Nuclear waste likely to be dumped in NT

Muckaty Station, north of Tennant Creek (ABC News: ABC News)

Resources and Energy Minister Martin Ferguson has revealed Muckaty Station, about 120 kilometres north of Tennant Creek, as the location the Federal Government will pursue for a national radioactive waste repository.

"We will proceed firstly with the only voluntary site that we have, and that goes to the Ngapa land with respect to the Muckaty Station," he told 105.7 ABC Darwin.

Mr Ferguson said several sites preferred by the Howard government would no longer be pursued.

"We have knocked out the three sites which were not volunteered by the community but were determined by politicians in Canberra," he said.

This is "despite the fact that scientifically they actually stack up".

Should environmental and scientific assessments fail at the Muckaty site, Mr Ferguson said the nuclear waste dump could be located elsewhere in Australia.

"I also have the capacity, if I assess that that is not a proper site, to then open up to a national voluntary site nomination process."

Mr Ferguson said the Government would this week repeal Howard government legislation that would have enabled it to force the waste dump on the Northern Territory.

He said radioactive waste stored at the site would not be linked to Australia's uranium exports, but to isotopes used in medical treatments.

He said the Muckaty site had been nominated by the Northern Land Council, however he acknowledged that some traditional owners were not in agreement.

"Clearly there are some differences in terms of the Muckaty Land Trust."

He said before the site could be approved as a waste dump, the Northern Land Council would "have to prove that it's been done in accordance with the law of the Northern Territory".

He said a final decision on the dump site would still take a long time.

"If the science stacks up, and if it meets environmental approvals - but thirdly and more importantly, it obtains the necessary approval from the Ngapa people, through the Northern Land Council - then it will potentially be the appropriate site."

Natalie Wasley from the Beyond Nuclear Initiative says the decision is extremely disappointing.

"There is an agreement that was made between the Northern Land Council, the Federal Government and some traditional owners of the land trust," she said.

"This agreement has never been made public and there's been a number of documents submitted by other traditional owners calling for the contract and the agreement to be made public so they can see what's actually been agreed upon for their country.

"It's a very contested nomination."

A woman representing some traditional owners of the Muckaty Land Trust says she wants the Federal Resources Minister to visit her country before making decisions about a nuclear waste facility.

Dianne Stokes represents the area's Miyilwayi traditional owners and says any past agreement with the Ngapa people is not valid.

"I want to get the traditional owners together, talk about it and maybe have a ceremony to show Martin Ferguson who we are, because he didn't come when we asked him," she said.

"We've written him a letter to come.

"He never came towards us, he never came and faced us, he never came and talked to us.

"None of the people, not even the NLC, came and talked to the traditional owners."

Australia Movie Review (Drover)

The Drover, (by Hugh Jackman) a leading male character in the movie is a man with handsome appearance. He has a tall nose, big eyes with azure blue, muscular body and unshaved beard. Same as his name, he is a drover driving the cattle throughout the Australia by order and paid with commission.

Drover is a person with care and sense of justice. This can be seen through the act that he always protect the aborigines which is discriminated by his own races. The detestation to such attitude the white fella have make him only socialize with aborigines as he is not accepted by the white fella society either.

Drover does have a gift with horses and love horses very much. This can be seen when Lady Sarah Ashley demand him to drive the cattle to Darwin. At first, he doesn’t want to help Lady Sarah Ashley to drive the cattle to the Darwin despite of knowing that she just fire Fletcher and she will never finish the driving on her own. He only accept the request as Sarah promise to offer Capricornia (a horse) as a rewards so that he can breed the Capricornia with bush brumby.

More than that, in the movie the Drover is seen to as a person of egocentricity. He had suffered the trauma of losing the most beloved one, an aboriginal wife who had died suffering the agony of disease TB. After this event, he is no more able to bear the soreness of losing anyone making him try to run away from the problem especially when it happens to his “family”. He just pretends that Nullah is not his son and Sarah is not his wife although in his heart already has a strong bond with them that can never be severed. Such selfishness and strong self-preservation make him run away from problem when Nullah had gone for walkabout and he never tell Sarah that he love her. Thing only changes when he thinks that Sarah is dead and he start to take the responsibility to rescue Nullah from the Mission Island.

