Schacht lobbied Rann for miner *Michael Owen, SA political reporter
| August 20, 2009A rticle from: The Australian
LOBBYIST and former Labor senator Chris Schacht was headhunted to join the board of a uranium exploration company, which was seeking to have a drilling ban lifted and its mining licence renewed by the Rann government.After his appointment to the board of Marathon Resources, Mr Schacht lobbied Premier Mike Rann and Mineral Resources Minister Paul Holloway in private meetings and during trips to China, including one last October.
Mr Schacht, who company documents show was appointed to the board on January 23 last year, is a shareholder in Marathon and a former consultant for the company controlled by Queensland coal magnate Ken Talbot.
The Rann government refused to respond to inquiries from The Australian about its dealings with Marathon, including whether Mr Holloway had been lobbied by Mr Schacht or other company representatives.
Marathon chairman Peter Williams said after a board meeting in Adelaide yesterday that Mr Schacht had lobbied Mr Rann and Mr Holloway.
The company also employs a lobbyist firm, but Mr Williams refused to disclose the name of the firm.
The Rann government is under pressure because of its lack of action to regulate the activities of lobbyists and establish a lobbyists’ register, as the Rudd government and other states have done.
Adding to that pressure has been the Premier’s refusal to establish an independent commission against corruption, as every other state except Victoria has done, in the wake of events in Queensland.
Yesterday’s revelations about the extent of lobbying by Mr Schacht, a Keating government minister and former ALP state secretary, comes before Marathon’s mining exploration licence expires on October 10, and as the government prepares to consider lifting a drilling ban imposed in February last year.
The indefinite suspension on drilling came after the company was caught in December 2007 dumping uranium drilling waste in the environmentally sensitive Arkaroola Wilderness Sanctuary, 700km north of Adelaide.
A month later, Mr Schacht was appointed to the company’s board. Marathon aims to develop its Mount Gee uranium project in the northern Flinders Ranges, which is estimated to contain more than 40 million tonnes of uranium ore.
Conservationists and tourist operators want Marathon barred from the sanctuary and its drill sites at Mount Gee, a listed geological monument.
Company insiders said Mr Schacht had lobbied Mr Holloway and Mr Rann on behalf of the company during trips with them to China, and in private meetings, as the state government stood to reap hundreds of millions of dollars in royalties.
Mr Schacht said that as a company director he could not comment.
Mr Williams said there were “regular” meetings with the government, including with Mr Holloway. “We secured Chris’s involvement before the problems came up … Of course he’s had lots of discussions with them (Rann and Holloway), and there’s no undue influence at all”.
Archive for August, 2009
Nuclear lobbying in South Australia: a murky mess
August 21, 2009Problems of Uranium Mining
August 18, 2009Problems of Uranium Mining
THE ALLIANCE August 17, 2009By Bryan Peter
Tailings squander
Even the utmost grade deposits have less than 1% uranium. So vast amounts of ore have to be processed to obtain useful quantities of the uranium. The leftover ‘waste’ rock is known tailings. In the course of processing it is crushed to a well powder, which is nearly as radioactive as the uranium itself. It is perilous for more than 250,000 years, which might as well be eternally. These tailings need to be secluded from the environment to avoid a cancer epidemic, and there are previously more than 50 million tonnes of uranium tailings on Australian soil.
Radon GasAs uranium emanates radiation; it transforms itself into a novel element, which in turn emanates radiation and decays, and so on through 14 steps until it ultimately – after hundreds of thousands of years – becomes a stable type of non-radioactive lead. One of the elements along the way is radon, a radioactive gas which can travel for hundreds of kilometres prior to decaying. Mine workers and others who breathe in this gas risk mounting lung cancer and other kinds of lung disease
Environmental Pollution
Uranium mining pollutes the air, water and earth with radioactive chemicals and heavy metals which can never be well cleaned up. In addition to the radiation hazard, mining is also related with poisonous process chemicals, heavy metals and the use of vast quantities of water. In the short term, uranium mine sites ruin the ecology of the local region; in the long term, they pose a risk to a much wider area.
Health risksThe health risks of uranium mining are by now fairly well known, although still belligerently disputed by the mining industry. Collectively, uranium miners suffer the maximum radiation doses of all workers in the nuclear fuel chain. The major problems are inhalation of dust and radon gas, which leave alpha radiation emitters lodged in the body where they can do the majority harm. As the pollution from the mines spread away from the minesite, local people are also out in the open to contamination. While uranium mining is most usually allied with cancer, low level radiation is also mixed up in birth fault, high infant mortality and chronic lung, eye, skin and reproductive illnesses.
