Martin Ferguson (Batman, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Minister for Primary Industries, Resources, Forestry and Tourism) Share this | Hansard source

I welcome the opportunity to participate in the debate on the Australian Nuclear Science and Technology Organisation Amendment Bill 2006 and, in doing so, I seek to bring a bit of balance, integrity and honesty to the debate, given some comments that have been made over the last day about what is a pretty straightforward issue. The issue is ANSTO. This is not a debate about nuclear power and this is not a debate about downstream processing and the issue of enrichment in Australia. This is a debate about whether we as a nation are mature enough to select a site where we should store our low-level and intermediate-level nuclear waste. It is our waste; it is no-one else’s waste.

In that context, can I make it clear from the point of view of the Labor Party that there is no proposal to establish a nuclear power plant in Australia. It just does not stack up economically. In terms of processing, I simply say that there is a world excess capacity for at least a decade at this time and, more importantly, the International Atomic Energy Agency has said that we as a global community are obligated not to permit the establishment of any more enrichment facilities throughout the world until we attend to our responsibilities to review the nuclear non-proliferation treaty and improve the resourcing of the International Atomic Energy Agency.

Given those comments, let us go to what this debate is really about. This debate is about ANSTO. I want to say at the outset that, as far as I am concerned, ANSTO is one of Australia’s iconic research institutions. It is as important as CSIRO, it is as important as our CRCs and it is as important as our universities. Every one of us has been the beneficiary—either personally or through family or friends—of the success of the operation of ANSTO. In that context I refer to our dependence as a nation on nuclear medicine. It is therefore our responsibility, if there are any weaknesses in the operation of ANSTO, to deal in a proper way with those weaknesses and improve the performance of ANSTO. It is our responsibility not to seek to politically destroy the reputation and standing of ANSTO but more importantly to improve its performance. There is no question in my mind that it is the appropriate organisation to have responsibility for managing radioactive materials in Australia. That is what the debate is about. ANSTO—and people should remember this—is Australia’s national nuclear research and development organisation and the centre of Australian nuclear expertise. That has been the position of all major political parties—that is, not one side of politics but all sides of politics; of the government and the alternative government, which on this occasion is the Labor Party—in Australia for decades.

ANSTO’s nuclear infrastructure includes the research reactor HIFAR, particle accelerators, radiopharmaceutical production facilities and a range of other unique research facilities that we as a nation should be proud of. The HIFAR is Australia’s only nuclear reactor. It is used to produce radioactive products for use in medicine and industry, as a source of neutron beams for scientific research and to irradiate silicon for semiconductor applications. It is well known that HIFAR will soon be replaced by a new reactor, to be known as OPAL, the Open Pool Australian Light-Water reactor. I am pleased to report that to date all the testing of the new reactor has been regarded as highly successful. I urge all members of this House to take the time, if they are interested in this debate, to go out to Lucas Heights and thoroughly examine and then debate what is actually going on at Lucas Heights. I have been there on a number of occasions, first as a union official in 1977 and since then in a variety of employment opportunities that I have had as a representative of the labour movement in Australia. I am certainly not ashamed of the existence of Lucas Heights. It has been to the benefit of all Australians.

ANSTO also operates—and people want to start remembering this—the national medical cyclotron and accelerator facility used to produce certain short-lived radioisotopes for nuclear medicine procedures. It is located, interestingly, right in the heart of Sydney in the grounds of the Royal Prince Alfred Hospital—and my parents have benefited from the operation of the Royal Prince Alfred Hospital—in Camperdown, next door to the University of Sydney. In addition, ANSTO manages Australia’s synchrotron facilities at a number of overseas locations. Just yesterday morning I attended a breakfast briefing by CSIRO on its Light Metals Flagship projects. Interestingly, the Australian synchrotron facilities overseas have been critical to CSIRO developing and understanding at an atomic level its new low-cost processes for the production of titanium powder, metal and parts. The potential of these new titanium technologies for Australian resources and Australian manufacturing is extraordinary. They can also make a major contribution to savings in energy consumption. The synchrotron facilities have been important infrastructure that have helped CSIRO achieve what it has with these new technologies.

