Damian Hale (Solomon, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I rise today to make my contribution to the debate currently before the House on the National Radioactive Waste Management Bill 2010. I had the privilege of entering this place in 2007, elected to represent the seat of Solomon in the Darwin and Palmerston areas, as well as to support the people of the Northern Territory. As a proud member of the Australian Labor Party in the Northern Territory and a strong supporter of the union movement in the north I am compelled by my convictions to convey the opposition by the people I represent to the proposed nuclear waste dump in the Northern Territory.

I have been on the public record as opposing a nuclear dump in the Northern Territory since my preselection and that will remain my position. I represent the people of my electorate, regardless of whether they voted for me, the colour of their skin, where they were born, their social standing, their sexuality, their gender, whether they have a disability and the size of their bank account. They are my people and I am their voice in this place.

I am compelled by the many representations I have received about this issue through letters, at meetings, at markets or whilst doorknocking in my electorate, all wanting me to convey to this House their concerns and the far-reaching implications for future generations. Very few pieces of legislation introduced during my time in this place will have such a long-term impact on people, on industry and on the reputation of an area and our country as this particular bill before us today. In poker terms, let me say that the Minister for Resources and Energy was dealt a very average hand from the get-go!

The important search for a repository site was left in a mess by the former government, which did nothing for a decade on this issue, and then the Howard legislation of 2005 overrode the laws of the Northern Territory permitting the process of identifying a site. You have only to look at the history of this debate to see that successive governments have failed to address what is essentially a very important issue for the country, and we now find ourselves in a situation where our time line has tightened significantly. In order to meet our international obligations we need to build a facility as soon as we possibly can before we begin to receive our waste from abroad in 2015.

I am a firm believer that in politics it is the people who will be the most affected by a policy decision made by government who need to be consulted the most. I am not a supporter of the notion that others know best simply because they are in a position of having the most influence over policy and the process of policy development.

The Labor member for Barkly, Gerry McCarthy, made a representation to me outlining his concerns regarding the National Radioactive Waste Management Bill 2010. Gerry has lived in the Barkly area for the past 30 years. Gerry and his wife, Dawn, have worked, lived and raised their children in this remote part of Australia. As a schoolteacher and now a minister in the Henderson Northern Territory government, Gerry has a vast knowledge of Indigenous culture, the region’s Indigenous clans, the dynamic relationship between the people and their land, as well as the challenges that face Indigenous Australia in remote and regional areas.

Gerry’s representations to me are balanced and well informed and without the emotion which for so long has stifled this debate in Australia. Emotional arguments have been put forward from both sides of the debate. Gerry brought to my attention a number of issues he has with the legislation in its current form and I wish to convey them to the House on his behalf and on the behalf of the people he represents. Gerry highlighted a number of issues he had with the minister’s second reading speech, delivered on Wednesday, 24 February 2010. Gerry wrote to me regarding the purpose of the bill and said:

To repeal the Commonwealth Radioactive Waste Management Act 2005 was an honourable move in support of the NT however to merely ‘cut and paste’ off the Howard Government legislation that continues to override Northern Territory legislation enacted to oppose the establishment of a nuclear waste facility in prime pastoral country was disappointing and a dismissal of our normal rights of administrative appeal.

On 4 March 2010, 100 people turned out in Tennant Creek to hear and voice concerns about the proposed nuclear radioactive waste dump at Muckaty Station. The question is: what would be the impact on pastoralists in the Barkly area who have successfully marketed their beef as clean and green? Henry Burke, the deputy chairman of the Tennant Creek branch of the NT Cattlemen’s Association, said:

As an industry view, we need to be fully engaged in the process and we need to be kept up to speed with how and when this is taking place.

Mr Burke personally feels that the people who are directly involved in making the decision should be informed of all the details and implications of what is being proposed. He went on to say:

We need to make sure what the safety process is around this. Why is it that it’s got to be stuck out in the middle of the Northern Territory at Muckaty Station? What’s dangerous about it?

He added:

There seems to be a whole lot of reasons and issues for the Government people to be sticking it out in the middle of nowhere without a lot of consultation.

The cattle industry is an enormous contributor to the nation’s GDP and plays an even bigger role in the growth of the economy in the Northern Territory. There is a very high rate of Indigenous engagement in the industry and, as I have already stated, it has a reputation second to none on the competitive global market. We are making a grave mistake if we put this industry at any risk because we do not listen to their concerns.

