Warren Snowdon (Lingiari, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Parliamentary Secretary for Northern Australia and Indigenous Affairs) Share this | Hansard source

With great respect to you, Mr Deputy Speaker Haase, I do withdraw it. Let me put it another way then, shall I? Prior to the last election, the member for Solomon said these words:

There’s not going to be a national nuclear waste dump in the Northern Territory … That was the commitment undertaken in the lead up to the federal election …

He said that prior to the election. After the election, he advocated the nuclear waste repository in the Northern Territory. I am not sure what a lie is to you, Mr Deputy Speaker, but if someone tells you something one day and then the following day says something entirely different, you would perhaps surmise that that was an untruth. In another language, it could be a lie.

The member for Solomon can have it whichever way he likes but the bottom line is that prior to the federal election he gave an undertaking—anticipating an election result and hopefully encouraging the Northern Territory community to vote for him—that there would be no nuclear waste facility in the Northern Territory. He knew at the time that the community was very much concerned about the proposition that there should be a nuclear waste facility in the Northern Territory. The then Minister for the Environment and Heritage said:

The Commonwealth is not pursuing any options anywhere on the mainland, so we can be quite categorical about that, because the Northern Territory is on the mainland.

Our friend over here, the member for Solomon, says that the minister shot off his mouth. He may well have shot off his mouth, comrade, but the fact of the matter is that you were suckered right into it. You believed it. The Northern Territory community were told they should believe it because you told them to. And then after the election you have the temerity to get up and say, ‘Hang on. We need a nuclear waste facility and it is going to be in the Northern Territory.’ Your words were that it should be in ‘the safest possible location’. Let us describe how these locations in the Northern Territory were selected. I ask the member for Solomon: how were they selected? You have got no bloody idea. They were selected by pulling names out of a hat. The Commonwealth asked the defence department to do a desktop survey of what available land there might be in the Northern Territory for such a facility. That is how it was done—no science to it.

The government then located three pieces of country—two near Alice Springs and one near Katherine—and said to the Northern Territory community, ‘These are the proposed sites for the nuclear waste facility.’ There was no process of consultation, discussion or inclusion. There was no process of bringing the community along with them by saying, ‘We have got a problem and we would like to sit down and solve the problem with you. We would like to use defence department land in the Northern Territory as a possible solution to the problem of storing nuclear waste.’ That did not happen. Instead we had a piece of legislation pushed through this parliament imposing the government’s will on the people of the Northern Territory and interfering in their day-to-day affairs. That is what happened in this place. What did the person who told the untruth prior to the election do? The member for Solomon, this great advocate for the Northern Territory, what did he do? Did he defend the interests of the Northern Territory? He rolled over like a sick puppy. He got in here and voted for legislation to override the interests of the people of the Northern Territory; that is what he did. That is what this great advocate and defender of the interests and the rights of the people of the Northern Territory did.

Let there be no illusion about the view of the people in the Northern Territory on this particular action. I acknowledge that there is a good argument for a single national facility. That is not an issue and it never has been an issue, but that is not what we are talking about here. What the member for Solomon is talking about is imposing the will of this government on the people of the Northern Territory by arbitrarily selecting three sites—without any scientific basis—and then telling those communities that they are going to have to accept the possibility of a nuclear waste facility. Where I come from, that is dishonest and disrespectful. I was brought up by parents who were very strong on discipline and telling the truth. If I did not tell the truth to someone I would be asked to apologise to them. I am sure you were brought up the same way. The member for Solomon has not apologised to anyone. What he has done is to sell them out and then he has the temerity to say that he has done a survey of his electorate.

He talked about the CLP, an organisation whose effectiveness is perhaps best evidenced by their representation in the Northern Territory parliament where they have four members—alongside two Independents and 19 Labor members. When they have their little meetings in the coffee shop or in the telephone booth to discuss policy for the Northern Territory they might reflect upon the fact that one of the reasons they do not represent a greater proportion of people in the Northern Territory Legislative Assembly is that they do not represent the people’s interests. I am absolutely certain that, when the question of whether or not the member for Solomon has integrity in representing the people of the Northern Territory by forcefully advocating and defending their interests comes to be judged, they will make the same judgement. To use the language of the people of the Northern Territory, he has dogged it. When someone dogs it, they know what they have done—they have scarpered and that is what he has done. He ran out of here like a ferret up a drainpipe.

