From the perspective of a mariner and Australian
27 June 2002
I see this situation on two levels. One as an Australian citizen, and the other as a professional Navigator with many years of experience.
The Australian Senate, a proportional representative body, has before it a motion declaring opposition to the transport of this nuclear material, which may well pass through Australian waters. Surely the Senate will pass this resolution. It's time for John Howard to think about how his own children will remember the decisions that he made as Prime Minister. Australians in general are strongly attached to the sea. That's why the majority of us live on the coasts.
As a professional mariner, I am deeply concerned about the transport of nuclear material by sea. No sane person would pump the effluent from their house across the vegetable patches of their neighbours in fifteen-year-old pipes. That's basically what BNFL are doing. The oceans are not barren deserts, they are the source of much valuable protein for many of the worlds developing and developed nations. Any accident involving the release of nuclear material into the sea will have an unimaginable result that will last not just for a year or two like the Exxon Valdez, but for THOUSANDS of years.
In 1997, there were 1,678 shipwrecks in the waters around Japan, including 170 people dead or missing. There are hundreds of thousands of fishing vessels in those congested waters. Any seafarer who has worked in that area will tell you that navigating there is a nightmare. These are not Greenpeace figures, they are from the British Admiralty.
Basically, the question becomes one of risk. And in my opinion, it's just too damn risky.