In addressing the issue of Australia’s international obligations to properly manage its own radioactive waste, let me echo once again the representations made to me from the member for Barkly. He wrote:

I agree and that directly relates to this issue as a matter of national significance and national security therefore making it negligent to base a decision to site Australia’s first and most critical nuclear waste management facility on a remote cattle station as determined by a group of Indigenous land owners now in conflict with their larger moiety and tribal groups opposed to a decision viewed as of self interest and at odds with traditional kinship and law relating to shared dreaming tracks across vast areas of Aboriginal land.

This is such an important issue for all Australians that the decision must be made on the correct science for what is best for the nation. It is wrong for any government to look for a quick fix to this problem in a part of the country which is rich in biodiversity, cultural significance, history and heritage, and which is reliant on the cattle industry for it economic survival and future growth.

A final and most compelling point that the member for Barkly made was in response to Minister Ferguson’s second reading speech, when the minister said:

The bill enables the Commonwealth to act in good faith and spirit with respect to the Site Nomination Deed entered into by the Northern Land Council, the Muckaty Aboriginal Land Trust and the Commonwealth in 2007.

To this comment the member for Barkly wrote the following:

In essence if the decision is based on the testimony of an extended family group living away from Muckaty Station then the dislocation of the Warumungu and Warlmanpa tribal communities of the Barkly that I represent is at stake.

Any determination to proceed without direct, open and accountable consultation with the wider contemporary Indigenous community representing the neighbouring clans, moiety and tribal groups of the central Barkly will effectively lead to generational division and conflict among the very people the Minister has set out to support!

He goes on to add:

Division and conflict among remote Indigenous people in an “alcohol fuelled environment” leads to bloodshed in the streets of our towns and communities and if you wish to dismiss my language as alarmist then I urge you to visit our region, town and accident & emergency department of our hospital to personally witness the legacy of “grog fuelled” violence that results from conflict and disputes within the indigenous community.

I commend the member for Barkly for his tireless effort in making representations on behalf of his community.

In September 1991 the then Minister for Primary Industries and Energy, Simon Crean, officially sought the participation of all governments in a coordinated search for a site for a single national radioactive waste facility; all except WA agreed to participate. Over the next 20 years there were various studies, reports, public consultations, scientific analyses, information kits, sites nominated, sites dismissed, drillings done and construction licences applied for. The entire process has suffered from paralysis through analysis and has failed to move forward during this time. As the timeline tightened along came the Commonwealth Radioactive Waste Management Act 2005. It was legislation removing procedural fairness and imposing a waste dump on the Northern Territory. The people of the Northern Territory realised at that point something the rest of Australia has known for a long time—they do not have the same rights as other Australians. The Howard government was able to impose a nuclear waste dump on the Northern Territory, not based on the science but based on the constitutional clout the Commonwealth has over the Northern Territory. The NT does not have the right to say no.

It should be noted that the then member for Solomon, David Tollner, voted to support the bill as well as amendments on five occasions from 1 November to 8 December 2005. Senator Nigel Scullion also voted to pass the bill in the Senate on 8 December 2005. All the time they were saying that they were here to protect the rights of the Northern Territory—after all, that is why they were elected. It was an example of saying one thing in the NT, walking along one side of the street and then crossing the street, and then voting another way in Canberra.

I have never pretended to get everything right in the way I represent the people in my electorate. However, when it comes to my position on government policies, there is consistency in my position both when I am in Canberra and when I am in my electorate of Solomon. My position does not alter during the flight north. While flying home on Friday I had a chance to read the synthesis report on a proposed Commonwealth radioactive waste management facility in the Northern Territory by Parsons Brinckerhoff. With all due respect to this report, it is a preliminary report that recommends further consideration, data collection, community consultation and scientific evidence be collected on the Muckaty Station site.

However, the radioactive waste repository for Australia site selection study released in November 1997 clearly outlined a number of sites scientifically suitable for such a repository. Of the 13 criteria listed for a suitable site, it was only the Olary site in New South Wales and South Australia and the Billa Kalina site in South Australia that met all the criteria listed as scientifically suitable sites. The more I have read about this proposed area, the more I am convinced we have got it wrong. None of the sites in the Northern Territory stacked up in this particular report.

As a nation, we need to have a holistic approach to the disposal of nuclear waste. I am aware of the need for this to occur quickly as the time line has tightened for us. Currently this waste is being stored in hospital car parks, in drums, in filing cabinets and in storerooms at more than 100 sites around the country. It is a bizarre situation we find ourselves in. We have all benefited at various times or know somebody who has benefited because of nuclear medicine, and thus we have all contributed to this waste in some way. Is it not only fair that all Australians take responsibility in how to deal with its safe disposal?

