Dear Friends

This is a critical moment in Australia’s history.

The future of uranium mining in Australia is to be discussed at this conference (Sydney 26th-28th April).If the ALP decides to change its policy on uranium mining Australia will be committed by both major parties to an open slather pro uranium mine platform at election time.

I have followed closely the nuclear issue for the last three decades. I’ve made three major films on the issue. Because there is no genuine debate in the media showing the downsides of mining more uranium and encouraging its exponential growth overseas, I have made another documentary that specifically addresses the nuclear issue in Australia.

I am writing to request your support. You can help stop uranium mining in Australia by screening the film, A Hard Rain, in the lead up to the Labor party conference…and beyond.

Sitting on 40% of the world uranium reserves, we have a huge responsibility to human kind to make the right decision about what we do with that reserve. We can no longer turn a blind eye and rely on overseas shaky guarantees that our uranium is not being used in nuclear weapons manufacture.

We owe it to our children and our grandchildren, to all species who inherit this land, to be wise and knowledgeable in deciding whether to open Pandora’s box still further by allowing uranium mines to dot the country.

Everything I have learnt in the previous three decades of following this issue tells me this will unleash a radioactive tailings nightmare upon Australia. That radioactivity will weep into our water supply and blow in the wind for hundreds of thousands of years. It will create untold extra and unnecessary cancers in this country. Is that the future we really want to bequeath the next generation?

A Hard Rain exposes the myths of the nuclear cycle from uranium mining to nuclear power to waste and weapons (see synopsis below).

I’ve made A Hard Rain on a shoe string and to a tight deadline. It has been made as a tool to inform the debate on the nuclear issue. I have released it now and made a simplified 20 minute version of it specifically to convince the ALP that it should not overturn the ‘no new mines’ policy this April.

Please do whatever you can to support this effort.

Details of how you can help are below

Kind Regards

David

Synopsis: A Hard Rain

This is a documentary that had to be made! Twice Academy award nominee and five times AFI winner David Bradbury’s latest contribution, A Hard Rain, explores the ‘other side’ of the nuclear debate.

Governments and most mainstream media are promoting that nuclear is now an attractive alternative to fossil fuels – the magic fix that will save us all from global warming. Nuclear power has taken on a clean and green spin from the low point 20 years ago which saw the Chernobyl meltdown.

Traversing five countries – China, France, UK, Japan and Australia, and using what Bradbury learnt from his previous three nuclear documentaries (Public Enemy Number One, Jabiluka and Blowin’ in the Wind), A Hard Rain takes a closer look at the global nuclear industry in its entirety – from the mining of uranium through to the nuclear power plant to the radioactive waste and weapons manufacturing. It exposes the hidden agendas behind this latest push for Australia to go nuclear.

Included are interviews with some of the world’s top scientists and environmentalists on the subject such as Dr Rosalie Bertell from Canada, Dr Chris Busby from the UK, and from Australia, Dr Mark Deisendorf (Ex CSIRO) who heads up the Environmental Institute at the University of NSW, Dr Ian Lowe, President of the Australian Conservation Foundation, and Dr Gavin Mudd from the Monash University Engineering Department.

Interviews with traditional owners who have been locked out of genuine consultation with what is happening on their country is also included in this film.

By looking at the experience of countries overseas that have gone nuclear, A Hard Rain debunks some of the myths of the nuclear industry: that nuclear is safe, cheap, health and green with little chance of another Chernobyl happening.

If you want vital and factual information to debate the issue intelligently and overthrow the myths that the nuclear and pro uranium mining lobby has so successfully implanted in the media, in the government and the Labor Party, then this documentary is a must see.

Using Hard Rain to oppose Uranium Mining

Get your community to lobby your local Labor Party delegates prior to the ALP conference that begins on April 26^th. Show Hard Rain to as many people as possible, get it into the hands of all the most influential people you can. There are two versions available.

