Glenn Sterle (WA, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Hansard source

I rise to make a few brief remarks on the Commonwealth Radioactive Waste Management Legislation Amendment Bill 2006 following on from my contribution to the debate on the Australian Nuclear Science and Technology Organisation Amendment Bill 2006. The Commonwealth Radioactive Waste Management Act 2005, which the Commonwealth Radioactive Waste Management Legislation Amendment Bill 2006 amends, was rammed through both houses of parliament without adequate scrutiny. It is an extreme piece of legislation. It imposes a toxic nuclear waste dump on the people of the Northern Territory and it overrides the Howard government’s own environment and heritage protection laws. It overrides the Native Title Act and the Lands Acquisition Act. It removes procedural fairness. It allows the Commonwealth government to do whatever it deems necessary to establish or operate a nuclear waste dump and whatever it pleases to ensure the nuclear waste gets transported to the nuclear waste site. In other words, the bill brushes aside critical environmental protection, community safety and Aboriginal rights laws to ensure that Territorians get dumped with a toxic nuclear waste dump.

This bill amends the Administrative Decisions (Judicial Review) Act 1977 and the principal act, the Commonwealth Radioactive Waste Management Act 2005, to make land nominations as distinct from decisions not reviewable under the Administrative Decisions (Judicial Review) Act. This bill provides that failure to comply with the site nomination rules in the Commonwealth Radioactive Waste Management Act 2005 will not affect the validity of the minister’s approval of a nomination. This bill proposes to validate a nomination which would otherwise be automatically ruled invalid for ministerial consideration because, for example, traditional owners had not been informed of the nomination or traditional owners did not properly understand that their land was being nominated or traditional owners had not consented to the nomination. The provisions of the bill in this regard are a direct contradiction of the commitments of the Minister for Education, Science and Training to the parliament in her second reading speech on this bill, when she stated:

Current provisions of the act set down a number of criteria that should be met if a land council decides to make a nomination. Importantly, these criteria include that the owners of the land in question have understood the proposal and have consented to the nomination, and that other Aboriginal communities with an interest in the land have also been consulted.

A site could still be nominated and accepted even though traditional owners do not know it has been or do not agree with it being used to dump radioactive wastes. This bill also removes any entitlement to procedural fairness in relation to a nomination of a site. The bill also amends the principal 2005 act to provide for the return of nominated Aboriginal land used for a radioactive waste management facility, when no longer required in around 300 years, and indemnifies traditional owners, following the land return, against any damages claims arising from the use of the land for a facility.

Before the last election the people of the Northern Territory were given an undertaking—a promise, in fact—by the Howard government that there would not be a dump in the Northern Territory. When this government needed to be re-elected it could not wait to reassure Territorians that there would be no nuclear waste dump in the Territory. Just prior to the federal election, the Minister for the Environment and Heritage ruled out the Northern Territory as a site for a nuclear waste dump. He 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.

However, once the Howard government was safely back in office it seems that it could not break that commitment fast enough. Just last year, Mr Tollner, the member for Solomon, continued to claim not to support the nuclear waste dump in the Territory. At that time, he said:

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 and I haven’t heard anything apart from that view expressed since that election.

Unfortunately Mr Tollner showed his constituents what he is made of when he rolled over and got his tummy tickled by the Prime Minister and voted for this bill. But we should not be surprised.

We know that the coalition have form when it comes to the location of nuclear facilities. They certainly know how to keep them secret. In 1997, the government considered a short list of 14 possible sites for nuclear research reactors, and they kept the list secret from the public. The confidential briefing—signed with ‘Good work’ by the former science minister, Mr Peter McGauran—said that the short list should be kept secret because release of information about alternative sites may unnecessarily alarm communities in the broad areas under consideration. But it seems that the new generation of coalition MPs do not share Mr McGauran’s caution.

Dr Jensen, the member for Tangney, has the prescription for what ails you. He has already told the parliament:

Having evolved in the surrounding radiation, our bodies not only adapted to radiation but, indeed, need radiation to survive.

In his speech in the second reading debate on this bill, Dr Jensen expanded on his theories on what is good for the people of Western Australia. Just in case honourable senators missed what he had to say, I am more than happy to enlighten them. He said:

I believe that Western Australia should have a role and responsibility to look after its own nuclear waste.

He then went on to say:

The placement of nuclear waste is a matter beyond the concerns of states alone. It is a national concern and a matter that clearly should be dealt with by the federal parliament. This is not a matter for parochial ‘nimbyness’. The ‘not in my backyard’ mentality exists all too freely.

So here we have Dr Jensen, the member for Tangney, the Prime Minister’s favourite whose neck the Prime Minister personally pulled off the chopping block, in spite of the express wishes of the local Liberal Party preselectors, telling parliament that not only should Western Australia be used to store nuclear waste but the Commonwealth should make it happen against the Western Australian state government’s will. According to Dr Jensen, all these people who respectfully disagree with Dr Jensen’s view, people who consider that turning the beautiful expanses of Western Australia into a radioactive rubbish dump is a bad idea are just a bunch of parochial nimbys. The main reason put forward by Dr Jensen for wanting to use Commonwealth power to force Western Australia to become a nuclear rubbish dump was:

... the waste from ... is only harmful for a period of 200 to 300 years.

What a relief. Dr Jensen might feel comfortable leaving a toxic legacy for his great, great, great, great, great, great, great, great grandchildren. But, personally, I am not so comfortable. Dr Jensen finished his speech with an invitation to us all, when he said:

I want to re-encourage members ... to investigate and discover for themselves the exciting technologies that are significantly contributing to the global solutions on nuclear waste.

Dr Jensen has a friend in Mr Wilson Tuckey, the member for O’Connor. In his speech in the second reading debate on this bill, Mr Tuckey told the parliament:

I am neither frightened of nor concerned about a nuclear power industry. In fact, I have advocated for the storage of international nuclear waste in Australia ...

Maybe Mr Tuckey will take up Dr Jensen’s offer and they can both visit Chernobyl together on their next study tour. Maybe at Chernobyl they will get all the beneficial radiation that Dr Jensen would have us exposed to. The waste dump that is being planned by this government is intended to house water from the new reactor presently under construction; the old reactor, which is still operational, including waste from France and the United Kingdom; defence waste held at various sites across Australia, including contaminated soil from the Woomera test site; Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organisation accelerator waste; and other Commonwealth waste. But none of the sites under consideration were short-listed when scientific and environmental criteria were used to assess alternative sites around Australia in 1997.

This is a government that ignores science, ignores economics and ignores the environment. Australia should remember this track record when they consider John Howard’s determination to impose no less than 25 nuclear reactors across Australia. But they are not the only ones being deceptive. That fawning toad Piers Akerman has criticised the Labor Party for its concerns about the potential dangers posed by nuclear reactors. In an article in the Hobart Mercury on 19 June 2006, he said:

... Albanese talked about nuclear safety as if every one—