Nigel Scullion (NT, Country Liberal Party, Deputy Leader of the Nationals) Share this | Hansard source

If I could just be of small assistance with regard to the nature of the material that we are actually moving? First of all, there is a dictate of the radioactive repository that there is no particulate matter and that there is no liquid matter to be stored at the repository. This is unlike the yellow cake which goes weekly from South Australia along roads or on the railway line through the Northern Territory—through the suburbs of Alice Springs, then Katherine, then Darwin and then boarded at the wharf.

Most importantly is the notion that there would be radioactive rods. The rods have in previous times already gone overseas for reprocessing. The material that returns is actually being transported in containers that have to have been approved by the International Atomic Energy Agency. I have seen photographs of them and there is a very specific standard under which this material can be carried. That actual container will be used to store them in Lucas Heights and then that same container, which meets the international standards of approval, will be used to move that material from Lucas Heights to wherever the repository may be.