Steve Georganas (Adelaide, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Hansard source

It gives me great pleasure to rise and speak on this bill, the Australian Naval Nuclear Power Safety Bill 2023. This government is taking the next important step with this bill towards acquiring Australia's own conventionally armed, nuclear powered submarines, which also reflects on our commitment to best practice safety standards and stewardship.

We know that Australia is facing some of the most challenging strategic circumstances since the Second World War. That's why the government is making record investments in defence to keep Australians safe, which is one of the most crucial roles of any government of any persuasion. We also know that keeping Australia safe is one of the most crucial roles. At the same time, the building of submarines within the AUKUS agreement, especially in my home state of South Australia and in Perth, is very important for job creation. We'll see the creation of new technologies, industries and jobs, which is very important to the economy, to my home state and to the nation.

As I've said, Australia faces one of the most challenging times since the Second World War. What we're doing is ensuring that this bill establishes a new regulatory framework to ensure nuclear safety across Australia's nuclear powered submarine enterprise, which is central to the government's commitment to delivering Australia's first conventionally armed, nuclear powered submarines. Some of the things it will do are as follows.

The bill establishes a dedicated, fit-for-purpose nuclear safety framework to support Australia's nuclear powered submarines and related facilities. It sets out clear nuclear safety obligations for personal involvement in nuclear powered submarines and related facilities. This will be done through a licensing regime for persons conducting regulated activities, with serious civil and criminal consequences if there is a breach of law.

It establishes a new independent statutory regulator, the Australian Naval Nuclear Power Safety Regulator, which will sit within the Defence portfolio independent of the defence chain of command. It empowers the regulator to operate within a system of regulation alongside domestic agencies and, where appropriate, to collaborate with our defence partners—our US and UK partners, of course.

The Australian Naval Nuclear Power Safety (Transitional Provisions) Bill 2023 will allow any of the relevant licences issued by the CEO of the Australian Radiation Protection and Nuclear Safety Agency to transition to the new regulatory system where they would authorise regulated activities under this new legislation.

That gives you a bit of background. As I said, the government is absolutely committed to ensuring that the Australian Naval Nuclear Power Safety Bill establishes a very robust and effective regulatory framework to maintain the highest of high standards of nuclear safety that the Australian public deserves.

The Deputy Prime Minister and Minister for Defence introduced these bills back in November 2023. They were referred to the Senate Foreign Affairs, Defence and Trade Legislation Committee in May 2024. The committee published this report, made the recommendations and, ultimately, recommended the bill be passed. So it's gone through the process of the inquiry and committees, and the recommendation is that the bill be passed. The government has accepted, either in full or in principle, all of the recommendations of the Senate committee, as we've heard from the minister. Obviously, we'll make amendments to the bill where these amendments are necessary to address these differences.

In response to the Senate committee's recommendation, there will be amendments that clarify that the bill does not authorise the establishment of facilities for the purpose of civil nuclear power, the enrichment of uranium or reprocessing of nuclear materials. It's very important that we understand that. There will also be amendments that specify the requirement that the director-general and the deputy director-general of the regulator must not have served at any time in the previous 12 months as a member of the Australian Defence Force or as a staff member of Defence or the Australian Submarine Agency. That is to clearly have two completely separate entities that will be independent.

The amendments will establish an advisory committee to ensure the minister has independent advice relating to the range of matters, including—but, of course, not limited to—the operation of the bill after it's enacted and the suitability of measures to ensure the independence of the director-general and members of the regulator. They will allow the Minister for Defence to share reports from the director-general with the minister for health and the Minister for Industry and Science, as the ministers responsible for ANSTO and ARPANSA respectively, to provide for greater sharing of information with application to nuclear safety best practices and other issues. They will also ensure a more inclusive and robust offence for obstructing, hindering or intimidating a member of the regulator or persons assisting the regulator, to further strengthen the regulator's powers and its independence.

