.. sexual harassment victim bites back in Australia ..
Kiely gets tongue lashing on eve of election August 6, 2008
Just days out from the Northern Territory election, Labor is trying to clean up the mess from two embarrasing incidents today.
A female security officer who was sexually propositioned by the Territory Labor's Len Kiely two years ago is letter box dropping his electorate urging people not to vote for him.
A handwritten note says "I am the security officer whom Len Kiely sexually harrassed", and goes on to ask voters to place him last on the ballot paper.
Two years ago, Mr Kiely was drunk in the Government's corporate box at the cricket when he told a security guard he had a long tongue and could use it to make her a very happy woman.
When the incident became public, he apologised and resigned as the deputy speaker of the Northern Territory, but 18 months later he was made Environment Minister.
The guard, Sondra McDonald, says she distributed the letters because she was unhappy with the way the Territory Government handled the incident in the first place.
"He lost his speakers money, which was only $18,000 anyway, and then he was actually posted to the ministry, so he was promoted."
She says the Country Liberals were not behind her letter box drop.
During a press conference this morning, Mr Kiely, who had his wife by his side, told journalists he had counselling after the incident and had not had a drinking binge since.
"It has been one that's strengthened our marriage, it has been one that we've worked through together and not only our marriage, it has made me a better local member, to have a look at what is required of the standards of a parliamentarian."
His wife, Marie Kirkwood, says she thinks the letter box drop was unfair.
"The incident happened two years ago, Len apologised to the security guard, she accepted his apology then, he apologised to me and our family and also the community."
The Chief Minister Paul Henderson is also standing by the Member for Sanderson.
"What Len Kiely did was totally inappropriate and he's made a full and public apology, and not only a public apology but an apology to the lady affected.
"Everybody deserves a second chance and I'm confident that Len will continue to be a good local member for the people of Sanderson."
The Country Liberal's Leader Terry Mills says it is obvious Len Kiely has deeply hurt the woman, and anyone who acted like Mr Kiely did would not have a place in his cabinet.
"As a Chief Minister, I could not stand on a platform of leadership and give support in any way to a man who has done this."
Mr Kiely holds the seat of Sanderson by 10 per cent, and says there will be many other issues on the minds of voters in his electorate this Saturday.
Alice branch withdraws support of ALP
Meanwhile, frustrated members of the Labor's Alice Springs branch have refused to help the party's election campaign.
Charlie Carter, who has has been a supporter of the party for 20 years and has held several executive positions, says he is dismayed and disgusted with Labor's treatment of issues that are important to the people of Alice Springs.
Mr Carter says the branch's requests to meet with the Chief Minister and Minister for Mines over the proposed uranium mine have been ignored.
He says this is a reflection of the party's attitude towards Central Australia.
"The uranium mine has been a big issue for the branch and I think the launch on Friday night was conspicuous by the absence of a lot of branch members, so feeling is pretty high."
The Labor candidate for the Alice Springs seat of Braitling, Charlie Dick, says he is unaware of any defections within the branch.
"I was at that branch meeting ... I had some of the discussions with various members of the branch about the uranium mine. There was some support, there was opposition, but I think that's healthy."
A Greens candidate in the Alice Springs seat of Greatorex, Lenny Aronsten, is calling this weekend's poll as a referendum on uranium mining.
Mr Aronsten joined incumbent Country Liberals member Matt Conlan for a debate this morning.
Labor candidate Jo Nixon was absent from the debate, citing personal reasons. She is the second of the party's Alice Springs candidates not to take part in the ABC's on-air forums.
Mr Aronsten says both major parties are underestimating concern in the community about the region's nuclear future.
These seems to suggest an Australian NO to international nuclear waste for now anyway ..
International repository
Although Australia does not have any nuclear power reactors, Pangea Resources considered siting an international repository in the outback of South Australia or Western Australia in 1998, but this stimulated legislative opposition in both states and the Australian national Senate during the following year. Thereafter, Pangea ceased operations in Australia but reemerged as Pangea International Association, and in 2002 evolved into the Association for Regional and International Underground Storage with support from Belgium, Bulgaria, Hungary, Japan and Switzerland. A general concept for an international repository has been advanced by one of the principals in all three ventures. Russia has expressed interest in serving as a repository for other countries, but does not envision sponsorship or control by an international body or group of other countries. South Africa, Argentina and western China have also been mentioned as possible locations http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/High-level_radioactive_waste_management
though there seems still be a push for a nuclear power industry here .. Rudd scothes it under his regime ..
