Kuantan MP Fuziah Salleh’s Press Conference outside Australian High Commission 20 May 2011 (With Transcript)

After handing over the Memorandum to the Australian High Commissioner in Kuala Lumpur, Member of Malaysian Parliament for Kuantan and Vice President of Parti Keadilan Rakyat (PKR), Fuziah Salleh with the delegation of “People’s Green Coalition” and “Stop Lynas, Save Malaysia” held a press conference outside the Australian High Commission on 20 May 2011 with transcript and speech of Fuziah as given below:

FUZIAH SALLEH:

"We have handed over the Memorandum and I think we spent nearly an hour inside there and Arthur Squirel, the number two in the Australian High Commission has been very, very helpful, supportive, and very attentive to everything that we have said...our concerns and all of us spoke...the Chair, Vincent...spoke.

We spoke...we informed our concerns...among our concerns are...we are very concern about the incapability and the incompetency of the Malaysian Government to be able to manage such a refinery and there's no such refinery outside China...and we do not have a benchmark...we do not have a best practice and we certainly do not want to use the best practice of China...and as such we are very, very concern that the Malaysian government will not be able to manage it.

In Australia, Lynas has received a license to buld a refinery plant in Australia, but Lynas chose not to use the license because the license will ask Lynas to be very, very stringent with regard to the environmental compliance.

The regulator in Australia is the EPA, the Environmental Protection Authority, and they have to commit to 41 commitments in various areas and various aspects...from transportation to process to buffer zones, to ground water to waste management, whereas in Malaysia, the regulator is the AELB...they are only concerned with radioactive levels. They do not look into the other aspects of transportation, the monitoring of waste, processing, the environmental, ground water, whether there is spillage...

In Australia, they will be doing it in every area - they will buffer zone of 30 kilometres...

In Gebeng, 30KM radius, there are 700,000 people living in that 30KM radius around Gebeng...

Video & Transcript by Rozaini Mohd Rosli