Since the election of the Federal Liberal government in March 1996, there has been a serious push to expand Australia's uranium mining and other nuclear activities. The Beverley acid-leach uranium mine in South Australia has become Australia's third uranium mine, joining Roxby Downs (SA) and Ranger (NT). Honeymoon (SA), near Broken Hill, is currently going through its final "Environmental Impact" stage and may become the fourth mine.

There are dozens more leases around the country with several in SA and NT having no political obstacles in their way. The Federal Government is set to spend half its science budget on a new reactor that it has already contracted an Argentinian company to build. The waste from this new reactor is supposed to be transported to a dump in the Woomera area, near where people have already suffered the Maralinga bomb tests of the 1950's.

The nuclear industry is UNCLEAN, UNSAFE, UNECONOMIC, UNWANTED and NOT the answer to the Greenhouse Problem.

In the five decades since the creation of the nuclear industry, vast sums of money have been spent to convince the public that nuclear technology is both necessary and desirable. The industry still lacks credibility in a number of key areas :

Nuclear Energy is not clean - All parts of the nuclear fuel chain, from uranium mining to reprocessing, create long-lived radioactive wastes.

Nuclear energy is not cheap - In many places renewable energy sources are as cheap or significantly cheaper than nuclear energy.

Nuclear energy is not the answer to global warming ­ Greenhouse gas emissions can be reduced 7 times more effectively by investment in energy efficiency, than the same money spent on nuclear power.

Nuclear power is not safe ­ As well as having occasional fatal accidents and frequent leaks, nuclear reactors routinely release radiation into the surrounding environment.

Uranium mining is not safe - According to the International Physicians for the Prevention of Nuclear War, uranium mining has been responsible for the largest collective exposure of workers to radiation. One estimate puts the number of workers who have died of lung cancer and silicosis due to mining and milling alone at 20,000. It is widely agreed that there is no safe level of radiation exposure.

The threat of nuclear weapons is not over - More than 30,000 nuclear warheads still exist and there is a growing global trade in nuclear smuggling.

The problems of nuclear waste have not been solved. Nuclear waste remains a very real and very potent danger. It must be isolated from people and the wider environment for up to tens or even hundred of thousands of years.