Labor faces inside push on nuclear energy Paul Kelly and Geoff Elliott | June 27, 2008 The Australian
THE head of Australia's biggest blue-collar union, Paul Howes, and former NSW Labor premier Bob Carr have called for Australia and the Rudd Government to purge its prejudices and embrace a nuclear power industry.
Their advocacy at the annual Australian American Leadership Dialogue in Washington after a debate on climate change signals a campaign to persuade the federal Labor Government to rethink its policy on nuclear energy.
Mr Howes, national secretary of the Australian Workers Union, told The Australian that "if we are going to be a green Labor Government, then we have to look at nuclear".
"If we don't start today, we are going to put ourselves in a very precarious position in 10, 15 or 20 years' time," he said.
"I've told ministers in the Rudd Government this is my view and the view of my union. I can't tell you how concerned I am about this. It's the greatest challenge the union movement has faced since trade liberalisation in the 1980s, if not greater.
"The only option for us, in my view, is nuclear. If we are going to reduce our carbon output and still want to have heavy industry then we have to look at renewable and new sources of energy and that means nuclear."
The message from Mr Howes and Mr Carr is that Labor's decades-old policy of rejecting nuclear power must be buried. They represent different elements in the Labor Party: the trade unions and the pro-green position.
Kevin Rudd insists Australia can meet its carbon emission reduction targets without resorting to nuclear power.
Labor's national conference last year dumped the party's 25-year ban on new uranium mines, but reaffirmed its stance against the development of a nuclear power industry. The shift on new mines does not override state Labor bans on uranium mining in Western Australia and Queensland.
South Australia - home to two of Australia's three operating uranium mines, including BHP Billiton's giant Olympic Dam operation - is central to the push to expand Australia's uranium industry. Premier Mike Rann, national president of the ALP, derided federal Labor's former "no new mines" policy as outdated and illogical, and said his state, which has issued 358 exploration leases, welcomes further investment in uranium mining.
Mr Carr told The Australian at the dialogue that nuclear power was the critical bridge between the carbon era and energy from renewable sources.
"There is no other bridging technology to get us from this catastrophic burning of coal and oil into the era of cheap and infinite renewable power," he said. "We all want to get there. But it's decades off and we need a bridge. The best thing the Western world can do to stop the melting of the polar ice caps isto sponsor the production ofthe most modern nuclear power plants."
The Carr argument is that coal-fired powered stations are more damaging and risky than nuclear power. He said Nicholas Stern's climate change review for the British Government underestimated the greenhouse gas problem, and Australia must now rethink its basic attitudes.
"I think it's incontrovertible," Mr Carr said. "France gets 80 per cent of its power from nuclear, and in Finland, people recently voted overwhelmingly for nuclear."
He said young people did not have the emotional objection of their elders to nuclear power.
The Howes-Carr position signals a profound unease within the labour movement about the Rudd Government's approach. This is also spreading into the business sector.
The two senior ministers at the dialogue were Deputy Prime Minister Julia Gillard and Resources and Energy Minister Martin Ferguson.
Mr Ferguson refused to endorse the Howes-Carr line. He argued instead that the immediate energy policy priorities of the Rudd Government were to develop an emissions trading scheme and the technology for carbon capture.
The source of alarm for Mr Howes is the case mounted for years by former prime minister John Howard: that imposing onerous carbon limits in Australia threatens to send its heavy industry offshore at the cost of jobs for no environmental gain.
"You can't have a mining industry without significant power generation," Mr Howes said.
"I think we need to do something about climate change. But the last thing I want to see happen, for example, is to have the aluminium industry being sent to China where there will be 50 per cent more emissions, creating a worse problem than anything we have here."
Mr Howes called for a bipartisan debate. The Howes-Carr line is much firmer than the nuclear power option advocated by Mr Howard before the last election.
Former treasurer Peter Costello, also at the dialogue, welcomed the rethink, saying that nuclear power should not be banned but instead be allowed to compete on a commercial footing.
Despite South Australia's support for uranium mining, the Labor governments in Western Australia and Queensland remain vehemently opposed to uranium mining and nuclear power.
Queensland's longstanding ban on uranium mining remains in place under Premier Anna Bligh, despite the Government having issued more than 250 exploration permits. But with Queensland riding the resources boom, the ban is more a practical issue than a philosophical one; the Government will not do anything to exacerbate the labour shortage, and Treasurer Andrew Fraser is privately concerned new uranium mines in South Australia might lure away Queensland workers. http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au/story/0,25197,23929647-601,00.html
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