Scott Ludlam (WA, Australian Greens) Share this | Hansard source

I thank the Senate for agreeing that there is in fact an urgent need to discuss the implications of the disaster in Japan and at this important meeting being held at the UN tomorrow. The issue on Japan's Pacific coast is ongoing. It is vastly worse than most people realise and it will be smouldering for decades. This is an appropriate time, just after the six-month anniversary, to be considering it.

As reported by the ABC today, 60 per cent of Japanese people surveyed want the Japanese government to rely less on nuclear energy. It is a stunning turnaround from the popularity of this technology. That is why 50,000 people took to the streets of Tokyo this week to demand the phase-out of nuclear energy in Japan. It is not difficult to understand why, given the extraordinary devastation visited on the people of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, victims of radiation are calling for an end not just to nuclear weapons but to the civil nuclear industry. They know better than anyone. The Japanese have experienced this tragedy before. The majority of Japanese feel this way because they now know that 76 trillion becquerel of plutonium 239 have been released. This is a hideously dangerous radioactive isotope that the Japanese government thought had been contained. That figure was released on 6 June and is 23,000 times higher than had been previously announced by the Japanese government. The truth about this disaster still has not been told, even though it may have faded from the front pages of Australian newspapers.

The Japanese people also know that the IAEA and the Japanese government have done medical tests on children living in three towns near Fukushima. About 45 per cent of those surveyed—kids up to 15 years old—have had thyroid exposure to radioactive iodine. As we all know, radioactive iodine is something that children and babies are much more susceptible to. They are doing tests on products such as spinach, tea, milk and fish, hundreds of kilometres from the plant, that show them heavily contaminated with iodine and caesium. There are hot spots now all away across the north-east of Japan.

Something that senators probably did not know is that the UN Secretary-General, Ban Ki-moon, announced a High-Level Meeting on Nuclear Safety and Security on 11 May, a couple of months after the disaster. He said:

We have to reevaluate nuclear risks and nuclear safety in response to the disaster in Japan.

Indeed we do. He told reporters at the time:

This exercise will also need a serious global debate on broader issues, including assessment of the costs, risks and benefits of nuclear energy and stronger connections between nuclear safety, nuclear security and nuclear non-proliferation.

This is something the industry is very keen to not talk about at all. I understand the UNSG was visited by several governments after making these statements. What is called a 'demarche' took place, a coordinated diplomatic onslaught from countries heavily invested in nuclear power that do not want the disaster on Japan's Pacific coast to impact popular opinion or the fortunes of the industry in their countries. They were not happy that the SG wanted to have a dialogue on the costs and risks of nuclear power. Despite opposition to this meeting and the concerns of the secretary-general, on 16 September 2011 the secretary-general released the UN system-wide study on the implications of the accident at the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant. I indicated to the whips that I was going to seek leave to table this document, so I do so now.