Peaceful protest
In response to Benjamen Standing (Write on, GLW #719): There is absolutely nothing sectarian about advertising a peaceful protest as "a peaceful protest". Further, there is no contradiction whatsoever between organising a peaceful protest and extending solidarity to activists who employ other tactics when those activists have been unfairly attacked by police.
Alex Bainbridge
Sydney
Nuclear power
Jim Green ("James Lovelock and the big bang", GLW #720) misses the whole point on nuclear proliferation. Proliferation doesn't flow organically from nuclear energy. If this was the case, Brazil, Argentina, Mexico, Lithuania and a host of other countries "would have the bomb".
There is, in fact, a nuclear energy renaissance going on. The "primary" motivation for this is energy. This is as true with India as it is for Vietnam, China and Poland. Developing countries want to break out of the carbon emitting, fossil energy production cycle for something they deem more secure, cheaper, safer and otherwise more advanced.
It is, very much, a question of energy sovereignty as anything else. The worlds' anti-nuclear movement is well behind the times on this, and it has a lot of catching up to do.
Nuclear weapons are an issue of policy and should be addressed as such — for nuclear weapons or against them. Attacking the right of nations to nuclear energy is a loser's game, one that, in this case, pits imperialist Australia's lock on much of the world's uranium against developing countries right to use this power. Isn't that just swell? Even India understands this, which is why it is developing thorium reactors which will take them out of the uranium fuel cycle altogether.
The problem with the US inspired Global Nuclear Energy Partnership is that it allows for, essentially, US imperialist control over all sources of uranium fuel. It actually removes the ability of countries to develop their own closed fuel cycles, placing them under the highly politicised US trading partnerships.
Nuclear weapons can be developed by getting a hold of waste-contained plutonium. One doesn't need a reactor to do this, just the plutonium. Reactors make it easier, but it also draws attention by the "international community". In this sense, Lovelock is correct, not Green.
David Walters
Via email
Land rights & uranium
Why is PM John Howard pushing through laws to take away hard won Aboriginal land rights? The focus on sexual abuse in Aboriginal communities is a red herring offered to the public. There have been a number of reports and recommendations on this that have been ignored by the federal government from 1989 through to 2002.
Howard's scheme targets only the Aboriginal communities, despite the fact that non-Aboriginal men have been identified as perpetrators and that sexual abuse, domestic violence and alcoholism is in crisis proportions in the wider Australian public.
The real agenda, which was already underway, is Howard's policy, which sees uranium mining and the nuclear industry as the way forward for Australia. Industry minister Ian MacFarlane is already preparing plans to be put forward in September to overturn pre-existing laws, which prohibit the expansion of the nuclear power industry.
Howard has achieved bi-partisan support for uranium mining, which has cleared the way for the rapid expansion and increase of existing mines. Mining companies have already applied for exploration permits in the NT.
Supporting a rapidly expanding industry which no longer abides by non-proliferation treaties — India's nuclear bomb came from US supplied uranium — and which will be exporting uranium throughout the world is morally reprehensible.
By robbing Aboriginal people of their hard won land rights only to pollute their country further with radioactive waste is colluding with a morally corrupt government.
Jodie Wiggins
Welby, NSW [Abridged]
NT intervention I
As a former outback GP and head of public health, I take issue with being labelled an extremist for having the temerity to challenge PM John Howard's invasion of the NT. The argument that it doesn't matter that PM John Howard is doing the right thing for the wrong reasons and therefore should have total support is akin to US President George Bush's argument that if you're not with him, you're against him.
The reality is that Howard is wrong on both counts. He is doing the wrong thing and for the wrong reasons.
No-one disputes that something should be done to stop childhood sexual abuse and domestic violence. But just with Howard's response to refugees by locking up the children and causing irreparable psychological and physical damage to those children, he is wrong.
In pure numbers alone there is far more child sexual abuse in non-Aboriginal Australia.
Mal Brough's rejection of the NT government-commissioned report's admission that there is a shortage of 4000 homes is typical of the lack of vision of the Howard approach. How can children possibly be kept safe if there are three or four families of up to 20 people living in a home? And what of the extreme housing shortage in places like Cairns and Karratha where Aboriginal clients make up 95% of applicants?
The press has a responsibility to keep asking why funding to Aboriginal health was cut and according to the AMA needs an extra $430 million.
Brough's grandstanding over WA Premier Alan Carpenter's refusal to supply police officers is another example of shoot first ask questions later mentality. Brough merely had to ask Fiona Stanley's Child Health Institute what works and what doesn't, to find total cooperation from WA.
I would gladly volunteer to go to the Northern Territory if I could be assured that the fundamental issues of housing, nutrition and education are part of the plan and the federal government is guaranteeing the continuation of funds to support the rebuilding of the communities and will not "cut and run" once the election is over.
Colin Hughes
Swan View, WA [Abridged]
NT intervention II
The bipartisan support for and passage of the draconian legislation removing more Aboriginal rights and dignity through federal parliament is disgusting.
How long will it take for the Australian public to realise that there is no essential difference between the Coalition parties and the Labor Party? Journalists who continue to speak of "two sides of politics" would be doing the public a service if, instead of perpetuating that furphy, they waged a campaign against both groups and in support of our rapidly disappearing civil and legal rights. We are becoming the laughing stock of the world.
Col Friel
Allawa, NT
Veganism
I have been following the recent discussion on veganism and the associated ethical and environmental concerns. Animal rights issues aside, I believe that the case can be made for veganism purely on environmental grounds.
Among a wealth of other evidence, the UN Food and Agricultural Organisation (hardly an animal rights organisation!) has compiled the report "Livestock's Long Shadow", which explains that "the livestock sector emerges as one of the top two or three most significant contributors to the most serious environmental problems, at every scale from local to global". Specifically regarding climate change, which is claimed by many to be the biggest challenge facing the world, this report points out that livestock is responsible for a higher share of greenhouse gas emissions than all forms of transport combined.
With these facts in mind, it is clear that promoting veganism and vegetarianism is at the very least equally as environmentally valid as encouraging alternative forms of transport to the car. Yet there is a tendency among many people and organisations who are promoting ways to reduce our impact on the environment to overlook the effect of animal products on the environment. When this issue is raised, it is often dismissed as merely speaking for animal rights.
As long as this is the case, we are missing a major opportunity to reduce environmental problems such as climate change. For anyone concerned about the environment, reducing (or preferably eliminating) their consumption of animal products should be high on the priority list.
Nick Pendergrast
Perth, WA