On 25 February this year, the Senate referred the National Radioactive Waste Management Bill 2010 for inquiry and report to the Senate Legal and Constitutional Affairs Committee. The committee has noted that other Senate committees have previously conducted inquiries into radioactive waste management legislation, most recently in 2008. In light of the previous opportunities for consideration of environmental and other issues relating to radioactive waste management in Australia, the focus of the current inquiry will be on legal and constitutional matters, including issues relating to procedural fairness and the bill’s impact on, and interaction with, state and territory legislation. I note submissions to the inquiry have closed and it should be recognised that 128 submissions have been received. The reporting date for the committee is 30 April 2010. Two public hearings are proposed: the first is on Tuesday, 30 March in Canberra, and the second is on Monday, 12 April in Darwin. Whilst I appreciate the efforts of the committee, I am at a loss as to why the committee is not holding a public hearing in Tennant Creek. I know it would be appreciated by the people in the region.

I am not without a solution to this situation and I understand fully that any facility should be based on the correct science and not because of constitutional weak links. I urge the minister to revisit the entire process again, to engage with state governments, to have a shared responsibility to a whole-of-nation response for the need to have a safe, scientifically based and fully consultative, transparent process to find the best possible site for such a facility. We, as legislators, have a responsibility to future generations to make the most informed decisions on this issue and they are decisions we cannot afford to get wrong. While I acknowledge the difficultly associated with this issue, I remain opposed to a nuclear waste dump in the Northern Territory and will continue to fight for the rights of the people I was elected to represent.

Wilson Tuckey (O'Connor, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I suggest the member for Solomon stay in the chamber because I do have a couple of remarks to make regarding his speech. Prior to commencing my comments on the National Radioactive Waste Management Bill 2010, I wish to say that I have just left a luncheon in the Great Hall promoting research for type 1 diabetes in young children. Seated at my table were two young people from my electorate of O’Connor, Lauren Hope-Blythe and Rebecca Slater. They were sitting next to me when I had my finger-prick test and I am pleased to say that my sugar level was 5.3. These wonderfully brave young people are here to ask the government for additional funding for the promotion of diabetes research. I want it put on the record that I hope this parliament will unanimously decide to provide more grants for this issue. It is one of the outstanding opportunities to improve young people’s lives. The two youngsters sitting next to me got their meal a little earlier than the rest of us. Their meal was fish and chips. They were gloating over those chips because they are not allowed to eat them very often. One youngster had to turn up their insulin pump to be able to accommodate this treat. Anyway, the lunch was too good an opportunity to miss.

I will now speak on this bill. I was a bit disappointed that the member for Solomon chose to mention David Tollner and Senator Nigel Scullion. There is only one way he can justify those remarks and that is to call a division on this issue and have his vote recorded as being against it. Otherwise he is equal to them. I am sure that when the previous government proposed these matters they too had concerns. When you join this parliament, you do so with an obligation for the national interest.

As for the member for Solomon’s remark, ‘Why is it in my backyard?’ I can concur with that. It is so difficult to really substantiate the outcomes that are predicted around this issue and the associated issues relating to nuclear waste and I think that is why this campaign has created all the sadness and anger that it has. I wish to speak about some of those matters, but in referring to the dump—and let me return to my comments with the children—nuclear isotopes are, as you well know, Madam Deputy Speaker, created in a reactor in your electorate. They are transferred to hospitals all around Australia and injected into people’s veins. And people survive that injection. However, the syringe that is used and the rubber gloves that the doctor quite properly puts on before he commences the treatment are low-level radioactive waste. They are presently being stored in 44-gallon drums or cardboard boxes—you name it—in the cellars or other storerooms within the hospitals. It is silly, and it is probably not necessary to treat them as such; but that will take up a major amount of space in the proposed nuclear waste facility. It will not be glowing in the dark. In fact, with the exception of some of the waste that might be transferred from the Lucas Heights facility, there will be very little high-level waste that Australia has to accommodate at this time.

In my early period in this parliament, during the Fraser government, these issues became of note. I think Sir John Carrick was the relevant minister at the time. In my ignorance I asked him in conversation, ‘At the lower end of the radioactive scale, how thick a piece of concrete or lead would we need to protect other persons from this radiation?’ He said, ‘Wilson, how about a bit of cardboard?’ That was the level of the threat—you would be protected by a sheet of cardboard, according to his expert knowledge. So for goodness sake, let us take this legislation for what it is. We are talking about a relatively low-level facility, it is being located in a place where—with due respect to the remarks of the member for Solomon—no cattle will walk. There will be a buffer zone of probably millions of hectares, and I presume the fence might even be high enough to stop the kangaroos jumping in. It will not contaminate animals, and there is no more chance of it affecting our export market in that field than, for example, the contamination that a farm worker would pick up in a hospital where they go for health services before they then go back to their property in the Northern Territory. It is equally logical to argue that they might take that radiation back with them and then they might ride a horse and then that might somehow transfer to a cow.

