Media Release 15 June 09

June 14, 2009 at 11:58 pm · Filed under Media Releases and tagged: activism, activist, bob brown, carbon pollution reduction scheme, climate, colin barnett, cprs, environment, greens, greens wa, nuclear, olympic dam, ranger, scott ludlam, uranium

MEDIA RELEASE – ROCKINGHAM ANTI-NUCLEAR GROUP 14 June 2009

Rockingham was well represented at the Climate Emergency Rally in Forrest Place Perth on Saturday 13 June. Greens Spokesperson for Brand, Dawn Jecks and Co-convenor of the Rockingham Anti-Nuclear Group, Mark Winter participated in the gathering and subsequent march designed to raise awareness on climate issues.

The event was heralded as the first of many to persuade the government to change its stance on climate change.

Speakers at the event were Greens Senator, Rachel Siewert, Fremantle MLA, Adele Carles, Kate Vallentine of Anti Nuclear Alliance WA, Peter Robertson of The Wilderness Society and Sam Wainwright of the Socialist Alliance.

Senator Siewert said she would not support the Rudd Government’s “Continue Polluting Regardless Scheme” in its current form.

“The science is absolutely clear – if we are to have any hope of preventing runaway climate change and the chaos that will bring, we need to bring global emissions down rapidly and begin removing CO2 from the atmosphere,”

Senator Siewert said. “That means that rich countries like Australia need to move towards zero emissions as fast as possible, and the minimum target by 2020 has to be 40 per cent.

“Worse, it proposes to hand $16 billion to big polluters to compensate them for the pollution they are causing.”

Ms Carles said the WA Government also needed to do much more to combat climate change by unleashing WA’s renewable energy future. “I have spent a week in the State Parliament listening to discussion about the Budget and renewables were simply not on the agenda,”

Ms Carles said. “It’s admirable that people are putting solar panels on their rooves but there also has to be legislative change.

“We need to start transforming our energy infrastructure so that we have an intelligent grid that renewables can feed into.”

Dawn Jecks stated “The electorate of Brand borders the coast and therefore our properties are particularly vulnerable to the effects of climate change.”

“With the predicted increased frequency and severity of storms, it is important that early action is taken to mitigate against possible damage caused by climate change.”

“We owe it to our children and grandchildren to act decisively on climate change by promoting the creation of sustainable jobs in renewable energy and the energy efficiency sectors. These are the sort of technologies we should be supporting in WA rather than the export of uranium, which will undoubtedly find its way back to WA as nuclear waste in the decades ahead”.

In Kate Vallentines speech it was stated “In WA we are at a pivotal time in the debate on uranium mining. NOW is the time we need to get active and be heard on this issue…… before the mining starts! The Anti-Nuclear Alliance of WA has just launched its BUMP campaign, Ban Uranium Mining Permanently. We can stop uranium mining with your help.

Mark Winter stated “With the present state and federal government pushing climate change into the too hard basket their want is to push their perceived benefits of Nuclear power further into the spotlight. I’m sure it is a case of them eventually being able to say “the rest of the world is doing it, why aren’t we?” We have a great chance to lead Australia locally and globally in renewable energy. The Government needs to get onboard – now!”

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