Roxby Uranium Mine

Australians pay as Labor digs a hole for itself on tax

Blog Post | Blog of Sarah Hanson-Young
Tuesday 22nd November 2011, 8:55am
by ParisLord in

The "year of decision and delivery" is quickly coming to an end and the Prime Minister is determined to get the government's mining tax passed through the House of Representative this week before the summer break of Parliament. The Senate would then deal with the legislation when Parliament resumes in 2012.

Australians pay as Labor digs a hole for itself on tax

Blog Post | Blog of Sarah Hanson-Young
Tuesday 22nd November 2011, 8:54am
by ParisLord in

The "year of decision and delivery" is quickly coming to an end and the Prime Minister is determined to get the government's mining tax passed through the House of Representative this week before the summer break of Parliament. The Senate would then deal with the legislation when Parliament resumes in 2012.

ASNO on uranium sales, Burma and Olympic Dam expansion

Estimates Transcripts | Spokesperson Scott Ludlam
Sunday 23rd October 2011, 3:08pm
in

CHAIR: Thank you, Senator Eggleston. With the permission of the rest of the committee we will move through to national security, nuclear disarmament and non-proliferation. Senator Ludlam.


Senator LUDLAM: I thank the committee for the opportunity to not send these gentlemen home empty-handed. I want to quickly go through a couple of issues relating to uranium sales in various parts of the world, which is a big part of your mandate. Do you care to comment on recent media reports that Australia and India have begun a dialogue that is likely to include discussion over future uranium sales to India? First of all, have you taken part in that dialogue-if, indeed, it is occurring-and what part have you taken?

ARPANSA

Estimates Transcripts | Spokesperson Scott Ludlam
Thursday 20th October 2011, 8:26am
in

Australian Radiation Protection and Nuclear Safety Agency - Wedmesday 19 October - Economics Committee


[12:42]


CHAIR: Welcome.


Senator LUDLAM: Welcome back, Dr Larsson. FSANZ have taken the meat curry away, so we have at least saved you that trauma.


Ms Halton : I am sure they will share it later.

Dept. of Environment on EPBC approval of Olympic Dam expansion

Estimates Transcripts | Spokesperson Scott Ludlam
Wednesday 19th October 2011, 7:44am
in

Senator LUDLAM: I want to discuss the proposed Olympic Dam expansion, which was assessed by your department. Would you confirm, firstly, the magnitude of the expansion as approved relative to the size of the project that was proposed in the EIS. I understand that the EIS covered a facility capable of producing up to 750,000 tonnes of copper per annum, with the associated environmental impacts. What we appear to have now is a project that would produce up to one million tonnes of copper per annum. Would you confirm whether there is a discrepancy there. Or am I misreading that?

Office of the Supervising Scientist

Estimates Transcripts | Spokesperson Scott Ludlam
Wednesday 19th October 2011, 7:41am
in

Tuesday 18 October, Environment Communication and the Arts Committee


CHAIR: Mr Hughes, do you have an opening statement?


Mr Hughes : No, thank you.


Senator LUDLAM: Mr Hughes, it is nice to see you again. I will get straight into it because time is pretty short. Can you tell us what your role was in the approval of the Olympic Dam expansion?

Labor’s Dam approval a blunder of Olympic proportions

Media Release | Spokesperson Scott Ludlam
Wednesday 12th October 2011, 5:18pm
in

Australian Greens spokesperson for nuclear affairs Senator Scott Ludlam challenged the Government in the Senate today on a series of obvious flaws in the approval for the Olympic Dam uranium mine expansion.


Instead of answers, the Senate was treated to several minutes of vague and insulting verbal anaesthetic from the Minister representing the Minister for the Environment.

Question without Notice on the expansion of Olympic Damn uranium mine

Question | Spokesperson Scott Ludlam
Wednesday 12th October 2011, 4:18pm
in


Senator LUDLAM (Western Australia) (14:22): My question is to the Minister representing the Minister for Sustainability, Environment, Water, Population and Communities, Senator Conroy. How does the EPBC approval for the expansion of the Olympic Dam uranium mine qualify, as the environment minister suggested yesterday, as the toughest set of environmental conditions ever imposed when the conditions are much less than those imposed on the Ranger mine here in Australia, with the tailings at Ranger having to be buried in a pit and isolated for 10,000 years rather than 10 years, as is the case for the Olympic Dam expansion.


Expansion on the Olympic Damn Uranium mine

Motion | Spokesperson Scott Ludlam
Wednesday 12th October 2011, 3:03pm
in

*478 Senator Ludlam: To move-That the Senate-

(a) notes:

(i) the approval given by the Minister for Sustainability, Environment, Water, Population and Communities (Mr Burke) for the Olympic Dam uranium mine expansion,
(ii) that the proposal will lead to the dumping of 70 million tonnes of carcinogenic radioactive tailings every year on the surface, with no requirement for isolation of radioactive tailings waste from the environment for at least 10 000 years nor for disposal of tailings into the pit as is required at the Ranger uranium mine,
(iii) that assessment criteria for the Mine Closure Plan will be drafted by BHP Billiton and conditions for long-term surface management of the tailings are yet to be decided between BHP Billiton and the Commonwealth,
(iv) that the proposal will create a pit 4.5 km long, 3.5 km wide and 1 km deep with no plans for rehabilitation of this pit at the closing of mine operations,
(v) that by 2020, the tailings storage facility will leak up to 8 million litres of liquid radioactive waste a day into regional groundwater,
(vi) that the project will generate at least 4.2 million tonnes of greenhouse gas emissions per year for decades, and
(vii) that the sale of uranium in bulk concentrates is not sanctioned under Australia's bilateral uranium sales agreements, a treaty has yet to be negotiated with China, put to the Joint Standing Committee on Treaties for inquiry and thereafter to the Australian Parliament; and
(b) calls on the Government to reverse this decision in the light of BHP Billiton's decision to proceed with ‘world's worst practice' uranium mining.


question negatived

Adjournment speech - Expansion of Olympic Damn uranium mine

Speech | Spokesperson Scott Ludlam
Wednesday 12th October 2011, 9:46am
in


Senator LUDLAM (Western Australia) (19:15): I rise to speak on a different matter but one which perhaps has some relation to the contribution just made by Senator Cash. To begin with, I acknowledge the Arabunna and the Kokotha people of central South Australia, who are coping with the news as of yesterday that the Commonwealth government has signed off on a colossal expansion of the Olympic Dam copper-gold uranium mine. I also acknowledge my South Australian state parliament colleague Mark Parnell, who has done an enormous amount of work watchdogging this project and trying to come up with constructive counterproposals that would let the project go ahead without the extraordinary environmental, social and public health impacts of the project as proposed. I am speaking in particular of a study that was conducted about this time last year by Dr Gavin Mudd, a hydrogeologist at Monash University, on a proposal for the expansion of Olympic Dam that would go ahead without the uranium circuit-so the mine would proceed as a copper-gold venture-and with the processing being undertaken here in Australia rather than BHP's current proposal to simply export the smelting operations and, indeed, those highly skilled jobs to China.