Hard hitting simplistic version (for politicians and news media)

A 20 minutes version of Hard Rain will be sent to ALP delegates and politicians prior to the conference. Free copies of this version are available from April 13^th until the conference starts on April 26^th.

Your order needs to be received by the 6th so you can receive the film by the 13th.

Email hardrain@…. or order through www.onestopgreenshop.com.au

Full documentary film – plus screening kit (for community screenings)

We encourage you to screen this film as widely as possible. Ideally your community screening will take place around April 13^th. We will be notifying the media nation wide that the film is available and that community screenings are taking place.

A community screening kit is available to help you promote your screening.

1. Screen it at home among friends, and use the information that comes in the DVD case to generate discussion and spread the word.
2. Screen it within your group and download promotional information and letters to help your group make a difference. Support the film maker, collect donations.
3. Hold a community screening and really galvanise the broader community in your area, into action. You can download or purchase a printed screening kit to help with this. We ask you to charge an entry fee and donate half to Frontline Films.

The quickest way is to get the film is through OnestopGreenShop.com.au paying by PayPal or credit card. You can also download the screening pack there, for free, or order a printed version to go with the DVD. You can also get DVDs for sale to raise money for your group and Frontline.

Screening pack includes: DVDs, posters, press release, template letters to politicians and newspapers, order forms, together with other information about lobbying on this issue.

DVDs for fundraising sell well after a screening so it is great to have some on hand. Order DVDs with the screening pack to reduce postage costs and save time. To reduce your upfront cost, we will send you XX number of DVDs at $15.00 each plus postage, prepaid by you when you organise the screening pack. The DVDs and the ‘screening pack’ are sent together.

DVDs that are sold on the night retail at $40.00 (rrp). You keep $5.00 per DVDas part of your fund raising and to cover your costs. You write a cheque to Frontline Films for $35 per DVD sold plus half your takings minus the amount you paid when you organised the screening.
Any DVDs not sold are returned to the distributor, with return postage paid by you.

People who cannot buy a DVD on the night can fill out an order form that comes with the screening pack and you can post them to us along with the amount owing on the screening. It’s much easier if they pay you on the night, but we understand that is not always possible.

It is also unacceptable that these British captives should be made to talk on television and say things that they may regret later. If the Iranians put duct tape over their mouths, like we do to our captives, they wouldn’t be able to talk at all. Of course they’d probably find it even harder to breathe – especially with a bag over their head – but at least they wouldn’t be humiliated.

And what’s all this about allowing the captives to write letters home saying they are all right? It’s time the Iranians fell into line with the rest of the civilised world: they should allow their captives the privacy of solitary confinement. That’s one of the many privileges the US grants to its captives in Guantánamo Bay.

The true mark of a civilised country is that it doesn’t rush into charging people whom it has arbitrarily arrested in places it’s just invaded. The inmates of Guantánamo, for example, have been enjoying all the privacy they want for almost five years, and the first inmate has only just been charged. What a contrast to the disgraceful Iranian rush to parade their captives before the cameras!

What’s more, it is clear that the Iranians are not giving their British prisoners any decent physical exercise. The US military make sure that their Iraqi captives enjoy PT. This takes the form of exciting “stress positions”, which the captives are expected to hold for hours on end so as to improve their stomach and calf muscles. A common exercise is where they are made to stand on the balls of their feet and then squat so that their thighs are parallel to the ground. This creates intense pain and, finally, muscle failure. It’s all good healthy fun and has the bonus that the captives will confess to anything to get out of it.

And this brings me to my final point. It is clear from her TV appearance that servicewoman Turney has been put under pressure. The newspapers have persuaded behavioural psychologists to examine the footage and they all conclude that she is “unhappy and stressed”.

What is so appalling is the underhand way in which the Iranians have got her “unhappy and stressed”. She shows no signs of electrocution or burn marks and there are no signs of beating on her face. This is unacceptable. If captives are to be put under duress, such as by forcing them into compromising sexual positions, or having electric shocks to their genitals, they should be photographed, as they were in Abu Ghraib. The photographs should then be circulated around the civilised world so that everyone can see exactly what has been going on.

