Mike Freelander (Macarthur, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Hansard source

I thank the member for Fairfax for his comments. I unequivocally support the Australian Nuclear Science and Technology Organisation Amendment Bill 2017 and recommend it to the House. This bill will enable ANSTO to expand its operations, improve its research, increase both its pre- and post-graduate training opportunities in nuclear physics and nuclear medicine, provide high-technology jobs and increase flexibility to adapt to changes and opportunities which are occurring on an almost daily basis in this high-technology field. It will help to promote the innovation precinct in southern Sydney—a concept first conceived and introduced by the Labor Party, under Senator Carr, as the then minister for industry, in 2011—and provide export earnings and high-value jobs in the technology of the present and the future. It will also help, very much, to promote post-graduate education in nuclear science and nuclear medicine in a sustainable and innovative manner to which a larger student group will become available and provide outstanding, I'm sure, research in the future.

A little bit of history is important. Australia has led the world in many ways in nuclear physics and in nuclear medicine. ANSTO began in 1949 as an industrial committee, which evolved into the Australian Atomic Energy Commission. It has had many outstanding scientists since. The AEC started in 1953 and it was replaced by ANSTO in 1987. The first nuclear reactor at Lucas Heights, the HIFAR reactor, was switched on by the then Prime Minister, Sir Robert Menzies, on Australia Day 1958. The present OPAL reactor, the Open Pool Australian Lightwater reactor, was opened in 2007. As well as providing radioisotopes for medical use, OPAL is invaluable in research, industrial applications, material analysis, industry, agriculture and many other situations. It is state-of-the-art technology and is staffed by incredibly talented scientists.

As well as the facilities at Lucas Heights, ANSTO operates the Australian Synchrotron in Melbourne, which uses particle accelerators to produce a beam of high-energy electrons that travel at almost the speed of light, which is invaluable in material analysis, molecular biology and physics. Interparticle or molecular physics is used for highly technical research and has applications across a broad range of industries—agriculture, mining and medicine. It is another world-class high-technology facility.

ANSTO's OPAL reactor at Lucas Heights produces over two million doses of medical isotopes every year. About 80 per cent of nuclear medicine procedures use one particular isotope, molybdenum-99, which degrades to the medical isotope technetium-99. ANSTO produces molybdenum-99 from low-enriched uranium targets in its reactor. Most of the isotopes are used in Australian hospitals and nuclear medicine facilities, but ANSTO also exports to the USA, China, Japan and South Korea, with increasing interest in many other countries. There previously has been a shortage of supply of molybdenum-99. When I was working at the children's hospital and at Campbelltown Hospital at that time—2009 to 2011—we had a shortage of isotopes available for medical use and it was quite a problem. This was thought at that time to be due to older nuclear medicine plants closing down. But there are now looming shortages, because most of the plants that produce these medical isotopes are reaching the end of their productive lives. ANSTO's new facility will help fill some of that gap.

The new facility, including with its nuclear waste plant to capitalise on processing of nuclear waste, will produce almost 30 per cent of the world's requirements for molybdenum-99. We rely on our nuclear medicine physicians to give us much-needed information about an increasing spectrum of illnesses, so the use of nuclear medicine will increase around the world, particularly for our northern neighbours. They will require increasing sophistication of their medical facilities and the requirement for medical isotopes is going to increase. In paediatrics in particular we use nuclear medicine quite a lot, because we find it much better in terms of requirements for invasive procedures. Nuclear medicine can often avoid some of these. An example is investigating a child for a possible bone or joint infection. We use nuclear medicine scans to try to see if the infection is in the bone, where surgery is not recommended, whereas infection in the joint requires immediate surgery and drainage. Nuclear medicine can be very important in discerning the differences. It can also help tell us whether the child has an infection or an inflammation, such as caused by juvenile rheumatoid arthritis. We use nuclear medicine techniques to look for collections of purulent material, collections of pus, to drain that aren't immediately obvious. So it is a very important non-invasive investigation.

We use nuclear medicine in medical oncology in children, particularly for some of the rarer childhood cancers, such as neuroblastoma or Wilms tumour, a kidney tumour. We also investigate for subtle changes in kidney function, particularly kidney scarring, which can follow urinary tract infection, and can dictate best methods of treatment for these conditions. So, in paediatrics we use nuclear medicine a lot. Throughout Australia, the isotopes we use come from the Lucas Heights reactor.

In adult medicine, we also use nuclear medicine isotopes increasingly in things like cardiovascular disease. Cardiac scans can give us a lot of information in a non-invasive way about coronary artery function and myocardial heart muscle function. It can tell us whether we need to consider things like coronary artery bypass surgery or valve surgery or whether even more-invasive procedures are required. Nuclear isotopes are also used in the investigation of thyroid disease. Indeed, iodine-131 is sometimes used in treatment of hyperthyroidism and thyroid cancers. This is another isotope obtained from the nuclear facilities at Lucas Heights. It is also very useful in investigating people for metastatic malignancy. This is very important in determining staging of different cancers and in treatment options. So, increasingly, we are using nuclear medicine investigations.

There is a burgeoning field now of using targeted radio isotopes attached to molecules that can be injected and targeted in a more localised way of providing radiotherapy in some forms of cancer. A classical one now is in the treatment of prostate cancer, where a molecule can have a radioactive isotope attached to it that is concentrated in bone and the isotope then attacks the prostate cancer in the bone, which can be very important in particular for relieving the bone pain that occurs in metastatic prostate cancer. Most of us, unfortunately—or fortunately, in many ways—will require nuclear medicine investigations at some stage in our lives. The technology and the types of investigations are rapidly developing almost every day.

According to the OECD, their nuclear energy agency feels that almost all the current major radioisotope-producing nuclear reactors in the world will cease production over the next 10 years. We've spoken about the 2009-11 crisis in availability of nuclear medicine isotopes, and ANSTO's new production will enable us to provide a significant proportion of the world's global demand in the next few years, increasing the availability of high-technology jobs and increasing export earnings for the country. The Labor Party thoroughly recommends that this bill be passed to enable ANSTO to compete on a global basis for these sorts of technologies.

In industry, the need for radioisotopes is also growing. The development of the ANSTO facility as well as its postgraduate and graduate teaching facilities will further help us meet demand in this burgeoning technology, as will the development of the Synroc waste processing plant, which is part of the redevelopment of the nuclear hub and will be completed in 2019. That will provide us with even more jobs. Labor has for some years promoted the concept of higher-technology, value-added jobs in technology hubs, and this is a really great example of that. The government is to be commended for doing what it can to try to help this get developed. We feel that this current bill will help drive improvements to ANSTO's ability in research and the development of high-technology jobs and export earnings, and also with its collaboration with private industry.

We must continue, of course, to provide supports to ANSTO to continue to upgrade its facilities, also including the Synchrotron, in Melbourne, for which the government has just provided some extra funding. But every year we need to continue to update our progress in these areas. I thoroughly commend this bill to the House.

See this speech in context