Jenny Macklin (Jagajaga, Australian Labor Party, Deputy Leader of the Opposition) Share this | Hansard source

Labor will oppose the Commonwealth Radioactive Waste Management Legislation Amendment Bill 2006. This is the latest instalment in a series of three related extreme, arrogant and heavy-handed bills. Labor will continue to defend the right of the community, including Indigenous communities, to be properly and fully consulted before decisions are made about the location of radioactive waste dumps. 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, 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 and 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 for the facility and indemnifies traditional owners following the land return against any damages claims arising from the use of the land for a facility.

The bill continues the Howard government’s history of removing the voice of local communities in this government’s campaign to impose a waste dump on the Northern Territory. This campaign should be seen for exactly what it is—a taster for the methods the Howard government intends to use in imposing nuclear power stations and high-level waste dumps on unsuspecting communities right around Australia: tricky tactics like denying real intentions before an election then springing it on a community straight after, or misusing parliamentary numbers to override every legislative right, protection and safeguard normally available to everyday Australians when they want to have their say on government decisions which affect them. Accordingly, I move:

That all words after “That” be omitted with a view to substituting the following words: “ the House:

(1)

refuses the Bill a second reading, because of the Howard Government’s:

(a)

continuing arrogant approach imposing a nuclear waste dump on the people of the Northern Territory without proper scientific assessment and consultation processes;

(b)

broken election commitments to not locate a waste dump in the Northern Territory;

(c)

overriding of many Federal, State and Territory legal protections, rights and safeguards;

(d)

destruction of any recourse to procedural fairness provisions for anyone wishing to challenge the Minister’s decision to impose a waste dump on the people of the Northern Territory;

(e)

continuing and aggravated disregard of the International Atomic Energy Commission’s recommendations on good social practices like consultation and transparency in relation to nuclear waste;

(f)

failure to deliver a national waste repository after ten long years in government, and,

(2)

in light of the Howard Government’s imposition of a nuclear waste dump on the Northern Territory community, and the recent High Court decision in the Workchoices case, expresses deep concern that the Howard Government will override community objections and State and Territory laws to impose nuclear reactors and high level nuclear waste dumps on local communities across Australia”.

To begin with I want to remind the House of the circumstances underlying the 2005 bill pushed through this parliament late last year.

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