Warren Snowdon (Lingiari, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Parliamentary Secretary for Northern Australia and Indigenous Affairs) Share this | Hansard source

Whilst I note that the member for Grey said, ‘Hear, hear!’, let me say to him that it is totally inappropriate for the Commonwealth government to seek to impose nuclear waste facilities upon the community of the Northern Territory without consultation and without agreement. The fact is that a great proponent of the nuclear industry in terms of mining, the South Australian government, prevented the siting of a nuclear waste facility, the national repository, in their state because they sought to reflect the concerns which were being expressed in their community about that matter.

The bottom line is—and this, of course, is the rub—that one of the chief proponents of the change to the uranium policy at the ALP national conference will be the Premier of South Australia. To me, you cannot have it both ways. You have got to be in a position to accept that, if you are going to start the process in the nuclear fuel cycle, you have to go to the very end of that process and understand that you have obligations to deal with the nuclear waste generated.

Everyone accepts that there needs to be a national repository. But to have that waste repository now, as a result of the decision by the South Australian government and of decisions taken by the Commonwealth government because of the inability to be able to negotiate a set of arrangements with any state government, and to impose it upon the people of the Northern Territory just because the Commonwealth can do so is, in my view, immoral. The fact is that the Northern Territory community is sick and tired of the way this government has dealt with this situation. When a conservative government in the Northern Territory dealt with a Labor government federally, not once in the 13 years that that Labor government was in power did it seek to impose its view upon the people of the Northern Territory in the way the current government has sought to impose its view on the people of the Northern Territory—on a number of occasions—by denying due process and the right of the Territory community to determine what should happen within the jurisdiction of the Northern Territory.

One of the most heinous of these has been the decision by the Commonwealth government to arbitrarily choose three sites around the Northern Territory, which is Commonwealth land, and say to the people of the Northern Territory, ‘We’ve now chosen three sites; one of these three sites is quite probably going to be the place where we are going to secure our nuclear waste repository.’ They did that without agreement. We heard members of this parliament, ministers in this government, say to the people of the Northern Territory that they thought this country was uninhabited, that no-one was living out there, and so on. Of course, that is just absolute, absurd nonsense. There are Aboriginal people with traditional rights in those communities, and there are pastoralists who live very close to the sites which have been chosen. The community is most concerned about it, yet it was not something which was negotiated; it was something which was imposed.

Whilst the member for Batman is quite right to raise the concerns about our needing to have a national repository, the way in which it has been imposed upon the people of the Northern Territory is not appropriate and, as I said, is totally immoral. But we do have a responsibility, and that responsibility means that we should be engaging all communities nationally to find a solution to the problem—and not, as the Commonwealth has done, just imposing it upon one part of the community just because it can.

With great respect to you, Mr Deputy Speaker Scott, you come from a rural community and understand, as I do, that rural communities across Australia are sick and tired of being dictated to in the way this federal government seeks to dictate to them. We need to be able to assure the people who live in the bush that they are not going to be subject to arbitrary decisions in the way in which people in the Northern Territory have been subject to decisions about nuclear waste disposal. We have a responsibility to ensure—and I am sure you do; I hope you do—that we speak up on behalf of those rural constituencies. You have a responsibility to say to this government that, just as your rural constituents would not want their land denigrated in the way the Northern Territory land has been denigrated by this government—and their rights denigrated—you would support the people of the Northern Territory in ensuring that their struggle against victimisation by this federal government is successful. I hope that is something you would do in your party room, because we share a common interest, and that common interest is to ensure that the rights of every Australian are protected by this parliament. They have not been protected by this parliament, particularly by your government, in the way in which it has imposed this nuclear facility on the people of the Northern Territory.

I will go to the question of the ALP national conference. As president of the Northern Territory branch of the Labor Party, I have been holding forums across the Northern Territory on the question of uranium mining. That is with the full knowledge that, given the way in which these things happen, in all likelihood the Labor Party will have a discussion about a policy proposal which will be given to it by its leaders at the national conference, there will be a vigorous debate and the policy will be changed.

We all know what the end result is likely to be. Nevertheless, I saw it as my obligation to go and talk to the rank and file of the Labor Party in the Northern Territory about what they thought about these policy proposals. They indicated to me that not only do they still harbour the same concerns that were expressed by me and many others in the seventies but also they remain really concerned about nuclear nonproliferation and waste disposal. They are most concerned that when we have this discussion, as the member for Batman said, we properly address all parts of the question. We need to do that in a sophisticated and relatively detached manner.

Even though I have been opposed to the nuclear industry all my adult life, I am a realist and I understand that we are going to have uranium mining now and into the future. Therefore, we need to rationally address all of these issues. The fact is that we are not going to have a policy change in the Labor Party which will close down any mines. The fact is that, under the existing arrangements, there is the capacity for new mines to be developed across the country. The odd thing is that they have not been, even though I understand that uranium is almost at $100 a pound. The fact is that we have not had a plethora of uranium mines developed across the community, partly because state Labor governments have said they will not countenance them—except, of course, the government of South Australia. That government has decided that it will not accept a nuclear waste repository, even though it is a chief proponent of the expansion of the uranium industry.

I think, therefore, that there is some logic in us arguing that those people who are proponents of the nuclear industry should come up with a solution for nuclear waste disposal and should not allow decisions which they make to have a detrimental impact upon other people in the community in the way in which the decision taken by the South Australian government has had an impact upon the people of the Northern Territory. They have an obligation.

I say to those people who are going to participate in this debate at the national conference that they should accept that obligation and should come up with a proposal which, on the issue of nuclear waste disposal, addresses the national priorities, needs and concerns. They should accept that if there is an open and fair process in assessing a site—which did take place as a result of initiatives of the Keating government in the early nineties—once the site is selected, on the basis of the best scientific knowledge, negotiations should take place in a proper and ordered manner. All of the communities that might be involved need to be engaged, including the local communities. Then we can get a resolution to this.

It will not happen if, as the federal government has done with the Northern Territory, you seek to impose a solution. But if you accept that you are going to be a party to the discussion about where a nuclear waste facility should be, then you should be prepared to accept that the outcome which is agreed as a result of that discussion is something you will advocate. You should not treat the community with contempt, which is what has been done by the government of South Australia. I think they have been contemptuous of their obligations, partly because they were participants in the process in the first instance but also because we have a national responsibility to address the issue.

Whether or not we end up getting a waste facility in the Northern Territory, if, as I hope, Labor wins the federal election later this year, then the undertaking is very clear: we will go back to the drawing board. Unless contracts have been let, we have an obligation to go back and find a rational way to deal with this issue. The rational way we would deal with this issue is by going through the process which I outlined a little earlier.

I know that there are people on both sides of this parliament who are concerned about the way in which we are dealing with these matters. I know there are people on both sides of this parliament and certainly people in the general community who, whilst they are very concerned about uranium mining, accept that uranium mining is going to continue now and into the future. We need to address these issues of national priority. We must do it in a way which the community accepts as being fair and reasonable and not in a way which imposes upon people or derogates people’s rights and their desires to live safely.

Mr Deputy Speaker, I am pleased that I have had the opportunity to contribute to this discussion, but I say to you that the nuclear industry—uranium mining and all aspects of the nuclear fuel cycle—is not going to leave the community’s psyche. People are going to be engaged in this discussion for many years to come, partly because of the priority that the government is imposing on us to develop nuclear power generation. Let me make it very clear, so that the government and those people who support the government around this place know, that the Labor Party will not be part of it. We will not be part of embracing nuclear power generation.

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