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Australia, says the manager of the Beverly mine, is open for business, the uranium business. Let the word go forth to the world we’re told: as a supplier of cheap yellowcake we’re poised to become "a significant player" for decades to come. And to put the icing on this particular "cake", we’ll turn the Centre into the world’s nuclear waste dump – no problem. And furthermore, just to make sure that the big guys know we’re really, really a significant player on the global stage, we’ll plop a new "boutique" nuclear reactor in the heart of a Sydney suburb.

Further enlightened thinking from the Government that is bringing you the GST; all the "benefits" and forward thinking of the American managed health care system; and is providing a starvation level of funding for Australian research and higher education. .

Need more be said? Actually yes. foreign nuclear corporations are conducting a sophisticated propaganda campaign to convince us that we owe the world a favor by taking its nuclear waste. A Pangea videotape is so convincing it leaves you wanting to spread radioactive waste on your morning toast. The message: our future is nuclear and we ought to be grateful for it.

Paid nuclear lobbyists are swarming the Parliamentary corridors; well-known academics are on side as consultants; and the media, for the most part, are rolling over obligingly. All this in a country which has a collective nervous breakdown every time the French dare to blow up a hydrogen bomb below ground at the Muroa atoll, thousands of kilometers from Australian shores.

But there are several issues apart from the obvious catastrophic long term health consequences of uranium mining, nuclear power and nuclear waste which have not yet seen the light of day and which must be addressed.

At a conference on March 8th of this year held in the Congress of the United States, the vexing issue of Y2K was discussed with special reference to nuclear reactors and nuclear weapons. Several concerns dominated the presentations: 1) the vulnerability of nuclear reactors to the loss of electrical power as a result of date related aberrant hardware, soft ware or embedded chips, which could cause reactors to lose their supply of cooling water resulting in a meltdown within a matter of minutes; 2) the safety of nuclear reactors is totally dependent upon a reliable telecommunications system. Both the electrical grid and telecommunications systems are vulnerable to failure at the turn of the millennium. If there is loss of electricity to power the reactor cooling system and the unreliable backup diesel generators fail, an operating reactor will melt down in a matter of minutes. If the reactor is closed down on December 31st, and the grid fails it will melt in 30 to 120 minutes. Even if it is shut down six months before January 1st and loses its coolant on New Years Day it is still so hot that it will melt within 12 hours. .

Which brings me back to home. We have an operating reactor at Lucas Heights in the heart of Sutherland Shire surrounded by young families. All reactors are at risk on January 1st 2000. Yet we have had no indication from the scientists at ANSTO of their Y2K compliance status.

If this small old research reactor loses its coolant it could melt down in eight minutes instead of the customary 40 minutes for a large nuclear power plant. If the wind is blowing in the right direction the accident could contaminate Sydney with a quantity of radioactive iodine equal to that which escaped from the massive accident at Sellafield in England in 1957.

Sydney residents have not been supplied with inert potassium iodine tablets to block the uptake of carcinogenic radioiodine into their thyroid glands, nor is there any evacuation plan in place that could be implemented to protect the people of the city’s suburbs and CBD.

The other issue that must be addressed is the persistent claim made by nuclear advocates that nuclear power is the answer to global warming. This is not the case – making nuclear electricity requires massive amounts of fossil fuel. In the 70’s the United States used seven, one-thousand megawatt coal fired plants to enrich its uranium. Add to this the fossil fuel used to mine and mill the uranium, construct the reactors, store the radioactive waste for 500,000 years, and decommission the reactors.

Nuclear power does, in fact, contribute substantially to global warming. And it produces of course its own deadly waste: the average nuclear power plant manufactures 1200 tons of high level waste over a forty year operation period including 20,000 pounds of plutonium, one of the most deadly carcinogens known to humans and which remains radioactive for 500,000 years.

Studies have shown that a nuclear power plant must operate for 18 years before one net calorie of energy is extracted, and then the reactor has an operating life of only 22 more years before it becomes so radioactive and dangerous that it must be decommissioned.

Wall Street for years has advised against investment in nuclear power because it is far more expensive than coal, and far, far more expensive than alternative energy sources such as solar, wind, tidal etc.

It’s nigh time that we woke up. Our beautiful land will soon be forever contaminated unless the Australian people rise up and say no. In the last two weeks we have seen the power of a single moral voice saying "I cannot." Let us now say to the nuclear industry " We will not."