Nuclear Waste
There is a vast amount of high level nuclear waste still being spewed out by reactors round the world and there is nowhere safe to put it. Pangea Resources actually has a plan to bring many of this waste into Australia.
… THE Alliance … THE Alliance … THE Alliance …: Problems of Uranium Mining
Corrupt deals involve China’s nuclear program
August 18, 2009China Inc taps into seam of bribery
Asia Times China Business Aug 18, 2009By Olivia Chung HONG KONG – The sense of outrage in the West that greeted the arrest in China of four Rio Tinto executives last month was predictable.The subsequent trial may indicate whether or not the outrage is misplaced. For the case of the Rio four follows a lengthening list of overseas companies allegedly doing in China what the Chinese there are noted for doing – bribing their way through business, at times getting caught……………
China’s fast modernization has gone hand-in-glove with increasing levels of corruption, leading to a widespread perception that it has become deeply ingrained in society during the past 30 years of economic reforms.
China, the world’s third-largest economy, scores dismally in the annual corruption listing put out by Transparency International (TI). The communist country ranked 72nd out of 180 countries in the organization’s Corruption Perceptions Index last year……………. China is Australia’s second-biggest trading partner and Australia’s largest source of foreign investment, yet Australia is at the other end of TI’s corruption spectrum,…………………
Execution for corruption was the fate just last Wednesday of Li Peiying……..found guilty of embezzling 82.5 million yuan (US$12 million) and accepting 26.6 million yuan in bribes during his tenure.
His death came two days after the head of China’s nuclear power program was put under investigation for corruption…………. Kang Rixin, party secretary and general manager of the state-owned China National Nuclear Corporation (CNNC), is the latest of several officials to be investigated for allegedly interfering in the tendering process of the company’s nuclear projects. In a separate case, China Guangdong Nuclear Power Corp has been implicated in the leaking of business secrets to foreign nuclear power companies before a public tender process last year………………..
Severe sentences are clearly not deterring Chinese nationals from having their palms greased by their overseas counterparts in the mutual pursuit of profits. ……………………………….
A Hong Kong steel analyst, who asked to remain anonymous, last week said that their arrest “certainly strengthened China’s bargaining power” in the continuing steel-price talks, even though the Chinese authorities said it was an individual judicial case and not political.Whatever the case, China’s steelmakers and Fortescue Metals Group, Australia’s third-largest iron ore exporter, agreed at the weekend on a 35% price reduction compared with last year. That is well down on the 45% the Chinese side had been pursuing, but is better than the 33% cut that had been on offer from Rio Tinto.
The Chinese side will now ask Rio, Brazil’s Vale and BHP Billiton for the same deal, Shan Shanghua, secretary general of the China Iron & Steel Association, said on Monday at a press conference in Beijing, Bloomberg reported.
As a part of the Fortescue deal, China’s lenders will arrange $6 billion of financing to help the Australian company expand and compete better with the larger Rio Tinto and BHP Billiton. That’s a business sweetener – not corruption.
Asia Times Online :: China News, China Business News, Taiwan and Hong Kong News and Business.
Dangers of uranium transport for Australia
August 17, 2009Greens oppose sending new uranium production by rail
ABC Rural News 12/08/2009
Australia could see a five to tenfold increase of radioactive rail cargo if proposed uranium mines in South and Western Australia go ahead.
Green Senator Scott Ludlum says rail cars carrying radioactive material are a concern for rail workers and communities on the line to Darwin.He’s calling on communities across Australia to stand up against the expansion of uranium mining.“What I would most like to see is for the rest of the country to be aware that this is not a Territory issue, it’s not an Alice Springs issue, it’s a radioactive waste legacy that’s really the whole country’s problem, and that we all need to step up,” he say
Greens oppose sending new uranium production by rail – 12/08/2009
Uranium company liquidated
August 13, 2009August 12 NEC Mineral Development (Pty) Ltd who Mega Uranium is a 100% shareholder was liquidated in the high court today in Pretoria SA where the judge ordered costs to the estate.