As Stephen Glover pointed out in the Daily Mail, perhaps it would not be right to bomb Iran in retaliation for the humiliation of our servicemen, but clearly the Iranian people must be made to suffer – whether by beefing up sanctions, as the Mail suggests, or simply by getting President Bush to hurry up and invade, as he intends to anyway, and bring democracy and western values to the country, as he has in Iraq.

Terry Jones is a film director, actor and Python
www.terry-jones.net

Yesterday, his widow, Mavis, 67, said: "I wish I hadn’t let him go in for the transfusion. He had health problems before then but he lived with them and was okay up to the point where he went to hospital. It is heartbreaking." Mrs Burton-Pye, who lived with her husband in the Norfolk Broads town of Acle, added: "He had just gone into hospital for some blood and picked this bug up. It is absolutely diabolical that he caught this thing on just a routine visit. I just can’t believe he has gone. It won’t sink in."

She said Mr Burton-Pye’s family – including five children, nine grandchildren and two great-grandchildren – had been devastated by his death.

Bosses at the hospital, which has been infected with the virulent "027" strain of the superbug, admit it could take 12 weeks to get the outbreak under control. The 17 deaths, almost all of people aged 65 and over, have occurred since December. Sixteen more patients have been infected but survived.

The hospital has invested an extra £400,000 to tackle the outbreak but Wendy Slaney, the acting chief executive of the hospital, said it could take months to bring under control.

Energy data collection "a disgrace": Allison said: "Our energy data collection is a disgrace. We just do not know which energy users are using power and how. That is the fact of the matter". Allison added: "One per cent energy efficiency target would reduce our wholesale electricity price by 19 per cent. You would not only be doing industry a favour by finding savings for them through the audit requirement; you would be advantaging consumers across the board because that wholesale price would go down… We know that one per cent can be achieved at little or no cost".

Reference: Senate Hansard, Wednesday, 21 March 2007, p.15. This document is available at: http://www.aph.gov.au/hansard/senate/dailys/ds210307.pdf

A beautiful thing: The beauty of it, especially in South Australia, which has few water resources, is that the water used in the process is continually under pressure and never turns to steam. This means that the water in the system is continually recycled. Since the first geothermal exploration licence in Australia in 2001, 16 companies have now joined the hunt for geothermal energy resources in 120 licence application areas. This represents a national investment of $570 million. These geothermal energy resources – although, as I said, many of them are in South Australia – are right around the country, right through Australia, and represent a very exciting possibility for energy generation.

But carbon price needed: However, and I alluded to this in the beginning of my speech, one of the problems is that the anticipated cost of the enhanced geothermal system energy has been estimated at $49 to $60 per megawatt hour. So without carbon pricing many forms of conventional energy generation, such as coal and natural gas, are much more cost-effective. Another complicating factor is that most, but not all, of the geothermal energy resources are in remote areas. That means that the cost of transmission to the energy market is also a factor in pricing.

Keep tech in Aus: However, it has been estimated that six per cent to eight per cent of Australia’s power could be produced by this source by 2030 if a 70 per cent reduction of emissions is required. We have the potential here to export this technology to other countries which, if there is a carbon pricing regime instituted around the world, I am sure will be keen to utilise this kind of technology as well. We would not want to be in the position where, once again, overseas companies buy the research and development and are then responsible for the commercialisation of this kind of energy and sell it back to us.

Govt support vital: Recently the 2006 annual report of the Australian Geothermal Implementing Agreement was released. That is a group consisting of most of the companies involved in this process looking at how they go forward. I am certainly hopeful that they get strong support from the government and that next time around we have a Labor government in place that is willing to look seriously at a carbon pricing regime and how companies in this form of energy, where carbon emissions are very low, will be properly supported and encouraged by the Federal Government.
http://www.aph.gov.au/hansard/senate/dailys/ds200307.pdf