Danksta Downunder, a.k.a. Hamish Danks Brown of Noosa Heads, is the founding
heads-and-tails of the newly emerging microstate of Danksta Downunder. This is
a realm devoted to performance poetry, writing, music, experimenta and obscura. Have your yellowcake and eat it!
| Hamish Brown
The Federal Government is about to launch the nuclear industry in Australia.
So here we go again! The first decade of the new millennium is starting to resemble the final five decades of the last one!
Although the government is denying there is already a list of preferred locations for nuclear power stations, nuclear agency ANSTO recommends building between three to five such utilities along the east coast of Australia, so that they can feed straight into the national power grid.
The government expects a fear campaign in opposition. A protest campaign based on fear is just dressing up in sheets to look like a ghost, when compared to the prospect of a nuclear accident contaminating the whole ecosystem – now that is a real fear indeed!!
We can all look forward to the outcomes of this inquiry, and try to guess which areas of the east coast will win these new infrastructure assets.
Why should this Coast need to rely on old-fashioned Sunshine, when the Federal Government insists that we can have our Yellowcake, and eat it!
My gratitude goes to the Howard Coalition for reviving public awareness of the nuclear energy issue, which had been lying dormant since the 1980s.
This strategy obviously coincides with the widespread nostalgia for the music and popular culture of that decade.
Remember the annual Palm Sunday marches around Australia and the world? Remember Harrisburg in Pennsylvania and Chernobyl in the Ukraine? Remember the Nuclear-Free Zones that were declared in many communities large and small?
Are we all suffering from 'Short Memory', like the Midnight Oil song?
Many millions of people en masse said Ban The Bomb in the 1960s, No Nukes in the 1970s and 1980s, and Stop the French testing in the Pacific Ocean over three decades.
No Nukes means No Nukes then, now, and however long it takes to stop this industry from proliferating and polluting our lives, threatening our environment and our future.
Don't just sit at home dusting off your vinyl record collection of protest songs. We are the people and we will be fully participating in what is going to be a complex and vigorous debate about nuclear energy in Australia.
The overwhelming majority of us do not need it and do not want it.
We have just seen public pressure push the Federal Government into abandoning the sale of Snowy Hydro, but that is merely one battle in the war over who gets to control and own our water resources..
It will take even greater public pressure to stop the Australian government from choosing the option of nuclear energy, given the huge economic interests in favour it, and the fact that this continent has over 40% of the known uranium reserves on the planet.
Unless you are waiting for your invitation to the gala opening of a nuclear power station coming soon to a place near you, then it's time to unite against the very idea of it!
Hamish has two my space websites. On one he writes about poetry, writing, music and other interests such as performing, reading, history and archaeology * link to site while the other focuses on amalgamation and other local issues * link to site
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Recent Comments
If John Howard is so set on a nuclear reactor in Australia, why don't we put it in his backyard ...
PS bet that new women's party wouldn't want to launch a nuclear industry.
You know, I was just thinking about how life is full of inconveniences and how we people are always looking for ways to make our lives just that little bit more comfortable. We do this by adopting new gadgets as they come onto the scene and using them as tools in our lives and before you know it, Hey Presto! they have become a necessity not just a convenience. Take computers for instance…how could we blog without a computer? How could we search for a job, do our shopping, do our schoolwork, do our work, keep up with the family and friends and swap pictures snapped by our very convenient almost necessary, digital camera or phone/camera?
Then of course, there’s air-conditioning and refrigeration, navigation, communications, transport, medical equipment, and countless other electrical, electro-mechanical and electronic conveniences in our everyday lives all of which have become necessary for our modern lifestyle.
All of these things (and many, many more) are based around ‘silicon chip’ technology, the advent of which must surely be marked as perhaps the most significant milestone in human ingenuity. Surely nothing has shaped our modern lifestyle more in every arena.
So, what you ask has all this twaddle got to do with inconvenient truths? Well, it may discomfort you to know that for very many years now, many of those silicon ‘chips’ (especially those in your computer and camera or phone/camera, air conditioners and so on) begin their lives by being irradiated inside a nuclear reactor. So, inconveniently for a lot of you, you have been avid users of nuclear technology already, for a long time.
So, next time you are tapping out an anti nuclear blog on your computer and attaching a digital photo of your favourite protestors, just remember to thank the reactor operators who made it all possible (and who in the end, will have the last laugh).
Glow Worm