It gives me no pleasure to be arguing this way. There is one part of what the member for Solomon said that I agree with. He talked about the hypocrisy of some of the Labor states. Indeed there has been hypocrisy and, indeed, he is right that the previous Labor administration undertook a process to define a site, and that site was determined to be Woomera. I regard it as hypocrisy for the South Australian government to be advocating the expansion of uranium mining in the way they are doing and at the same time say that they refuse to accept any responsibility for nuclear waste. They want to be in one part of the nuclear fuel cycle but not in another. It seems to me that, once you go down that path, you are making it easy for people like me to say to them that they are being dishonest. I think that they have an obligation. In this case it is clear that there should be a national process and that process should be based on the best science, not on a desktop survey of available land in the Northern Territory.

I say to the member for Solomon: there was one part of your contribution which was absolutely 100 per cent correct. That was fingering the hypocrisy of some people in the Labor Party across Australia. They need to understand that hypocrisy. They need to understand that the Northern Territory has been lumbered with this because of that hypocrisy. In that he is right. But he did nothing to defend the interests of the people of the Northern Territory, and now he is becoming the sublime advocate for the nuclear power industry and nuclear enrichment for not only the Northern Territory but indeed Australia, without any mandate from anyone.

This is particularly so given the fact that he went to the last Territory election saying that there would be no nuclear waste facility in the Northern Territory. So he has gone to the election holding a flag for no nuclear waste facility in the Northern Territory, he has won the election, he has come out of the election and now he says, ‘Not only do I believe that there should be a nuclear waste facility; I believe we should have nuclear enrichment in the Northern Territory.’ Pff! You have to think that he might be a little confused. Certainly the Northern Territory community are confused. You either have a position or you do not have a position. But, if you have a position and you have gone and changed it, why have you changed it? Because of political expediency, and no other reason—because of his inability to defend the indefensible. I say to him that that does not bode well for him.

But I can understand his dilemma. What we have here is a process whereby the Northern Territory is now going to suffer the consequences of decisions taken by this government which will inevitably mean either one of two things: either we end up with a nuclear waste facility which will house not only low-level nuclear waste but medium- and higher-level nuclear waste into the future, or we will have that stuff stored back at ANSTO. That is what we are going to have.

The nuclear waste facility in the Northern Territory, we are told, will be functioning by 2011—or will it? We have not chosen a site yet. We are not sure what will happen. We are not sure whether any of the sites will be appropriate. You would have to say that there is no real hurry, and people acknowledge there is no real hurry. I was delighted when the member for Solomon registered the voice of the then chairman of the Northern Territory Cattlemen’s Association. I can tell him that I have spoken to cattlemen who know the country around where these nuclear waste facilities are being proposed, and they are not too happy about it. They are not too happy about it at all.

I have also spoken to the Northern Territory Agricultural Association. What have they said about the prospect of having a nuclear waste facility in their backyard? I quote something I have quoted previously in this parliament:

The Northern Territory Agricultural Association expresses grave concern regarding the Australian Government’s proposal to position a radio active waste facility south of Katherine in the Northern Territory.

You would only have to have some knowledge of the Northern Territory and some knowledge of this region of Katherine to realise that this is an inappropriate place. It goes on:

The Australian Government’s ‘silver bullet’ proposal is insensitive to local needs and devoid of accountability.

We know that from what has been said already. What we are told by the Agricultural Association, in case of the site which has been proposed near Katherine, at Fishers Ridge, is:

Placement of the facility in close proximity to the region’s Tindal, Oolloo and Jinduckin aquifer system is fraught with danger.

They understand the implications of what has been going on here. It is a pity that the member for Solomon does not.

As we know, this legislation deals with the radioactive material or waste arising from incidents, including terrorist or criminal acts, in line with the United Nations Convention for the Suppression of Acts of Nuclear Terrorism. It will give ANSTO powers to manage radioactive waste that is in the possession or control of any Commonwealth entity. This includes material designated to be stored at the proposed Commonwealth radioactive waste management facility in the Northern Territory. The government is concerned that the nuclear waste dump in the Northern Territory could be challenged based on ANSTO’s powers to participate in management of waste that has not been generated by ANSTO. Why wouldn’t the Northern Territory community be concerned a little by this? They are told on the one hand—

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