I make this comment very seriously: it is time for this parliament to take a much more objective view about the whole nuclear issue. Let me say at this stage, as I have said publicly, I am not frightened of nuclear generators. However, it is my view, on a scale of one to 10, that there are less expensive options, per kilowatt hour, available to Australia and, if properly applied, there are renewables available within Australia: our sunlight. That is not utilising the roofs of the buildings in Melbourne but in our desert areas. As I said to some CSIRO people the other day, the sun actually takes close to 20 hours to traverse Australia. If we had strategically placed across the Nullarbor Plain a series of large—and I mean gigawatt size—solar generation units, we could be harvesting the sun throughout its journey. What do we need for that? What do we need to connect the low-emission resources of the Pilbara and the Kimberley in natural gas? What do we need to connect the huge tidal resources of the Kimberley? We need a transmission system, which has already been invented. It does not take $500 million, as proposed, to try to find a carbon capture and sequestration response for coal. For $5 billion an adequate transmission system can interconnect all of Australia and our deserts—which are a major source of energy—and our Kimberley tidal region to give us the electricity we need. That is the reason I do not think a nuclear power station is necessary in Australia. But I am not frightened of it and, if it were the best option to meet the various challenges that we face today, whatever they really are, then I would welcome it anywhere.

It got to the height of the ridiculous when, in the last election, the state Labor member in the town of Albany put out a press release to the effect that ‘Wilson Tuckey wants a nuclear power station in Albany’. Why wouldn’t I have a nuclear power station in Albany? It is a lousy place, from a technical perspective, to put it. Where are we going to send 70 per cent of the electricity—down to the penguins in Antarctica? Of course you would not put it there, and he is a fool for making such a silly comment. Western Australia uses only three gigawatts. When people make those silly remarks it does nothing for the debate we have got to have.

Let us think of that debate. Let us think of the legitimate concern about nuclear materials getting into the hands of terrorists or terrorist states. I do not have to mention the international concern over the behaviour of the Iranians. If you want to worry about how they might treat the rest of the world, just have a look at how they are presently treating their own people. It is a severe risk. People are comfortable—many not very comfortable—with, by international standards, the huge uranium resources of Australia being exported as yellowcake. It is the cheapest stage of the whole system and after we export it, wherever it goes, we virtually say ‘Goodbye’ and promises after promises are made, including in my state of Western Australia, that we will not take anything back. What does that tell us? Somewhere in the world, that uranium, as it is converted to fuel rods, might get into the hands of a rogue state or a terrorist individual. Is that a good idea? Should it not be more closely monitored?

I ask the question rather than make the statement, but I have thought very seriously about it: if we have this wonderful resource and if the French, for instance—I do not know whether they have any major resources of their own, but something like 60 or 70 per cent of their power generation is nuclear—want uranium, why do we not turn it into fuel rods in Australia and lease it to them? Yes, the spent fuel rods would be returned in due course and, under those lease conditions, we could have requirements that within their facilities we would have reputable Australians monitoring what they were doing so that, as we say with beef and other things, there is total traceability. Why would we not do that in the interests of ensuring, or certainly improving the prospects, that none of that nuclear product ever gets into the wrong hands? And why do we not in that process open up a huge industry for Australia? What would we be taking back? We would be taking back the very product we first exported—in a concentrated form, admittedly.

I am not saying that the locality which is presently being proposed is the right repository for those rods and I am not saying that this should be a policy of the Liberal Party. What I am challenging this parliament with is whether it would be better to know where our uranium is throughout its lifespan rather than export it as yellowcake, with a relatively low financial return to Australia, than not know where it is and maybe have a little arrive-back at the head of a rocket? That is just a challenge. Why should we not talk about it and why should silly people put up the argument, ‘Not in my backyard’? There are parts of Australia that are recognised as having the best geological capacity to store such waste—I have not raised the question of anybody else’s waste—and, according to my understanding, Australia is the only such continent which also has the political stability necessary to protect the world, were there to be a repository of some significance in it.

