[Greens-Media] Human rights and safety - more important than uranium profits

[Torre, Giovanni (Sen S. Ludlam)]

Human rights and safety - more important than uranium profits
Australian Greens spokesperson on nuclear policy Senator Scott Ludlam. 11 October 2012.

The Australian Greens today urged the Prime Minister to put human rights and safety before uranium profits during her impending visit to India.

"While Prime Minister Gillard is expected to begin negotiating a framework for uranium exports to India, the democratic rights of tens of thousands of Indian anti-nuclear protestors are being steamrolled by police repression," said Greens nuclear policy spokesperson Senator Scott Ludlam.

"The sale of uranium to India while that country refuses to sign the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty is illegal under Treaty of Rarotonga, signed by our Government in 1985.  The Prime Minister should listen to the Indian communities asking us not to sell uranium to the Indian nuclear industry, instead of the corporate shills profiting from a deadly trade.

"Globally the nuclear industry is in decline.  BHP have postponed the expansion of Olympic Dam due to the market's plummeting bottom line.  Just this week the uranium spot price hit a new two-year low of $US45.75 a pound.  Pushing uranium onto India's market temporarily benefits a dying industry in Australia at the expense of Indians who deserve clean, affordable energy.  Nuclear is neither.


"In Koodankulum nuclear reactors are being forced on local residents literally at gunpoint.  Police have used brutal tactics against tens of thousands of peaceful protestors. Two people have been shot dead by police, most recently Mr Anthony Samy in September.  There have been at least five deaths in the struggles against Koodankulam (Tamil Nadu), Jaitapur (Maharashtra) and Gorakhpur (Haryana) nuclear power plants since 2010.

"In 2011 one of India's pioneer nuclear scientists and formerly a member of India's Atomic Energy Commission, Dr MP Parameswaran, said India should suspend its entire nuclear program because of safety risks and the unresolved problem of nuclear waste.

"Earlier this year India was ranked 28th out of 32 countries in terms of the security of their nuclear stockpiles.  Making matters worse, India's new Nuclear Safety Regulatory Authority (NSRA) has fewer powers and less independence than the previous Atomic Energy Regulatory Board."


Media contact:  Giovanni Torre - 0417 174 302