The government will make other amendments to the bill as well, including to extend the commencement of the bill from six to 12 months to ensure that we have an orderly transition to the new regulatory framework. The government will also address concerns raised by the Senate Scrutiny of Bills Committee to clarify the operation of the seizure powers in section 43 of the bill. We know that together these amendments will strengthen the bill and ensure the highest standards of nuclear safety within Australia's conventionally armed nuclear powered submarine enterprise, which is the aim of this bill.

Australia has many decades of nuclear safety regulatory experience and a robust framework to regulate current domestic civilian nuclear activities in fields such as science and medical research. However, this framework was not designed to apply in relation to the unique activities associated with naval nuclear propulsion in a military context. The environments in which submarines operate are inherently hazardous and very different, and that's why this government is taking steps to establish the fit-for-purpose, specialised regulatory framework for nuclear powered submarines. While nuclear powered submarines have a number of roles, they are, of course, Navy vessels designed to operate in hostile undersea environments, so regulating the nuclear safety aspects of this enterprise requires a system that addresses the unique hazards and risks associated with sensitive military capability.

The new regulatory system will consider the needs across the life cycle of a submarine to ensure the highest standards of nuclear safety and protection are applied. The government has made the decision to establish this new independent statutory regulator within the Defence portfolio. Again, the regulator will remain independent, and its organisation will not be subject to directions or commands from the Australian sub agency, the Department of Defence or the Australian Defence Force in the performance of its duties.

Having the regulator accountable to the defence minister is consistent with the need to ensure nuclear safety in the unique context of defence operations. This approach is very consistent with the regulatory models in the United States and in the United Kingdom, which also have separate defence nuclear safety regulators. The government will also be amending the bill to strengthen the independence of the regulator by ensuring an appropriate separation period from serving in the Defence Force, which we see as very important.

This bill is extremely important to giving confidence to the Australian public that safety is of the utmost importance to our citizens and to the men who will be serving on these submarines, and to giving confidence to the public and to the defence forces that will be using them that they will be absolutely safe. As a South Australian, as I said earlier, the build of the submarine and the AUKUS project are huge for us. I think of South Australia, my home state, and different periods in time when manufacturing has taken off. Naturally, for my home state you think of car manufacturing, which was a huge thing in the forties, when it was announced by the then Chifley government, I think it was, that we would be putting money into a particular precinct to build manufacturing. This included Premier Playford at the time, and it created thousands and thousands of jobs but also created what for its time was cutting-edge technology. That served South Australia and its economy for 60 years, right through to 2017, when Holden closed its doors—Mitsubishi a bit earlier. It paid thousands of wages, millions of dollars, to families to put bread and butter on the table.

I see this next round of manufacturing through AUKUS and through the submarines as the next cutting-edge revolution of manufacturing in my home state. It will deliver thousands and thousands of manufacturing jobs, thousands of sustainable jobs that will keep our economy going for generations to come. That's why it's important that we get it right. It's important that we give confidence to the public that safety is paramount and confidence to the defence forces that will be using the submarines and the workers that will be maintaining them that everything will be checked and balanced to ensure that we have no issues with it. This bill is about giving confidence to the public, ensuring that they will be able to have confidence in whichever government of the day that, once the regulators are in place and once the bill is implemented, the builds for the first lot of submarines going out will have safety aspects that have gone through the wringer and will continue to go through that particular check continuously.

It also takes me to the point of ensuring that we maintain our capabilities in our region. These submarines certainly will be doing that for us. We know that the nuclear powered submarines are quieter. They can go out to sea for longer than we currently have now with the Collins class and diesel. They will certainly be something that, with our defence partners, will be able to play a bigger role in defending our nation. As I said when I started this speech on this bill, one of the highest priorities that any government has is to keep its public safe. We do that by ensuring that we have the capabilities to do that in a manner that is consistent with our defence partners and in a manner that ensures the utmost safety and the utmost confidence in governments that they are doing everything that they can to ensure that safety is the No. 1 priority.

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