I am pleased to say that Australia now has its own synchrotron, built by the Victorian government and located adjacent to the Monash University and CSIRO campuses at Clayton, Victoria. CSIRO and ANSTO are both foundation investors and members of the Australian Synchrotron Company. The synchrotron will be a world-class facility that will deliver beams of very intense X-rays with unique characteristics, which can be used for a wide range of scientific experiments, including—and it is about time some people thought about this, as they are things we will all benefit from—new drug design, advanced manufacturing, medical imaging, materials research and mineral analysis. And people want to destroy the standing of ANSTO! I just shake my head and wonder why some people are involved in the political processes in Australia.

That takes me to the need for the effective operation of ANSTO. The effective operation of the synchrotron will support a large number of Australia’s national research priorities and the associated priority goals. We are very fortunate to have this world-class facility at the leading edge of technology development in so many areas. I wonder why politicians are not talking up the benefits of this facility. CSIRO and ANSTO are both outstanding research and development organisations, and Australia would be simply the poorer without them. Unfortunately, ANSTO is too often pilloried by those who should know better, for their own political purposes. It is one thing, I suggest to the House, to run an antinuclear campaign underpinned by sound science, logic and belief. It is quite another to stoop to ludicrous fearmongering about ANSTO and the Lucas Heights nuclear facility, which is so important to the Australian community for its contribution to nuclear medicine, to industry and to the future of high technology manufacturing in this country.

The bill we have before us deals with the unavoidable consequences of nuclear medicine and nuclear technology in industry. This is an important debate. Let us have a factual, objective, non-emotional debate about this issue. It was interestingly started—and not many people refer to this—by Labor in government and the then Minister for Science and Technology, Simon Crean. The Labor government recognised two decades ago, as a responsible Labor government would and should, that Australia needed a national approach and a national solution to the issue of nuclear waste. I am delighted that the process was started by the forward-looking and performing Hawke and Keating Labor governments. There is not a member or senator in this parliament who would not agree that there is a need for us as a nation to solve our own problems.

It is time the games stopped at a state, territory and national level and at a political level. It is time we worked to deliver a responsible and honest outcome for the Australian community. Australians deserve and expect better from us than cheap politics over such an important national issue. So I am very pleased today to speak in this debate. The purpose of this debate is to permit ANSTO to handle, manage or store radioactive materials from a broader range of sources and circumstances than it is currently allowed to under the Australian Nuclear Science and Technology Organisation Act 1987. ANSTO is a competent organisation. It has the required expertise to perform this role for Australia as a nation and for our community at large.

The fact is that, at the moment, radioactive waste—and not many have mentioned this; they want to create fearmongering in the suburbs of our capital cities and regional communities—is already stored at over 100 locations around Australia, in government stores, universities, hospitals and factories. Radioactive waste is disposed of at the WA government’s Mount Walton East integrated waste management facility and in the Queensland government’s purpose-built radioactive waste store at Esk. It is stored at Woomera in South Australia and the Lucas Heights facility in Sydney; in Defence facilities in and around Melbourne, Ipswich, Wodonga, Adelaide, Newcastle, Darwin, Sydney and Nowra; at CSIRO facilities in Canberra, Sydney, Adelaide, Mount Gambier, Brisbane and Melbourne; and—guess where?—right at the heart of Canberra, the national capital, at the Australian National University. And some suggest we cannot store it safely? It is not dangerous waste if it is properly managed and stored.

It includes contaminated laboratory equipment, such as protective clothing, paper, rubber gloves, plastic and glassware; lightly contaminated soil arising from previous CSIRO research into mineral extraction that was transported to Woomera in 1995; and low-activity disused radioactive sources like smoke detectors and exit signs. It includes intermediate-level waste like the residues from overseas reprocessing of—guess whose?—Australia’s spent research reactor fuel, waste arising from the production of radiopharmaceuticals by ANSTO and higher level disused radioactive sources from industry, medicine and research.

Whilst we can only assume that these wastes are already being safely stored in over 100 locations around this country, clearly it would be desirable and in the nation’s and the community’s best interests if the government could finally deliver a national repository for our nuclear waste—a national repository in the safe and trusted hands of ANSTO. The decision for the site for the national repository leaves a lot to be desired, based on recent political activities. The Labor Party supports a national repository and always has. It has reaffirmed that position as a result of the consideration of two ANSTO bills and at the shadow ministry and caucus level twice over the last 12 months, as a result of submissions by the appropriate shadow minister with the responsibility for this, the member for Jagajaga.