The drover is an embodiment of heroism. As a former soldier of World War One, with the skill he has he is brave enough to go to Mission Island to rescue Nullah and the other half-breeds without second thought, knowing full well that Japanese soldiers may have landed on that island. But in the end, he only makes it after the sacrifice of his crew, Margarri who try to distract the Japanese soldiers from discovering them dies being shot.

As a conclusion, Drover is a person with care, brave and responsible. At the end of story, Drover have found his new life staying at Faraway Down with Sarah.

Coach Carter Movie Review

COACH CARTER, is a real-life story figures Ken Carter, who graduated from California's Richmond High only to return there years later, in 1999, and take over as head coach of the boys' basketball team. Unfortunately, the troubled school he remembered as a teenager is an even more insufferable place in his adulthood. Determined to make a change in his players' lives, Carter makes each young man sign a contract that ensures he will maintain a 2.3 GPA, attend every class, sit in the front row and wear a jacket and tie on game day. Of course, the players reject the contract at first, but when they realize that they don't have any other choice, they give in. And when it appears that their tough-as-nails coach is actually turning them into winners on the court, they embrace their coach's philosophy even further. But when Coach Carter receives the incomprehensibly awful progress reports of his players, he does the unthinkable: he benches the entire team with locking the team out of the gym and send them into study hall until their marks improve. Carter's plan quickly becomes a subject of controversy among parents and team boosters, and their objections are soon picked up by the local news media, many of whom are not sympathetic to Carter's belief that his players must have goals beyond college ball or the NBA. Fortunately, his team members had been touched by his effort put on brightening their future and they support him. They study hard and obey the rule in the contract and manage to fulfill the requirement. Carter is heartened and decide to stay. The team make it into the state high-school championship playoffs. The climactic game take place in the tournament's first round against the first ranked team in the state, St. Francis. Although they are defeated in the end, their spirits never die and Coach Carter is very proud of them. In the end, the 6 players manage to go into colleges to pursue their dreams.
After watching this movie, I realize that there are many social issues behind this story. One of them was drug dealing and abuse. This happened to one of the basketball player, Timo Cruz as he had made some drug dealing with his cousin to make money and he only stopped doing such thing when his cousin was being killed. This incident had changed his mind, as the Coach Carter said, he doesn't want to end up his life in jail or being killed by others doing illegal things and he start over his life pleading Carter to let him back to team. Secondly, the parents in the society had a wrong perception thinking that playing basketball was only way for their children out of poverty and getting away of wrong path. So, most of the parents stand out and oppose whenever Coach Carter lock up the gym. More than that, teenagers pregnancy also a social problem in this story. This happen to Kenyon's girlfriend, Kyra(Ashanti) girlfriend who is pregnant and plans to give up to study in college in favour of having the baby. Kenyon who is the father for the child is agonising and does not know whether he should continue to play college ball or take care of the baby. Besides that, the language being used in the society is quite rude and impolite. In conversation, they always use four-letters-word in the sentences.


There are several messages actually are conveyed in this movie. One is that we must have team spirit especially doing something in a group. This will ensure success in doing everything and one person suffers, together the teammates suffer. Just like the scene that the basketball team helps Timo Cruz to finish the remaining push-ups and suicides training. Besides that, we need to work hard to gain success. In order to win the competition, the players have put so much effort doing crazy training and they also have study hard in order to achieve the target set by Coach Carter. Another message expressed in this movie is that we must respect to each other. As mentioned before, the player themselves always loved to use four-letter word in their conversation. This is highly prohibited by Coach Carter and as they do so, they will be punished with suicides training and push-ups.

In a nutshell, we should work hard in order to gain success. One cannot gain anything as he is not putting any effort in chasing something and dreaming only bring nothing. More than that, we should decide what is good to us and not just merely follow others' paces. We should take the responsibility for ourselves to make our life better.

Here is one of the movie review:
"Our deepest fear is not that we are inadequate. Our deepest fear is that we are powerful beyond measure."
"It is our light, not our darkness that most frightens us."
"Your playing small does not serve the world."
"There's nothing enlightened about shrinking so that other people won't feel insecure around you."
"We were all meant to shine as children do. It is not just in some of us, it is in everyone."
"And as we let our own light shine, we unconsciously give other people permission to do the same."
"As we liberated from our own fear, our presence automatically liberates others."