Media Release
Monday May 14, 2008 7:30am WST
For Immediate Release
No Embargoes

"This year's Budget by the Rudd government is good in many ways, but the massive pressure exerted by the Coal Industry Lobby, already evident during Rudd's 2020 Summit in April, is a win for that industry and acts as if the planet is not in crisis at all, with the burning of coal to create power energy for Australians clearly being the nastiest of all polluters," WA Human Rights group Project SafeCom said this morning.

( See coverage of the Climate section at the 2020 Summit here:

https://www.safecom.org.au/summit2020-coal.htm

)

"The CSIRO Solar Installation Project in Newcastle, showing that the creation of Solar Gas using an array of mirrors pointing at a collection tower, in a desert area of 50 x 50 square meters can supply all power needed in 2020, was buried by the Howard government, and Kevin Rudd keeps it underground" spokesman Jack H Smit said.

"All available copies of a CSIRO Report that was damning about the viability of CO2 Sequestration was shredded by Canberra as reported in February 2006, and Kevin Rudd shows he is a "post-Howard" Labor government - he accepts the status quo oif the use of coal and an unproven "bury the pollution technology" that eventually destroys the planet's climate."

( See extensive reportage about the CSIRO gagging here:

https://www.safecom.org.au/csiro-silence.htm

)

"The hot rocks proposal using the Cooper Basin in South Australia does not get front page coverage in the budget, and on the whole, the coal industry keeps its production protection intact, and the Rudd government just becomes another government that shows token gestures to the Australian population while it does not endorse that the use and production of coal "has lost its social licence" as former Australian of The Year Tim Flannery has told us."

"Kevin Rudd has no short term or medium term plan to phase out the use of coal in Australia - three coal-fired power stations are on the drawing board around the country - and he certainly has no visionary plan to eventually phase out the mining of coal and support new-style nuclear power stations, that use safer "pellets" technology for a country such as China."

Australia is uniquely placed as the Land of Sunshine for the provision as well as exportation of clean energy for example in the form of Solar Gas, but sadly, the Rudd government should be seen as being firmly in bed with the coal industry in this budget," Mr Smit concluded.

Jack H Smit
Project SafeCom Inc.
[phone number posted]