These are international issues. What is Australia’s responsibility in all of this? Were the government of the day to bring to this parliament an idea of total processing—never selling, only leasing and maintaining control of our nuclear products throughout their life span—I would think that would be in the world’s interests and certainly in Australia’s interests.

Let me just frighten the place no end by reminding everyone that, when I went to live in the town of Carnarvon, we had a magnificent river. It has demonstrated time and time again its capacity to carry enough water to fill Sydney Harbour in four hours. Throughout its course, the country is as flat as the desk that is in front of me. There are practically no mountains or valleys where we could build a dam. Furthermore, we discovered that, with 10 inches of rain falling in the catchment, the floods came to the doorstep of my hotel and were 10 miles wide. A year later, we had 20 inches of rain and we panicked. We said, ‘If 10 inches comes to this point in the town, then 20 has to be up there.’ So we evacuated the town. What happened? I stayed. All my assets and my life were situated there and, if they were going to be washed away, the flood might as well have taken me with them. I got up throughout the night, as the floods crept in towards my hotel, to check where the water was against the beer bottles I had put on the road to show how much the flood had advanced. In the early hours of the morning, I went out and it had gone backwards. Why? Because in this flat country it had found another route. It was 30 miles wide at the sea but never any higher than last time.

Having given you that evidence, how would you store the water? There is an amazing mini-industry up there—the most efficient in Australia in the returns it provides per litre of water used. There is this huge quantity of water arguably going to waste. I have read papers about how that could be corrected by the American Plowshare program—a program which, in my living memory, was quite well accepted. In this arrangement you went off the riverbed, and there was a technology to reduce the amount of debris. You drilled a hole 1,500 feet deep and eight inches in diameter—so less than a third of a metre in diameter—and you were then able to lower a nuclear device down that 1,500-foot deep hole, pack it up and let it off and you were left with a 600-foot deep reservoir, the bottom of which was 1,800 foot above where the actual explosion occurred.

I thought that was a pretty good idea. I gave an interview to the ABC, and a state member of parliament said, ‘For goodness sake; we might end up with radioactive cabbages.’ But the funny thing was that Charles Court, who was then the minister for the north west, turned up in town with an eight millimetre movie of the Russians doing just that in one of their remote rivers. Of course, they did not hold a popularity poll or have any consultation, but they did that and they were standing within filming distance using an old-style eight-millimetre camera.

We have got a water problem—but nobody likes dams. I wonder how they would like a few holes in the ground. I want to say to this parliament that, when we have got the guts, we will talk about all these things and we will belittle those who put forward foolish arguments. Yes, the scientists might say, ‘That would give you radioactive water’—but the Russians had people swimming in it days after the job. But the point I make is that we cast all this aside when there may be great benefits for society. (Time expired)

Gary Gray (Brand, Australian Labor Party, Parliamentary Secretary for Western and Northern Australia) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I rise today in support of the National Radioactive Waste Management Bill 2010. In so doing, I note the contribution of the member for Solomon, whose position is forthright and consistent both within Labor Party forums and in this place. This important bill will repeal the Commonwealth Radioactive Waste Management Act 2005. It will pave the way for Australia to fulfil our international obligation to manage our own radioactive waste. The bill will allow the government to nominate a single site as a radioactive waste repository. It will put in place a structured and well thought out process to treat and store affected material. It is an approach which is necessary and responsible.

In 2007, the government committed to repeal the former government’s Waste Management Act. It is time to deliver on that commitment. This bill will develop a long-term answer to the safe storage and management of radioactive material. It will also amend the Administrative Decisions (Judicial Review) Act 1977 by making site nomination fairer and open to review. Under the current act, introduced by the former government, there was blatant and deliberate disregard for communities living and working around a nominated site. Under this bill, greater community consultation and rights of review are introduced.

At this time, Muckaty Station in the Northern Territory is the only site volunteered as a potential radioactive waste repository. Since Simon Crean began the search for a national radioactive waste repository almost 20 years ago, there have been almost 20 years of reports, studies, tests and, finally, we have Muckaty Station. So it is now ‘make up your mind’ time. The site, 120 kilometres north of Tennant Creek, belongs to the Ngapa people, who were dispossessed of their land, now known as Muckaty Station, at the turn of the 20th century. In 1991, the Ngapa people took control of the pastoral lease for Muckaty Cattle Station. The title deed was returned to the traditional owners in 1999. At that time, there were more than 400 traditional owners of the station and more than 1,000 people with traditional attachments to the land.

