Nick Smith says ‘let them eat yellowcake!’
Green MP Gareth Hughes on the transhipment of uranium ore concentrate, or yellowcake, from Australia through NZ en route to the United States:
“We live in Nuclear Free New Zealand right? Well, kinda. The New Zealand Nuclear Free Zone, Disarmament, and Arms Control Act established NZ’s nuclear free zone but as it stands allows uranium ore concentrate, or yellowcake, to enter NZ.
ERMA, the Environmental Risk Management Authority have approved to routinely, through to 2014, tranship yellowcake stored in drums through the Ports of Auckland, Tauranga, Nelson and Napier from Australia en route to the United States and other nations.
It’s a type of powder that then gets turned into either fuel rods or enriched uranium for different uses. It is radioactive, but not massively so and ERMA has approved the shipments saying the risks are extremely low.
The risks locally probably are smaller than say oil tankers, or the plutonium MOX shipments through the Tasman, but on principal I oppose the transhipments. I believe it undermines New Zealand’s proud nuclear free history and the blood, sweat and tears of activists in the 80s who fought to entrench our nuclear free status on the world stage.”
And Environment Minister Nick Smith’s response to questions regarding this:
“He revealed that since the 1970s radioactive uranium ore concentrate has been passing through New Zealand waters and Ports without successive Government’s even being aware till March this year. Were there any standards regarding the handling of radioactive shipments adhered to over the last twenty years or were we just lucky?
Smith tried to downplay the risks by saying that a New Zealander would have to eat yellowcake to be adversely affected.
I’ve always said the risks to the health and environment of New Zealanders aren’t massive, but the principle is that nuclear free New Zealand should not be part of the nuclear supply chain.
The extraction and end use of uranium pose enormous ethical questions for NZ. We don’t say that as long as a nuclear bomb isn’t detonated in NZ, it can be brought into NZ, so why would we say that as long as uranium is kept in drums on a ship, can it be brought to NZ.
The extraction of uranium has caused enormous health and political problems for Australia. The Electrical Trades Union (ETU) in Queensland and the Northern Territory is banning its members from working on uranium mines or within the nuclear energy industry. They call it the asbestos of the 21st centuary and site the health risks it poses on its workers.”
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