"The 800 veterans from Britain, New Zealand and Fiji have a clear case against the UK Department of Defence, and deserve compensation," said Australian Greens Senator Scott Ludlam.

"But the fact is they were not the only guinea pigs."

"The Maralinga Tjaruja, a southern Pitjantjatjara mob, were treated with utter contempt. Their lives, their eyes, their water, their land, were not considered worth protecting."

"Fallout from Maralinga reached Adelaide and Melbourne. Who knows what kind of contribution the UK nuclear testing programme made to the very high rate of cancer in this country?"

"Not many people know that an area the size of England itself was fenced off for seven nuclear tests and hundreds of so-called "minor trials" with plutonium, the most toxic substance created, and which lasts for 250,000 years. Between 1960 and 1963, an estimated 22 kg of plutonium, plus quantities of uranium and other fission products, were dispersed around Taranaki, the most contaminated of the test sites at Maralinga."

"I'm certainly not surprised to learn that the Australian government was deliberately misled, and that the Australian people in turn were lied to about the nuclear dangers they faced. I'm not surprised because the nuclear lies continue today."

"Minister Garrett recently tried to sell us the idea that flushing uranium out of the ground by injecting acid into the water table is "world's best practice". The government has incredibly weak occupational health and safety regulatory standards that need to be strengthened to be credible. The South Australian government says that the 42 million litres of water removed by BHP Billiton per day for free is not impacting the Great Artesian Basin. And after forty years of uranium mining in this country, we are only just getting around to having a register of miners to track their exposure to radon gas and other radioactive exposure."

Nuclear energy is not a solution to any crisis - nuclear energy is a health and environmental crisis. Australia contributes to this crisis by exporting uranium, the essential ingredient in every nuclear weapon," said Senator Ludlam.

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