I do not agree with the arbitrary imposition of the national repository on the Northern Territory, without proper scientific assessment and community consultation. The government’s decision to impose the national repository on the Northern Territory is a ‘pin the tail on the donkey’ response to an issue that requires the most rigorous scientific, security, safety and consultation processes. It is a lazy decision and a quick-fit political fix. It is likely to backfire. The way it is being handled is not right.

I therefore draw attention to a forthcoming antinuclear campaign called the Beyond Nuclear Initiative Symposium being held in Melbourne later this month. Topics to be covered at the symposium include the proposed Northern Territory radioactive waste dump, and one—that particularly intrigues me, as the shadow minister for resources—which is billed as ‘radioactive racism’. For too long antinuclear campaigners, various environmental non-government organisations and other interest groups have used Indigenous communities for their own short-term political purposes. And what have Indigenous communities got in return? Certainly not jobs and economic prosperity, certainly not better education for Indigenous kids and certainly not economic empowerment. The simple fact is that Indigenous empowerment is not in the interests of special interest groups, including environmental NGOs, because they might make their own decisions.

I describe ‘radioactive racism’ as paternalism. Fortunately, Indigenous communities in the 21st century are awake up, and I am pleased to see they are starting to make their own decisions about these complex issues. They are working with industry—for example, Rio Tinto, Great Southern Plantations and Accor Asia Pacific—to get jobs, education and training, and sustainable business investment and opportunities for the future. They are seeking information from all sides of these debates. They are starting to determine their own future, and I encourage them to do so and, by doing so, to grow in confidence.

With respect to the Northern Territory nuclear waste dump, the government has made it easier for the antinuclear campaigners because of the process it pursued. How can a decision that is not properly based on scientific or appropriate consultation be defended? And that is where my head is at. There has been a lack of competence by government in determining this issue. A national repository is required by Australia. It is our nuclear waste and we have to sort this problem out. Also, as was considered by the Labor Party caucus in considering this bill, ANSTO has to be supported for the purposes of boosting our efforts in the area of nuclear waste technology research. I had hoped that that would be included in the second reading amendment, but it has not been. You cannot say that we have a nuclear waste problem unless you are also prepared to support efforts to solve the problem of storage and waste disposal.

For over 25 years, ANSTO has been a leading-edge research organisation in this capacity. I was therefore pleased to note ANSTO’s announcement last month to fund up to five fellowships each worth up to $250,000. This is about re-equipping ANSTO not just with a nuclear reactor but also with the manpower which will enable it to rebuild its scientific capacity in the nuclear field. I am calling on the nuclear industry and the uranium mining companies to also devote additional research money to assist in this endeavour.

We as a nation have a problem with respect to our own waste. It is our responsibility to engage with the Australian community to sort out where we store our waste based on scientific understanding and proper research. In that context, I also say that Australian scientists and engineers have a proud record in nuclear technologies, just like they have in solar, light metal, coal and other technologies. We have to continue to develop our nuclear technology capacity.

The Labor Party supports and has reaffirmed during the consideration of this bill the need to establish a national repository to store low- and intermediate-level waste. That support also potentially includes support for a site in the Northern Territory, if it is selected through a proper process, including scientific consideration. Our opposition to the current process relates to the manner in which the Australian government has gone about that process, lying during the course of the last federal election and, after the last election, coming up with a couple of sites picked out of nowhere in the Northern Territory for the purposes of resolving their own political difficulties.

I say to the Howard government: step back. The way you are going is wrong. You are undermining an important decision that this community must make. You are undermining a process that was, in a very proud way, commenced by Labor in government with Simon Crean as the Minister for Science and Technology. We are not opposed to this outcome, but we are opposed to the methods being pursued by the Howard government to solve their political problems.

In conclusion: as the Australian Strategic Policy Institute reported in its paper last week, there is no security imperative for Australia to provide a safe service for the long-term storage of waste beyond our own needs, provided we store our own waste under proper supervision with appropriate safeguards. We have to solve our problems. Stop the emotion and dishonesty that surrounds this debate on all sides of politics, including amongst some of the Labor Party state and territory governments. Work with the Commonwealth government that has failed the test to date and front up to your responsibility to solve Australia’s problems about how we store our waste. We benefit from nuclear based medicines. Sort out the problems. (Time expired)

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