The Anti-Uranium Interview With Dave Sweeney.
Interviewed by: Claudette Vaughan

Dave Sweeney was recently featured in the Australian anti-uranium documentary ‘A Hard Rain’ by David Bradbury. He is the media contact for the Australian Conservation Foundation and he speaks at length here with the Abolitionist Online on where he thinks Australia is heading in the depleted uranium, uranium mining and activism debate.

Abolitionist: What road are politicians trying to take us down in Australia because Kevin Rudd and Labor have changed their policy recently to fit in with a pro-nuclear agenda.

Dave Sweeney: There is certainly a very strong pro-nuclear push at the moment and that starts with uranium mining. The two major parties have very similar policies on uranium mining. Unfortunately both are very supportive of the Industry. Labor changed its policy from one of restrictive uranium mining to one of effectively open slather pro-uranium mining in April this year. It was a very close vote and went right down to the wire but unfortunately they did change their position.

There are a couple of differences on mining. Labor doesn’t support sales to countries that aren’t signatories to the Nuclear Non Proliferation Treaty (NPT), like India. Apart from that both parties support uranium mining. The minor parties, both the Greens and the Democrats are strongly opposed to uranium mining.

What we have had in Australia for the past two decades is 3 commercial uranium mines but there’s a very strong push that this is about to change for the existing mines to expand and for new mines to come online. In the next period we are looking at a big test at how much further Australia will go down the role of becoming the world’s uranium quarry.

The past Cabinet signed off on the decision to sell uranium to India. That is incomprehensible. There are 3 countries that haven’t signed the NPT – Pakistan, India and Israel. What does that mean when the goal posts keep changing?

Yes, it’s a very disturbing development. What it effectively says to the world is the Australian Government does not put any value on the Nuclear Non Proliferation Treaty (NPT). The NPT has a lot of flaws and a lot of problems and we certainly don’t believe that it’s the be all and end all but rather than actively undermine it, which Australia is doing with this proposal of selling uranium to India, what we should be doing is strengthening it, making it better and making it more transparent. We are going in the wrong direction. It’s very difficult now to say to Iran, that you should stop your uranium enrichment while we are actively rewarding India for being in breach of a whole range of International laws and International norms.

India has not signed the NPT. India has not ratified the comprehensive test ban Treaty. These are 2 of the key legal International frameworks that try and put some brakes on a global nuclear arms race. India hasn’t played by the rules. India broke a set of promises it made with Canada when it purchased so-called “research reactors” from Canada and used them as a smoke screen for developing a nuclear weapons program. India has developed and deployed nuclear weapons. These are poised and pointed at Pakistan today. India has tested weapons, most recently in 1998. India has also been involved in the transfer of technology and skills in nuclear technology in other states. One particular concern is to Iran in 2004. There’s a lot of talk from the Government that India has an excellent record in non-proliferation. Unfortunately that’s not true. This move to sell uranium to India is a move that will absolutely fuel regional instability and tension and fuel a renewed nuclear arms race between India and Pakistan. For Australia to be playing that role is deeply disappointing and completely against the wishes of the majority of the Australian community and it’s against the long-term interests of Australia, India or the region.

Hans Blix was in Australia recently. He’s said it’s possible to have a nuclear industry away from nuclear weapons, ordnance and munitions. Where do you think he’s coming from?

Before he was the UN Chief Weapons Inspector he used to be the Director of the International Atomic Energy Agency. The International Atomic Energy Agency has an unworkable schism or conflict where it says it works to stop the spread of the military application of nuclear technology while at the same time increasing the spread of the civil application of nuclear technology. That’s the same problem with the Non-Proliferation Treaty. It says that Nations have an inalienable right to access nuclear technology and this can and does lead to nuclear weapons technology. It’s a political trade off that doesn’t work and the position of ACF and many anti-nuclear groups is this technology is dual use technology, if you have the skills, the ability and the material to run a civil nuclear power program, then you have all of that to develop an uncivil nuclear weapons program. That’s how country after country in the world has got their weapons. Every country in the world – India and Israel for example – have developed their weapons program using civil reactor technology. That’s why the West is so concerned about Iran, about their uranium enrichment capacity and about North Korea because people know it’s really only then a question of political will that separates whether or not you have a military program or a civil program. Basically the ‘peaceful’ nuclear term - which we don’t accept, even the civil military industry creates high levels of waste and other problems - but the civilian atom and the warlike atom are too closely linked to be able to separate. It’s a fiction to maintain that they can be separated.

