Greens oppose Coalition’s doubly toxic plan to support uranium mining and Pauline Hanson’s One Nation

With the NSW Coalition moving to support legislation by Pauline Hanson’s One Nation party lifting the ban on a NSW nuclear industry, the Greens are committing to working inside and outside Parliament to prevent this environmentally and socially damaging plan.

Uranium mining and exports cause environmental damage that lasts tens of thousands of years. Exporting uranium will inevitably fuel the international nuclear weapons industry at a time when the world is facing a heightened level of global uncertainty and greater risk of conflict.

Greens MP Abigail Boyd said:

“Uranium mining is a dead end for NSW – nuclear will never be a useful part of our energy mix.

“Uranium mined today will only end up being exported, freeing up global supply for the production of nuclear weapons.

“This is a backward step by a Coalition government so devoid of imagination that they need to steal One Nation’s retrograde ideas, saddling future generations with a legacy of toxic waste in the process.”

Greens MP David Shoebridge said:

“This is doubly toxic, in one blow the Coalition is supporting Pauline Hanson’s One Nation Party and the expansion of the nuclear fuel industry.

“Nuclear power is ridiculously expensive, takes decades to deliver and will poison our state for generations to come. It should never be allowed in NSW.

“Regardless of what Parliament does, the Greens will stand with First Nations peoples, environmentalists and all who care about our future to ensure no uranium mine and no nuclear power station ever opens in this state,” Mr Shoebridge said.

TAX SUPERPROFITS TO PAY WORKERS MORE

NSW is missing out on tens of billions of dollars. By introducing a progressive coal royalty structure similar to the one in Queensland, we would have raised an extra $20 billion last year.

The NSW Government owns and controls, on behalf of the people of this state, the rights to the minerals and materials that naturally occur in NSW land.

Huge fossil fuel companies are only able to extract and sell these commodities with the consent of the State. It’s time they paid a fair price for that privilege.

The fossil fuel industry has made hundreds of billions of dollars out of their cosy relationship with governments. Granted permission to extract and sell coal, these large multinational fossil fuel corporations pay just over 7% in royalties back to the people of NSW – keeping the rest as mega-profits for themselves. These companies have a track record of taking more than their fair share and leaving communities suffering and stranded with poisoned groundwater, devastated landscapes and a stranded workforce when it suits their business models.

Globally, the hyper-inflation of fossil fuel prices driven by price-gouging opportunism and war profiteering from Putin’s invasion of Ukraine has delivered record windfall profits to these already obscenely wealthy corporations. In the last year, NSW coal exports totaled over $70 billion dollars, but the people of NSW will only see about 7 cents in every dollar, or about $6 billion dollars of that amount.

Rather than going toward schools, hospitals and public infrastructure, billions of dollars went into the pockets of multinational mining corporations. The Greens believe there should be more money for schools and hospitals and less for mining billionaires.

Sign our petition calling on the NSW Labor Government to increase coal royalties to invest in communities.

Will you sign?

First Name

Last Name

Mobile phone

Address (Street, Suburb, State, Postcode)

Country

I want to volunteer

Join with Facebook

Join with Twitter

Greens oppose Coalition’s doubly toxic plan to support uranium mining and Pauline Hanson’s One Nation

TAX SUPERPROFITS TO PAY WORKERS MORE

Sign our petition calling on the NSW Labor Government to increase coal royalties to invest in communities.

Will you sign?

Join the Campaign

Join 49,851 other supporters in taking action