BHP Billiton involved in US climate change scandal
August 13, 2009BHP Billiton caught in US climate change scandal
Sydney Morning Herald August 13 2009 Marian Wilkinson Environment Editor
BHP BILLITON and two other leading US energy companies operating in Australia have been caught up in a lobbying scandal that was aimed at defeating the landmark US climate change bill but is now under investigation by a congressional committee. (more…)
uranium pollution in New Mexicao
August 11, 2009The State at 1 a.m.
11 August 09
“……….N.M. — The name Poison Canyon offers a hint of what’s faced by those trying to clean up abandoned uranium mines in the West.The area north of the village of Milan contains some of the 259 abandoned uranium sites in New Mexico that need cleanup. State officials are pressuring the federal government to direct more money to those areas because of their unique hazard of radioactivity.
There are hundreds of thousands of safety issues at abandoned hardrock mines in 13 western states including Arizona, according to the Government Accountability Office. Thousands of sites, many dating to the 19th century, also are considered environmentally damage
Uranium play gets nod on stake sale
August 11, 2009Uranium play gets nod on stake sale
The West.com.au10th August 2009,
Mega Uranium’s $US85 million ($101 million) Lake Maitland project, potentially WA’s first uranium mine, has cleared another hurdle, with the Foreign Investment Review Board approving the sale of a 35 per cent stake in the deposit to Japanese investors.
Mega notified its home stock exchange in Canada that FIRB had no objections to a deal finalised late last month for JAURD and Itochu Corp to buy 35 per cent of Lake Maitland under a $US49 million farm-in agreement. JAURD, or Japan Australia Uranium Resources Development, is owned by utilities Kansai Electric Power, Kyushu Electric Power and Shikoku Electric Power and has a mandate to secure uranium supplies in Australia.Mega also revealed it had signed deals with two Aboriginal-owned contracting companies, GLH Contracting and Tjupan Pty Ltd, to guarantee work on Lake Maitland to indigenous people in and around the Eastern Goldfields.
Mega’s executive vice president of project development, Peter McNally, said in a statement the traditional owners “are now keen to enter into employment and contracting work in ongoing project studies and mine development”.
The Canadian group aims to have Lake Maitland, about 950km northeast of Perth, in production via opencut mining by the end of 2011. It would produce 1.65 million pounds of uranium a year over a mine life of at least 10 years. Feasibility work, including metallurgical and environmental studies, is well advanced.
Lake Maitland boasts a total resource of 25.2 million pounds, 90 per cent of it in the indicated category, following an upgrade last month.SEAN SMITH
Olympic Dam impact grossly underestimated
August 10, 2009Olympic Dam impact grossly underestimated, Greens say
August 10, 2009 12:30am
PLANS for the world’s largest mine at Olympic Dam grossly underestimate its environmental impact, the Greens say.
“BHP Billiton claim the mine has an expected life of 70 to 100 years, yet the EIS (environmental impact statement) only talks about impacts over the next 40 years,” states the Greens’ submission.
“Therefore all cumulative totals for the size of the tailings dam, waste rockpile, greenhouse pollution, etc are grossly understated.”
The Greens claim the company’s statement raises more questions than it answers.
BHP did not return calls from The Advertiser yesterday.
The submission also says the company has underplayed its hand by outlining the impact of removing an additional 750,000 tonnes of copper per year – while applying to remove one million tonnes.
“BHP Billiton . . . is seeking approval for the right to operate a much larger project than the studies in its EIS suggest,” the Greens say……………..
The submission says the company’s statement raises more questions than it answers, including:
WHY government subsidies and rebates are expected to outweigh State Government royalties;
WHY the company expects to produce up to eight million litres of liquid waste by 2020 – and will infect groundwater within 200 years………
The project received its first punch last Thursday when Parliament’s Environment Resources and Development Committee recommended the company’s proposed desalination plant at Point Lowly be moved because the brine discharge would seriously affect the only known mass breeding site for Giant Australian Cuttlefish.
AdelaideNow… Olympic Dam impact grossly underestimated, Greens say
Huge public response about BHPB’s plan to expand Olympic Dam uranium mine
August 9, 2009Big public response on Roxby
Adelaide now 9 August 09August 08, 2009
THE State Government will deliver two reports on BHP Billiton’s proposed expansion of Olympic Dam mine because of the sheer number of responses to the company’s environmental impact statement.Premier Mike Rann said the Government had already completed a draft submission, but would produce a second after it had sorted through the 3950 responses.”The EIS (Environmental Impact Statement) has generated a significant public response and we believe the Government should take into account those views before making its own final submission,” he said.