In Clive Hamilton’s new book “Scorcher” he names the GreenHouse Mafia. Lyall Howard, Head of Rio Tinto’s Government Relations is actually John Howard’s nephew. Hamilton says this “Greenhouse Mafia” is actually made up of Rio Tinto, Mission Energy, BHP Billiton, Alcoa, Origin Energy and Orica. He maintains they laugh because they claim to know more about climate change than Government, because they are the one’s setting the agenda. Certainly the documentary that you were in Dave, called “A Hard Rain” brought it back home that the renewable industry is being starved out because what’s happening is the debate on renewables and what is best for Australia has been diminished. The media is also compliant in not reporting in a responsible manner. Are you finding this?

Yes, there’s no question whatsoever that big business exerts a big influence over the Federal Government. That’s very clear in relation to the Federal Government in action for many years on climate change. There’s an added problem because of the fact that the big coal producers are now the big uranium producers. Rio Tinto and BHP Billiton absolutely dominate Australian coal and Australian uranium production. There’s a real problem there in getting a range of different voices and a range of different views in the public domain or given credibility in high-level political circles.

I think there has been a grievous failure on the part of governments to openly and effectively address the challenges of climate change and particularly to promote the Renewable sector in this country. Over the period of the Howard Government we’ve seen Renewable Energy Research projects shut down in the CSRIO. We’ve seen the closure of the Energy Research and Development Corporation. We’ve seen lots of funding cut for the CRC - Centre for Renewable Energy. We’ve seen wind farms actively blocked. We’ve seen Renewable energy technology undermined, delegitimized and made to be seen as a bit of a feel good hippy joke.

Australia could be playing a leading role in renewable energy sources and in smart energy technology. We could be absolutely leading the world in generating power and smart efficient ways of using power. That’s the role that Australia should be playing and we are losing that technological capacity. Germany today is producing 10 times the volume of domestic electricity generated by solar power than Australia is and that is absurd. We also are strongly advocating that Australia’s rip and ship mining techniques, that’s coal and uranium, they don’t build local communities, they don’t build sustainable skills base, they are very short term and they have an adverse and highly obtrusive impact on the environment. They can cause a lot of social dislocation. There’s a lot of cultural impact for indigenous landowners etc. We say that a smarter, more sustainable way to go is develop and absolutely grow Australian jobs in manufacturing renewable energy systems.

In this past week we have seen a wind plant in Portland, Victoria shut down and it’s moving its operations to China. That is a tragedy for Australian regional development because there are so many regions where there could be so much work in commercialising and manufacturing renewable energy Infrastructure and it’s just a massive wasted opportunity because the long term jobs, the long term dollars and the long term solutions in energy efficiency and renewables, rather than undermining them, we should be promoting them.

Australians are psychologically suited to getting behind solar, wind, geo thermal and all the other kinds of renewable energy sources that one cares to encourage. What major newspapers are touting now is it’s crucial that the polluting corporations ‘Big Business’ themselves are the Greenhouse saviours and solution to climate change and only them are capable of cleaning up their own mess. Who do you think is behind this?

In the case of the Uranium and Nuclear Industries there’s no question what-so-ever that they have absolutely jumped on the issue of climate change and peoples concerns over the impacts of climate change and they have jumped on that as their ticket to respectability and their ticket to acceptance and community acceptance. They have quite effectively created a false sense of choice in peoples minds and they have been actively aided by the Government. That false choice is: there are only 2 options. We can only have coal or we can only have nuclear because nothing else will work. If we have to choose one or the other.

This is absolutely artificial. It’s a phony and a false construct. We have a range of energy options in Australia and across the world. To say that embracing nuclear power is a solution to Greenhouse is to say that embracing smoking is a solution to obesity. It’s an extremely skewed proposition and it’s a stupid proposition. You cannot genuinely solve one significant growing environmental problem by embracing another one. We see nuclear power as a dangerous distraction , at best, to reducing Greenhouse Gas Emissions and providing reliable and renewable power supplies and that challenge can be best met with a combination of renewables energy sources and renewable energy generation and energy efficiency.

