Australia has played an uneasy role in the atomic age. Our initial contribution was to provide uranium for the nuclear weapons programmes of the US and UK, and to allow the UK to test the weapons thus developed in Western Australia and South Australia. Scrambling for a place at the nuclear table for fifty years, we have remained under the nuclear umbrella of the US while declining the expense of developing our own nuclear capability.

Australia's Uranium: A History
Fifty years of the nuclear experiment has seen the Australian government and mining companies lock horns with a worldwide citizens movement to end the nuclear industry.

Situated in the midst of the Kakadu World Heritage Area and subject to bitter disputes and ongoing contamination, Ranger is due to close within a few years unless Jabiluka comes into production.

The world's largest single uranium deposit, currently being aggressively exploited by BHPB which is considering tripling or quadrupling uranium output.

Australia's highest profile environmental campaign, the Jabiluka proposal was defeated by determined opposition from the Traditional Owners and people around Australia.

• Honeymoon, SA: Undergoing environmental assessment right now
• Manyingee, WA: Could be WA's first mine
• Yeelirrie, WA: WA's largest deposit
• Lake Maitland , WA: Acclaim's WA frontrunner
• Kintyre, WA: Opposed by the Martu Traditional Owners

The community-driven campaign to cancel the planned new research reactor and clean up the contamination created by the existing HIFAR reactor at Lucas Heights in Sydney is of crucial importance to all of us.

After fifty years there is still no defensible plan for what to do with Australia's nuclear waste: just a legacy of hard-fought campaigns.

In 1999, an international proposal for a commercial high level nuclear waste dump targeted the WA outback as a suitable site. Pangea Resources, from their office in Perth, hoped to bring 20% of the most toxic waste in existence to our shores. Find out what happened...