Dennis Jensen (Tangney, Liberal Party) Share this | Hansard source

The purpose of the Commonwealth Radioactive Waste Management Legislation Amendment Bill 2006 is to enable the return of a volunteer site to its traditional owners once the site is no longer required by the facility, should such a site be used for the Commonwealth radioactive waste management facility. Currently, the act allows for the Commonwealth to acquire all rights and interests in the volunteer site but there is no mechanism for the return of those rights to the traditional owners. The federal government, therefore, would not be able to return such a site to its traditional owners under the current legislation. In the extremely unlikely event that contamination occurs as a result of the use of the land, the traditional owners will be indemnified by the Commonwealth against any resulting claims. However, I do not believe that this risk is high at all.

Over the years I have taken a very keen interest in developments in waste-handling measures by Australian scientists. Unfortunately, all too often the terms ‘radioactive waste’ or ‘nuclear waste’ are used to cause fear in the community. Indeed, in my state of Western Australia it is spruiked by the state Labor government whenever they are experiencing difficulties, particularly with hapless ministers. Shortly after Minister Norm Marlborough was required to resign from parliament over his evidence before the Corruption and Crime Commission of Western Australia last month, there was a flurry of press releases claiming uranium mining and nuclear reactors in metropolitan areas and that nuclear waste dumps were being foisted on the community. It is an issue of: ‘Whoops! We’ve got a problem with one of our ministers, what do we do? Aha! Let’s look for an issue. Nuclear—good word! Nuclear waste.’ After the failed bid in the High Court, the Western Australian public was once again browbeaten by Premier Alan Carpenter on the radio on 14 November. He said:

It opens up the possibility that the Commonwealth Government, the John Howard Government, could legislate to force WA to accept nuclear waste, for example. No matter what West Australians think about the issue, it is extremely, extremely critical now.

Problem? Transfer. This is clearly irresponsible government. It has all the hallmarks of a premier in trouble: ‘Look over there! Look anywhere but at my cabinet and my administration.’ I believe that Western Australia should have a role and responsibility to look after its own nuclear waste. Each year thousands of people receive the benefit of nuclear medicine. Nuclear waste is generated every time a specialist refers someone to a hospital and that person undergoes medical treatments that use nuclear technology. These life-saving technologies are also developed by ANSTO at Lucas Heights. We are all able to access the benefits of nuclear medicine in hospitals in WA, but we take none of the responsibility for the disposal of the waste. The argument by Western Australia’s Minister for the Environment, Mr McGowan, is that ‘any waste produced by Lucas Heights or any other nuclear fuel production facility should be dealt with by those facilities.’

In 2004 then Premier Gallop stated, ‘WA does generate some radioactive waste from medical and industrial uses and, to a smaller extent, from research.’ The Radiation Safety Act 1975 requires the owner of any premises that use or store radioactive substances to register both the premises and the radioactive substances. In Western Australia there are just over 300 registrations for premises that have radioactive substances. Many of these registrations contain more than one radioactive source or substance for which disposal must be undertaken in accordance with the act. Clearly, around 300 sites in Western Australia alone is not an efficient solution. One wonders what must be the number of sites registered across the country. It would be far more sensible to have one major repository to deal with this waste.

The federal government has never ducked its responsibility to ensure the safe handling of radioactive waste; indeed, it takes responsibility for proper storage and handling of the waste. I am very much a believer in a federal system and in a shared responsibility between federal and state governments. But even more so I believe in a nation called Australia and in responsibility for matters of national concern being handled by the national government. 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. Instead of scaring the constituency with threats of nuclear waste dumps, we should start acting responsibly. It is time to take off the blinkers and look to the exciting technologies and advances that fellow Australians are making in respect of nuclear waste.

One such person, who should have been applauded for his invention, is the late Professor Ted Ringwood, from the Australian National University. In 1978 he invented synroc, a material that allows the storage of high-grade radioactive waste for geological time periods. Over the years, ANSTO has developed different forms of synroc for a wide range of radioactive wastes. ANSTO has constructed a mini synroc plant to demonstrate the manufacture of a non-radioactive synroc plant at Lucas Heights. It also safely immobilises waste arising from medical isotope production. Tailored synroc waste forms have been developed to target problematic Cold War legacy waste streams that are difficult to incorporate in glass.

The US Department of Energy chose synroc for the plutonium immobilisation program in the late 1990s. ANSTO has established the synrocANSTO business team to oversee the commercialisation of this technology. They are working with Nexia Solutions in Britain to design a plant to immobilise five tonnes of plutonium residue waste from the British Nuclear Fuels Ltd Sellafield site. This technology is also applicable to other legacy plutonium and actinide waste streams around the world. However, in the Australian context, if nuclear energy were required, it would be unlikely that synroc would be needed to store it for very long time periods, because there are fourth generation reactor designs that burn most of their own waste.

These designs are very interesting in that they not only have significantly reduced waste life—because they burn their own waste, the waste forms are only harmful for a period of 200 to 300 years—but also use significantly less fuel because they use up the fuel far more efficiently than conventional reactors. In fact, you would be looking at a waste volume and a use volume of uranium of about one-sixtieth that of current nuclear reactors. These technologies obviously are extremely interesting and exciting for the Australian context, looking potentially at the time frame that we would be looking at.

As I mentioned, the waste from these reactors that burn their own waste is only harmful for a period of 200 to 300 years. This might seem a long time to some, but think of some other industrial wastes that we generate—such as lead, arsenic, cadmium et cetera—that have infinite half-lives and so are harmful in the environment for an indefinite period. They do not decay; they are there forever. This is an interesting thing about radioactivity. The issue of long radioactive half-lives is often touted by the antinuclear groups as being extremely problematic—and indeed it is problematic. However, what needs to be realised is that the radioactivity of a substance is inversely proportional to its half-life. So something that has a very short half-life is very radioactive, and this can cause damage very quickly, whereas something with a very long half-life is not very radioactive at all. It is like a slow-burning wood heater. Indeed, I have already pointed to substances that have infinite half-lives. They are still radioactive; they just have infinitely long half-lives.

The community is interested in the changes to technologies in both reactors and waste handling. We should be proud of our internationally recognised achievements in waste management. If Australian ability in this area were better understood, the fear campaigns that are often waged by underperformers or people concerned with any sort of change would lose their effectiveness.

I have previously encouraged members of this House to take the opportunity to visit ANSTO and speak to Dr Ian Smith, the head of ANSTO, and his colleagues. It appears that some opposite wish to remain in a state of ignorance, because the take-up on this has been extremely low. It would appear that people think: ‘By remaining ignorant, I can in good faith perpetuate the untruths that I tell on this issue in the community.’ I want to re-encourage members, as I have said, to investigate and discover for themselves the exciting technologies that are significantly contributing to the global solutions on nuclear waste.

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