The Northern Land Council’s nomination in 2007 of land at Muckaty Station on behalf of the Ngapa people was properly conducted. The Northern Land Council has reported that support from the Ngapa groups was overwhelming. There was also substantial support from members of neighbouring Aboriginal groups. In the words of senior Ngapa elder Amy Lauder, as reported in the Tennant and District Times on 19 September 2008:

… only a few noisy individuals in other groups have opposed our decision about our country.

The Northern Land Council provided a detailed explanation of its consultations and the anthropological basis of the nomination in a Senate committee submission in 2008. The government will act in good faith on Muckaty Station. The bill will give the Ngapa community the right to be heard, consulted and engaged throughout the site assessment of Muckaty Station. This is quite simply the right thing to do.

A structured, science based approach to radioactive waste management is not only necessary but also absolutely essential to the sustainability and productivity of the nuclear sector and our economy. It is crucial that we meet out international obligation to manage our own radioactive waste. A working waste repository will deliver significant economic benefit through job creation, through infrastructure and through an investment in education and housing. This bill takes us in the right direction.

Australia produces both low- and intermediate level radioactive waste. Low-level waste includes contaminated paper, plastic, protective clothing and gloves, glassware, tainted soil, smoke detectors and all manner of minor items, such as luminescent emergency exit signs. Intermediate level waste includes operational wastes from the research reactor and also arises from nuclear medicines, including disused radiotherapy materials. Nuclear medical treatments and diagnostic tools create waste materials.

The bill will put an end to the ineffective way we have managed radioactive waste until now. Currently, waste is stored in more than 100 sites across regional and metropolitan Australia, as well as in every urban hospital, university and Commonwealth research institution. As the member for Solomon has said, it is also stored in shipping containers, filing cabinets and car parks. While safe, this situation is unsustainable and does not comply with world’s best practice or our international obligations. This is an efficient and counterproductive way to do things.

This bill will bring us into line with modern economies such as Britain and France; both of which have purpose-built repositories. These countries produce 25,000 cubic metres of joint waste per annum. In comparison, 4,500 cubic metres of waste has been produced in Australia since I was born. We produce less than 50 cubic metres of waste every year. To put this into context, an Olympic swimming pool holds 2,500 cubic metres of water. The total amount of radioactive waste in our nation is less than two Olympic swimming pools.

Our economy, medicine and lifestyle all rely on radioactive material in some way. We benefit from it in medical diagnosis and treatments, industry, agriculture, veterinary science and veterinary services, communications and our homes. Let us be clear: the benefit of radioactive material is significant. It is a driver of wealth creation in our nation and it saves lives. The benefit of nuclear technology, however, is not restricted to large-scale industry and the health system.

Every person in this chamber should have a life-saving smoke detector fitted in their home. They should encourage their constituents to fit them, too, and they should remember that 1 April is smoke detector test day. Smoke detectors often use low-level radiation. I note also that many people in the chamber wear a watch. Some watches and clocks also emit low-level radiation, and all of us have mobile phones. Other household items that use radioactive materials include ceramics, glass, fertiliser and even food. So, as we can see, the products of nuclear industrial processes are all around us.

The OPAL research reactor at Lucas Heights is a significant creator of wealth in the Australian economy. The main purpose of the Lucas Heights reactor is to provide neutrons for scientific research and industry through neutron scattering and irradiation. This has been described as an essential tool in many modern industrial processes, including the production of everyday items such as ipods, mobile phones, MP3 players, laptops and hybrid cars. They are all manufactured using nuclear technology in some small way. The fact is that we rely on radioactive materials.

In health, approximately 500,000 patients benefit annually from diagnosis and treatments which use radioactive material. Most of these benefits come from improved diagnosis. Our hospital departments of nuclear medicine can now examine any organ with accurate low-dose scans to avoid invasive investigative procedures. The scans are painless and easy, and they improve the capacity to make the right decision about diagnosis, treatment, survival and quality of life. This is the technology which extended the life of my father last year, shrinking his oesophageal cancer and restoring his capacity to swallow, adding quality to his life. These are real people and they are real lives and nuclear medicine provides very real health benefits.

The industry also contributes revenue of approximately $62 million annually to our economy. In accepting the benefit, we must face the challenge of responsibly and sustainably storing our waste. Australia is party to the Joint Convention on the Safety of Spent Fuel Management and the Safety of Radioactive Waste Management. This means we have a binding international obligation to safely process and store the waste we produce. This bill will ensure that we are able to meet our obligations.

