lessons for today

    The June 3 Apache Energy gas facility explosion on Veranus Island, 100 kilometres west of the port of Dampier in WA, is the latest in a long history of social irresponsibility in the global oil and gas industry.