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Issue No. 308 26 May 2006  
E D I T O R I A L

If the Answer is Nuclear ….
At least George Dubya still has some influence. Not in his own country, certainly not in Europe, not even in the former dominions of Latin America.

F E A T U R E S

Interview: Out of the Bedroom
Reverend Jim Wallis is leading a crusade to take the moral debate into the public arena.

Industrial: Cloak and Dagger
The Howard Government has begun a series of workshops to sell its WorkChoice vsision. Sean Ambrose sneaked through the doors for Workers Online.

Unions: Lockout!
Jim Comerford’s eyewitness account of the 15-month Lockout of 10,000 New South Wales miners in1929-1930 records the inside story of Australia’s most bloody and bitter industrial conflict

Legal: The Fantasy of Choice
Professor Ron McCallum argues the WorkChoices laws are built on a fundamental fiction.

Politics: Labor Pains
Labor has dealt itself out of the crucial workplace relations debate by failing to articulate a credible policy alternative to Howard’s new WorkChoices legislation, argues Mark Heearn and Grant Michelson

Economics: Economics and the Public Purpose
Evan Jones pays tribute to John Kenneth Galbraith, a big man who never stopped arguing that economics should serve the public good, not create public squalor.

Corporate: House of Horrors
Anthony Keenan takes a tour of Sydney’s notorious, Asbestos House, courtesy of Gideon Haig.

History: Clash Of Cultures
Neale Towart with a new take on Mayday through the words of a punk icon

International: Childs Play
An ILO report into Child Labour shows some progress is being made to curb this gobal scurge .

Culture: Folk You Mate!
Phil Doyle dodges Morris Dancers to find signs of Working Life at the National Folk Festival in Canberra over the Easter Weekend.

Review: Last Holeproof Hero
Finally, a superhero who has worked out how to wear his underpants. Nathan Brown ogles V for Vendetta

N E W S

 Death Site Under Wraps

 Lets Get Physical, Building Bosses

 Retailers Spotlight Wage Cuts

 Sparkie Vote Will Go To the Wire

 More Front Than Meyer

 Nine Vanish in Melbourne Triangle

 Black is White, Andrews

 Kev Nicks from Kids

 Toothless Tiger Squeals

 High Standard Bugs Boss

 Labor Roots In Graft Allegations

 Security Posted

 ALP Urged to Front Up

 On the Road Again

 Activists What's On

C O L U M N S

The Soapbox
Albo's Meltdown
Labor's environment spokesman Antony Albanese argues that Chrernobyl is one reason why the ALP should stand firm on nuclear.

The Locker Room
A Sort Of Homecoming
Phil Doyle plays to the whistle.

Parliament
The Westie Wing
Our favourite MP, Ian West reports from Macquarie Street on some strange collective acction.

L E T T E R S
 Spotlight on WorkChoices
 Noll On
 Riders on the Strom
 No Gerry Can
 Insight Fires Up
WHAT YOU CAN DO
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Editorial

If the Answer is Nuclear ….


At least George Dubya still has some influence. Not in his own country, certainly not in Europe, not even in the former dominions of Latin America.

But here in Australia we are again whistling to his Dixie. The lame duck leader of the free world gives John Howard an energy tip on his victory lap - go nukes. And we all fall under the spell.

The re-emergence of the uranium debate is particularly confronting for someone politicised by the nuclear disarmament movement in the early 1980s.

The issue was the Cold War and the doctrine of Mutually Assured Destruction - the spectre of the apocalyptic power of enriched uranium to end life on this earth.

The treat hung over us as we picketed the USS Missouri, voted for Pete Garret and challenged a doctrine where two men's fingers dictated our collective survival.

Today's world is less simple - our enemies don't wave flags, they are the indoctrinated and dispossessed, not armies but individuals, who will invoke the spirit of MAD and apply it to their personal lives.

Today there and more nuclear powers - a growing club of established nuclear states as well as the shadowy networks of interests shipping around the substantial and still unsubstantiated assets of our vanquished Cold War competitor.

Today we are consumed by that other threat - global warming - or the more feel good 'climate change' as the oil industry has termed our addiction to their wares.

And now, bizarrely, as weather patterns break down - despite the industry-sponsored research telling us it was all just peacenik scaremongering - we have come the full circle. The answer is nuclear.

No, we have not found safe new ways to dispose of uranium; no, nuclear incidents from poorly maintained facilities have not ceased to occur; and no, young Ukranian kids have not stopped dying from the blow back of Chernobyl.

But this is industry's answer to the crisis bought on by our use of a dangerous earth-threatening power source - to turn to another dangerous earth-threatening power source.

If nuclear is the answer we are asking the wrong question.

If the question is: how can big business profit from the global environmental crisis that it has sponsored, then the answer might be nuclear.

If the question is: how can a government feeling exposed by its attack on workers rights, divert attention by attempting to wedge its political opponents, the answer may be nuclear.

But if the question is: how can a nation secure a safe energy supply for its kids future, the answer can not be nuclear,

There is no nuclear debate to be had in this country. It is a con job. We should not be sucked in.

Peter Lewis

Editor


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