Schedule 1 of the bill provides review rights while schedule 2 honours the Commonwealth’s existing commitments to the Ngapa traditional owners made by the former government in 2007. It will allow for Muckaty Station to remain an approved site. Part 2 of the bill will repeal the restriction of sites to the Northern Territory and ensure other sites throughout Australia can be nominated. Three sites on defence land in the Northern Territory have been removed, in line with the 2007 Australian Labor Party pre-election commitments. Part 3 of the bill will ensure that comprehensive environmental, meteorological, hydrological and heritage valuations must be considered prior to the final selection of a site. These assessments will be permitted to proceed unhindered by state and territory laws.

Part 4 of the bill will ensure land surrounding a nominated site can be assessed and reserved for supporting infrastructure. This will provide the government with the means to acquire and develop land identified for access roads. It will ensure selected sites are able to be developed as a repository. Part 4, in line with earlier parts of the bill, will also allow a regional consultative committee to be established to ensure ongoing community consultation and engagement.

Part 5 will permit environmental assessments on a selected site without obstruction from state or territory laws. It is essential that environmental evaluations are performed. It should be noted, however, that many of our very high environmental standards in mining started life as part of the regulatory framework created for and by the uranium mining industry in the Northern Territory—for example, the valuable processes of environmental impact statements. It may well be that Australia gets better waste management protocols as a consequence of the initiatives in this bill too. Part 6 of the bill will ensure acquired rights and interests can be granted back to the original owners in the case of land already volunteered by a land council. Part 7 will ensure affected parties are compensated if required.

This bill is absolutely necessary for Australia to meet its international obligation to manage its own radioactive waste. It will allow the government to nominate a single site for a radioactive waste repository. It will put in place a structured, scientific and well-thought-out procedure to treat and store affected material. The bill will provide the government with appropriate powers to develop a research based approach to storing low and intermediate level waste. It will provide greater emphasis on community consultation, environmental assessment and international responsibility. The bill will also provide a foundation on which the Commonwealth can work with the Muckaty Aboriginal Land Trust and the Northern Land Council following the environmental assessment. It will put an end to our overreliance on Britain and France to store the waste which delivers economic and health benefits to Australians.

In conclusion, every Australian is responsible all for creating a small amount of nuclear waste every day and, therefore, every Australian is responsible for finding a sustainable solution to waste storage. I am pleased our country will for the first time take responsibility for the processing and storage of waste material generated here in Australia. We can no longer accept the benefits of radioactive waste without the responsibility. This bill will deliver economic and social investment to the Northern Territory. It is well-thought-out and is quite simply the right thing to do. I commend this bill to the House.

Rowan Ramsey (Grey, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I rise to speak on the National Radioactive Waste Management Bill 2010. The history of the national low- and medium-level waste repository in Australia is the history of a political stampede to the moral low ground—led, it must be said, by various components of the Australian Labor Party. The long-term storage of medium- and low-level nuclear waste in Australia has been a story of sheer hypocrisy. The part of the Labor Party which has been the most hypocritical of the lot has been the Rann Labor government in South Australia, but I will speak more of that later. This bill is about political reality, about decisions which must be made and about the responsibility of government. Now in power, the federal Labor Party must face up to the responsibility for the waste spread all over the country and face up to the fact that the luxury of opposition for opposition’s sake is gone. The bill repeals the Commonwealth Radioactive Waste Management Act 2005 and replaces it with a new act which largely does the same thing but gives the Commonwealth the extra teeth to override the state powers and effectively make the decision that the repository go in the most suitable location in the country.

It is worth while taking a look at exactly what this waste is. Low-level waste is contaminated laboratory waste such as plastics, glassware, paper, protective clothes, contaminated soil, smoke detectors and emergency exit signs. It is hardly the stuff of nuclear bombs, just the absolutely necessary used product of a modern technological society. Intermediate waste is the by-product of nuclear medicine, of the reprocessed nuclear fuel rods used in Australia to produce the medical isotopes and of disused medical and industrial equipment such as radiotherapy and soil moisture meters.

In the last 50 years, Australia has accumulated about 4,000 cubic metres of this waste in total, and much of it is currently stored in small stores in suburban and regional Australia. The rest of it is in temporary storage at Woomera in my electorate. The fact that the bulk of it is stored in temporary makeshift storage in suburban Australia says much about its nature. As the member for the seat in Australia formerly most preferred as the site for this facility, I have been asked on a number of occasions whether I support the establishment of a facility in my electorate. My answer has been consistent: the facility should go in the most suitable place in Australia, regardless of where that is, whether it be in Sydney, Perth, Adelaide, North Queensland, Woomera or Muckaty Station. Local politics should not come into it. It should go at the best site.

