10 MARCH 2007

Dear Kendall and Mannie

Thanks for your email and your suggestion. I think you are right about women being much less willing to embrace nuclear power - indeed the poll published in the Australian this week showed a marked gender difference on the issue. I know Dr Helen Caldicott's work well and have her latest book to which you refer, indeed I quoted her in a speech I made on the subject in the Senate last week. We do in fact have a 'Parliamentarians for a Nuclear Free Future' group in the parliament, of which I am co-convenor but have not so far attracted a member of the Liberal or National Parties to its ranks. This unfortunately prevents us from becoming affiliated with the international Parliamentary Network for Nuclear Disarmament. If you can persuade women from the Coalition to be part of our organisation that would be good!

8 MARCH 2007

-----Original Message-----

Dear Senator,

This is not a trivial request. We are appealing to you to consider forming a bi-partisan group made up of all, or at least a majority, of the women members of both houses of the federal parliament to demand a genuine, non-party debate on the safety, reliability, risks and impacts of nuclear power and uranium mining on the country’s ecology, the ozone layer, global warming, on people, birds, animals and of course the economy.

We think women are likely to be more aware of the risks involved in the production of this form of energy. With twenty-seven of you in the Senate and another thirty- seven currently in the House of Representatives, you have the combined strength to weigh-in formidably.

In fact, you have a right to question this government on behalf of all Australians, particularly Australians who are too young to vote, about its links to three of the country’s most powerful businessmen’s private company called Australian Nuclear Energy Pty Ltd. The company was registered 1st June 2006, five days before the Prime Minister announced the Switkowski review into Australia’s nuclear potential. Curiously, now, during the week Switkowski was appointed by the federal government (3.3.07) to head the Australian Nuclear Science and Technology Organisation (ANSTO), media reports were speculating on meetings with a couple of State premiers and one of the three businessmen, Ron Walker, about building the first nuclear power plant in one of their States (The Age Business Analysis & News front page etc. 28.2.07; SMH 3.3.07; Melbourne Herald-Sun 4.3.07; ABC World Today, 27.2.07 ).

Just when people are beginning to value their threatened natural surroundings, the government is offering us a system of competing profiteers, who know the price of everything, and the value of nothing.

And in Focus (The Age, 5.3.07), Wendy Frew’s full page article lifts the lid on uranium mining, and the rush to embrace nuclear power to combat climate change. The damage uranium mining does to the environment seems to have been almost forgotten. Wendy Frew, Leonie Wood and Katherine Murphy of The Age have done their job in bringing to light information we need to know.

Sadly, not enough reference is being made to perhaps the most influential Australian on the risks of nuclear power, Dr Helen Caldicott. She says: “One is led to believe that the nuclear reactor stands alone, an autonomous creator of energy. In fact, the vast infrastructure necessary to create nuclear energy, called the nuclear fuel cycle, is a prodigious user of fossil fuel and coal.”

The Parliamentary Library must have copies of Caldicott’s latest book, “Nuclear Power is not the answer to global warming or anything else,” and all of her six other books on the issue. The Library will certainly have the newspaper articles mentioned.

4 APRIL 2010

Letter in the Sunday Age:

I CAN'T agree with Clive Hamilton that Earth Hour is tokenistic. The small crowd gathered outside Martin Ferguson's office in High Street, Preston, wasn't there to tick a box and then go home to resume carbon-intensive lifestyles. Instead, they highlighted the connection between Ferguson as their federal member for Batman and his role as the Rudd government's energy and resources minister, in which he ceaselessly promotes the fossil fuels that scientists say must be phased out if we are to avoid dangerous warming.

Ferguson is, in essence, our local member for global damage. Climate risk - unlike coal - can never truly be exported. Wherever the stuff is burnt, its carbon emissions accumulate in the only atmosphere we have and we all share the impacts while the coal companies keep the profits.

Calling for Ferguson to turn away from fossil fuels and towards renewable energy didn't feel at all tokenistic.

15 APRIL 2014

The following article was in the Sydney Morning Herald on 15 APRIL 2014:

Israel's nuclear program: did Australia know?

Secret government files reveal that Australian governments, diplomats and spies have known for more than 30 years that Israel has an arsenal of nuclear weapons, while continuing to deny any knowledge of its existence to the point of misleading Parliament.

Previously secret diplomatic files declassified by the National Archives reveal a longstanding policy to turn a blind eye to Israel's nuclear arsenal. Last week the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade again declined to comment on whether the Australian government thinks Israel is an undeclared nuclear weapons state.

Foreign Affairs Department briefing papers prepared for former Labor foreign minister Bill Hayden in 1987 state that ''intelligence assessments are that Israel has a small arsenal of nuclear weapons (possibly about 20). Israel's technological capabilities would enable it confidently to deploy such weapons without recourse to a nuclear test.''

Former Foreign Minister Gareth Evans has publicly described Israel as one of 'nine nuclear-armed states' committed to the 'indefinite retention' of their arsenals. Photo: Peter Rae

In a confidential exchange with International Atomic Energy Agency chief Hans Blix on September 22, 1987, Mr Hayden ''commented that there appeared no doubt that Israel had nuclear weapons''.

Mr Hayden and Dr Blix were talking against the backdrop of the treason trial of Mordechai Vanunu, the Israeli nuclear technician who in 1986 disclosed detailed evidence of Israel's nuclear weapons production. The Foreign Affairs Department advised Mr Hayden to publicly deny knowledge of Israel's nuclear weapons capabilities. Mr Hayden told Parliament on September 17, 1987: ''We have no information to corroborate these allegations.''

However, Foreign Affairs' files, declassified in response to applications by Fairfax Media, reveal that Australia had been monitoring Israel's nuclear program from its beginnings in the 1950s.

Australia scooped US and British intelligence when in 1966 its Atomic Energy Commission obtained ''highly sensitive'' information from the French builders of Israel's Dimona nuclear facility, revealing the existence of a chemical processing plant to extract plutonium from spent reactor fuel.

By 1970 Australia's Joint Intelligence Organisation thought ''Israel could have some weapons''.

Australian policy remains unchanged, with the Abbott government deciding last October not to support a UN General Assembly resolution on nuclear proliferation in the Middle East - 169 countries voted for the resolution.

Only five - the US, Israel, Canada, Palau and the Federated States of Micronesia - voted against. Australia abstained.

Former foreign minister Professor Gareth Evans has long been closely engaged with nuclear disarmament issues. Last month he publicly described Israel as one of ''nine nuclear-armed states'' committed to the ''indefinite retention'' of their arsenals.

On Monday Professor Evans declined to explain why Australia had not acknowledged the existence of an Israeli nuclear weapons program, saying only: ''The whole world hasn't acknowledged it. I mean, this is the strange thing, but that's another story for another day.''

Mannie De Saxe also has a personal web site, which may be found by clicking on the link: RED JOS HUMAN RIGHTS ACTIVISM

Mannie's blogs may be accessed by clicking on to the following links:

MannieBlog (from 1 August 2003 to 31 December 2005)

Activist Kicks Backs - Blognow archive re-housed - 2005-2009

RED JOS BLOGSPOT (from January 2009 onwards)

This page updated 24 APRIL 2014, again on 6 MAY 2017 and further on 18 JUNE 2021

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