Monday, September 10, 2007

one month of deafening silence - and a tale of two premiers!

looking towards mount painter from the summit of freeling heights, arkaroola sanctuary - link to the mawson plateau feature imagesIt's been a month since I put out the call asking people to write to the Premier and the Environment Minister requesting that they clearly state that their government will not support a Uranium mine in the heart of the Arkaroola Sanctuary.

Some people have been asking me if I have received a reply. No, I haven't. To the best of my knowledge, no-one has. If you have, please tell me, and forward a copy to me if you can.

Let me remind you, Mike Rann was very quick to jump in when the same company was looking to prospect for Uranium of the Fleurieu Peninsula last year. Not while he was Premier, he announced. And rightly so.

He has consistently portrayed his as an environmentally enlightened and progressive government. I suggest that any such claim would swiftly evaporate in the face of backing such a project, and Cabinet is well aware of this. So, Mike, when will you assure us that such environmental recklessness, targetting Mount Gee, Mount Painter, and Uranium Ridge will not be possible on your watch?

Or will we return, yet again, to the point where there is little of substance to distinguish Labor policy from Liberal policy?

Speaking of which, shortly I intend to attend a briefing on the Mount Gee project from one of its proponents - former South Australian Liberal Premier Dean Brown. He hopes to convince the environmental movement that we can have the mine, and the sanctuary will be little affected.

Frankly, this is extraordinarily hard to believe.

If you share my skepticism, write and ask the Premier why he doesn't simply intervene and proclaim the notion of a mine an impossibility. Just as he did last year when it was the Myponga region that was threatened.

Because, while Myponga is a charming part of the world, no government worth its environmental salt could hope to argue that it was more ecologically valuable than the stunning wilderness sanctuary of Arkaroola.

Contact details and sample letters are available via this link -

now is the time - run Marathon off

Further info is available via the links at right.

1 comment:

  1. For the record, no reply from Rann or Gago to me, either.

    ReplyDelete

thanks for your contribution - bill - i'm genuinely sorry about having to switch on the 'moderation' process but comment spammers have really been cluttering up this journal!