The Guardian 14 June, 2006
"Open-minded" Howard steers nuclear debate
Bob Briton
If John Howard has an "open mind" on all things nuclear, he has a funny way of showing it. Last week he announced appointments to a taskforce to review uranium mining, processing and nuclear power in Australia. This is in addition to an interdepartmental inquiry he established on his return from the US about how Australia will fit in with the Bush Administration’s Global Nuclear Energy Partnership.
Heading up the new group will be former Telstra supremo Ziggy Switkowski who was on the board of the decidedly pro-nuclear Australian Nuclear Science and Technology Organisation (ANSTO). (This was too embarrassing, even for the Howard Government, Ziggy has now stepped down from the ANSTO Board.)
The PM has been hinting heavily that he would like Australia to move deeper into the world nuclear trade even before his team reports in November. "It doesn’t seem to me to make a lot of sense to favour the export of uranium without looking at enrichment. It doesn’t make much sense to look at enrichment without looking at the potential to have nuclear power stations in this country", he told the ABC’s Insiders program. Howard clearly wants some good news for the corporations involved in Australia’s nuclear trade to come from this latest review.
The appointment of Switkowski — with his then simultaneous membership of the board of ANSTO –raised many-an-eyebrow. ANSTO recently gave a glowing report of a nuclear powered future for Australia. The report made the hotly-disputed claim that the commissioning of three nuclear reactors would reduce Australia’s greenhouse gas emissions by 38 million tonnes a year. And the controversy over the report goes deeper than that.
The 260-page ANSTO document was prepared at a cost of about $20,000 by a British nuclear expert, John Gittus. His appointment was the subject of a Senate estimates hearing last week where it was revealed that Professor Gittus is also part of a syndicate (Lloyd’s of London Insurance Syndicate 1176) which insures nuclear power plants and other nuclear facilities around the world. He also works as a consultant for Serco — a company that provides "packaging, storage and transportation advice" on nuclear waste. Serco works in with Lockheed Martin and warhead manufacturer BNFL on this work.
The synopsis of Professor Gittus’ work in the yet-to-be-released report describes him as "a consultant and adviser to government ministries, public bodies and private industry in the UK, Canada, Japan and Australia on nuclear and energy matters". ANSTO’s executive director Ian Smith was in the hot seat last week about the appointment and the revelation that the report’s modelling was based on a US nuclear reactor that has not even been built as yet.
Switkowski’s first-announced team members were Australian National University nuclear physics professor George Dracoulis and ANU economist and Reserve Bank Board member Warwick McKibbin. They were followed by nuclear safety expert Sylvia Kidziak, Dulhunty Power Ltd’s current chairman Martin Thomas and the Government’s Supervising Scientist from 1999 to 2005, Dr Arthur Johnston.
Dr Johnston made headlines in 2004 when he gave the go ahead to mining company ERA to resume operations at the Ranger uranium mine following an incident in which drinking water at the site became contaminated by process water. Controversially, he said that the people and the environment of the surrounding Kakadu National Park had not been harmed by the leak of contaminated water from the Ranger mine. "This means that I can now provide assurance to the Traditional Owners and other Aboriginal people in the region that it is safe to drink the waters of Magela Creek and to eat bush tucker as they have always done", Dr Johnston said at the time.
Howard originally announced that the taskforce would be examining the economic viability of nuclear power generation only. He said that sharply increased oil prices had upended a number of the positions taken in the 2004 Energy White Paper the Government has been working with. However, after a visit to Washington last month and a briefing by Bush on his far-reaching GNEP project, Howard has expanded the review’s brief to include additional mining and enrichment.