Don’t you think it’s odd that Mark Latham promised to ratify the Kyoto Protocol and support the renewable energy industry, then suddenly he’s out of politics? With Peter Garrett it’s the same formula. He’s out of Green politics where he was making a difference with vast numbers of young voters and now we’re seeing the beginning of him getting some bad publicity and the next step will be he’ll be out of politics soon. The point is: changing policy is where it’s at for ‘The Greenhouse Mafia’. With the recent Climate Change Concerts being held all over the world recently, Germany didn’t even come close to filling the stadium, but the point is they don’t have to. Their significant solar and renewable policies are already in place. Pop Concerts are just a façade of ‘democracy’ when changing policy is really what counts. Peter Garrett, in a 2-step process, moved away from the Greens so Garrett’s credibility is quashed on the anti-nuclear issue with young people regardless of whether he continues his pop concerts for the earth or continues with the Labor Party or not.

I’d say there are major institutional barriers to achieving fundamental social and policy reform. One of the really deep reforms is the way that we generate, distribute and use the energy that makes our lifestyles possible.

There are a lot of vested interests that have a lot of political power and a huge amount of money and they are keen to not rock the boat. I think that anyone who wants to rock the boat faces real problems. One of the other problems we face in Australia is because the electoral cycles are quite short, politicians are thinking about next weeks poll rather than 2-3 years time rainfall figures and predictions and so they avoid the transition needed to get us on a sustainable and secure route. They are just consistently obsessed with short term outcomes and with tomorrows headline. Their vision is pretexted with the word ‘telly’. They are obsessed with television and the media, with the sound byte and with next weeks poll. Sometimes those things are not the measure of how you assess whether a policy is sensible, sustainable or whether it is beneficial in the long term. These institutional barriers face everybody, including Peter Garrett, in trying to improve things. The really important thing is for an informed and an educated and a committed and an active citizenry that is expecting and demanding that our political figures actually make decisions that are rational and defensible in the longer term.

Don Chipp said that he set up a political party to ‘keep the bastards honest’ and part of all of our jobs in Australia is to educate ourselves and get involved to create that momentum that expects and demands that the bastards will be honest.

Do you think Ziggy Switkowski, the pro-nuclear advisor to John Howard, will also be advising Kevin Rudd?

No, not in the same way. The special panel the Uranium Mining, Processing, and Nuclear Energy Review was set up by John Howard and its membership was handpicked by the Prime Minister to deliver a pro-nuclear result. Ziggy Switkowski was chosen by the Prime Minister to steer that result. He delivered on that. Federal Labor have made clear that they are opposed to domestic nuclear power in Australia so I don’t think they are going to be empowering someone who so obviously pro-reactors as a solution to give them advice.

Since he did that report for the Prime Minister, Ziggy Switkowski has been made the Chairman of the Australian Nuclear and Science Technology Organisation (ANSTO) which is the biggest nuclear agency and so Switkowski as the Chair of that agency will still be an influential voice on nuclear policy matters irrespective of who ever took Government in this country.

I think it would be very important that his role to date be identified and that any government needs to be cautious because his projections and his assumptions are very pro-nuclear and very optimistic to the expansion of the industry and I think it’s a dangerous basis to build a policy on.

Does the possibility of nuclear sabotage by terrorists, either now or in the future, concern you?

Yes, it’s a very real and unfortunately, it’s a growing threat. Many years ago the issues with nuclear power were with the potential for the development of nuclear weapons and the issues of radioactive waste and the safety of the operations of the Plant itself. They were the big 3 issues of nuclear power. They are still a big and unresolved 3 but they have been joined by a couple of others. The impact that nuclear has on civil liberties because it requires an increased and heightened security framework, increased police powers to maintain and that has a direct co-relation in the reduction on a communities right to know what’s going on and on a communities right to engage and get active of what’s going on. The other one is the threat of nuclear terrorism. More fissionable, more radioactive material being produced and being circulated and being available in the world increases significantly the opportunity that disgruntled individuals or terrorists or sub-national groups get assess to this material to build a dirty bomb. Also nuclear facilities themselves, the nuclear waste plants – nuclear enrichment facilities, reactors and processing plants - have since September 11 2001 been identified by both the US Department of Energy and by the International Atomic Energy Agency as credible terrorist targets in themselves. This means that these facilities, even if run safely, even if they are run separately from the military, even if their waste is secured, are - of themselves - daily ticking time bombs and that’s an extremely disconcerting vision.