Robert McClelland (Barton, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Minister for Foreign Affairs) Share this | Hansard source

The opposition supports the Non-Proliferation Legislation Amendment Bill 2006. I commend members to the second reading speech of the Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister for Foreign Affairs and also to the report of the Senate Standing Committee on Foreign Affairs Defence and Trade, which has prepared a succinct summary of the provisions of the bill. As that report notes, the bill primarily amends the Nuclear Non-Proliferation (Safeguards) Act 1987, which gives legislative effect to Australia’s non-proliferation obligations under the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons and also under the safeguards agreement with the International Atomic Energy Agency and under the Convention on the Physical Protection of Nuclear Material.

As the parliamentary secretary indicated, the bill is intended to meet the new requirements of the July 2005 amendments to the Convention on the Physical Protection of Nuclear Material—the physical protection convention—as described by the parliamentary secretary. The bill is also intended to deal with the decommissioning of a nuclear facility, namely, the facility at Lucas Heights in Sydney. I note the speaker’s list contains my friend the member for Hughes, who will no doubt have an interest in that aspect of the bill, given that that facility is in her electorate.

The bill also amends several other related acts of parliament, including the Comprehensive Nuclear Test-Ban Treaty Act 1998, the Chemical Weapons (Prohibition) Act 1994, the Australian Federal Police Act 1979, the Extradition Act 1988 and the Mutual Assistance in Criminal Matters Act 1987.

As the minister indicated, the bill contains three new offences relating to the decommissioning of a nuclear facility. That is of interest to me because my electorate of Barton is the neighbouring electorate to the seat of Hughes. Proposed new section 16B will be included in the Nuclear Non-Proliferation (Safeguards) Act to allow the minister to grant a written permit to allow the decommissioning of the whole or part of a nuclear facility, which includes the Lucas Heights facility as defined in the legislation. That proposed new section requires that the permit to decommission a facility be approved by the Director of Safeguards. The director must also be satisfied that appropriate safeguards could be applied and that adequate physical security could be provided for nuclear material during the decommissioning.

The bill also inserts proposed new section 29A, which makes it an offence for a person to decommission the whole or part of a facility without holding such a permit. Obviously those provisions are desirable—indeed, essential—for the safe decommissioning of the Lucas Heights facility. I note that the facility is almost exactly my age. I think it was originally commissioned on the day I was born, or thereabouts. It has gone, but hopefully I will be here for a little longer.

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