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

Yes, Senator Polley, 13—including an incident only weeks before the article in which radioactive gases, including krypton, escaped after an explosion inside a radioactive hot cell. But I guess publishing that information would not have served Piers Ackerman’s bigoted, anti-Labor ranting.

This series of three bills makes it clear that the Howard government will override community objections and, unfortunately, state and territory laws to impose nuclear reactors and high-level nuclear waste dumps on local communities across Australia. If the Howard government cannot consult, cannot build community consensus, cannot leave important legal rights untrampled and cannot gain the informed consent of Indigenous people for a low- and medium-level nuclear waste facility, what hope can we have that they will comply with International Atomic Energy Agency best practice guidelines in relation to nuclear power and the resulting high-level radioactive waste? On that note, I urge all senators to vote against this bill. (Quorum formed)