Ms Catherine King (Ballarat, Australian Labor Party, Parliamentary Secretary for Health and Ageing) Share this | Hansard source

I move:

That the amendments be agreed to.

The government supports Senate amendment (1). The government agrees that a national radioactive waste management facility should not become an international waste repository. It has been the position of successive Australian governments that Australia will not accept other countries' radioactive waste. We want to make that clear. Countries that benefit from the use of Australian uranium for electricity generation should expect to make their own arrangements to manage and ultimately dispose of the resulting nuclear waste. This amendment, which was passed unanimously by the Senate, restricts access to a national radioactive waste management facility to waste that originates from use of radioactive materials and nuclear activities in Australia. In particular, it permits waste arising from overseas reprocessing of Australian research reactor fuel to be accepted at the facility.

The amendment complements controls under the Customs (Prohibited Imports) Regulations and the prohibition already in the bill of acceptance of high-level waste, preventing the facility from accepting used power reactor fuel. In practice, there will be no international interest in an Australian waste management facility. Such facilities already operate at a multitude of sites around the world.

In regard to Senate amendment (2): naturally, the government supports this amendment as well. The National Radioactive Waste Management Bill 2010 currently provides that the minister may declare a volunteered site as the site for a radioactive waste management facility. Clause 17 provides that the minister may revoke a declaration to acquire a site for the facility. This provision reverses a decision to select a site in the event that the site fails to meet regulatory approvals. In its current draft, the bill does not allow the same revocation to also be made for the all-weather road access to the site. This oversight was originally identified in the Parliamentary Library Bills Digest No. 52, 2010-2011 at page 13. There is no policy justification that would require the Commonwealth to continue a declaration for road access to a site that would not be the location for the facility. Therefore, the proposed amendment addresses this minor oversight. In the event that an acquired site and road did not meet regulatory approvals under the Environment Protection and Biodiversity Conservation Act 1999 or the Australian Radiation Protection and Nuclear Safety Act 1998, the amendment has the effect of allowing the minister to revoke a decision to select a road for the purposes of the facility.

In relation to the final amendment, the government supports the opposition amendment. The opposition amendment establishes a fund for the host state or territory where a facility is located. Moneys paid into the fund will be used to enhance medical services in that state or territory. In his speech in support of the amendment, Senator Scullion spoke about steering away from the not-in-my-backyard mentality when it comes to establishing a facility in Australia. The volunteer provisions in the bill as well as this amendment support this approach.

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