Of course, after the rejection of Woomera, following the Federal Court appeal by the South Australian government in July 2004 and the clear message that South Australia would never accept a national repository from Mike Rann, the federal government abandoned the attempt and said it would instead build a repository for just Commonwealth waste and the states would have to look after their own because they had all individually refused to cooperate. Clearly this is nothing like a desirable outcome. If this waste has any harmful effects at all, then having one repository must be safer than having six or seven. Anyway, common sense was not to be one of the criteria for reaching a decision in this case. As a result, the South Australian Premier committed to developing a state repository.

What has the Premier done since that time? It will probably not come as a great surprise to the people of South Australia that the answer is: absolutely nothing. So this terrible waste that we would not store on behalf of the nation is not so terrible at all, because apparently it is quite safe, in the eyes of Mike Rann, to continue to store our share of it in hospital basements around the state. And nothing has changed. Most would be aware we are having a state election on Saturday in South Australia. Over the last few weeks, Mike Rann’s team has waged a public campaign against Isobel Redmond for an old statement, a historical statement, on the proposed repository in Woomera in which she said ‘the solution was probably the right one’. They continue to rush to the political low ground, to a scare campaign, at the same time as they deny the reality of the waste in hospital basements. It is a disgrace. Every country in the world has to store waste like this somewhere. Australia is probably the most suitable continent in the world for this type of project. It cannot be beyond our capability to get the job done.

All of this is an indictment of the level of political debate in this country—we see people as high in the system as a state leader and the federal leader of the Labor Party waging campaigns which they know to be dishonest and leaving issues to be addressed in the future by someone else. So here we are now in 2010, and the federal government is compelled by the circumstances to take its medicine and get on with the job, because in the end the decision can no longer be deferred. But it is worth remembering what the federal Labor Party’s attitude was in 2005. They opposed the moves to give the Commonwealth the power to establish the repository at the best site. They, too, were in the race to the political low ground, voting against the bills, totally committed to short-term opportunity. They know better. We know they know better, because now, we find that they are after all in favour of a national repository. They have been mugged by political reality. This bill is not about the establishment of nuclear electrical generation in Australia. But it does offer some powerful points on where that debate is likely to go while we have at least one side of politics which is prepared to lead this rush to the political low ground with public scare campaigns.

I recently attended a presentation by respected agriculture writer Julian Cribb where he informed the audience that the world will have a population of 11½ billion people by 2060. The demands for energy and resources will be enormous. There has been a billion tonnes of empty rhetoric in the world in the past few years about the need for the whole world to radically reduce our carbon emissions and to try and forestall climate change. In fact Prime Minister Rudd even said it was the ‘most important moral issue facing the world’. So we would assume that, as we grapple with this most important moral issue facing a generation, we would at least be considering all possible non-carbon-emitting technologies available.

In Australia we know we have the one technology that we may not even consider. Of course, that is the nuclear option. I agree with my leader, Tony Abbott, when he says there is no likelihood of a nuclear industry in Australia until we have a measure of bipartisanship. In fact, recent history dictates that if someone from my side of politics were to suggest we should have a national discussion about the possibility of a nuclear industry the shrill cries from the other side of the House would be, ‘Where you going to put it?’ If you speak to individuals on the other side they will tell you we should at least be talking about the possibility of a nuclear industry, but it cannot happen when the lowest form of scaremongering like this takes place. Of the G20 countries just one falls into the category of not having, is not building or is not planning to have nuclear generation capacity. That one country is Australia, the country with the biggest reserves in the world—around 40 per cent of total proven, easily-recoverable uranium. Why on earth would we not be considering the possibility of our own industry?

If climate change is indeed the biggest moral question facing our generation, as the Prime Minister used to say—I do hear too much of that any more—and carbon emissions are the cause then surely the biggest and most popular source of zero-emission generation in the world should be on the agenda? In fact, the biggest possible contribution Australia is ever likely to make to avoid worldwide CO2 emission reductions is to supply the nuclear reactors around the world with our uranium. If this industry is good enough, clean enough and safe enough for the rest of the world and we are prepared to export uranium, why on earth is not good enough for us? Would it be okay for us to poison overseas people, for them to disintegrate in a nuclear holocaust when it is not okay for us? It is an illogical argument. If it is safe enough for them, we should at least be considering it. The only ground we should be considering is the economic viability of nuclear reactors. If they do not stack up in Australia, we will not build them. That makes sense, but we should at least be considering them.

The Labor Party’s history on this subject is pathetic. In South Australia, Premier Mike Rann led the charge against the establishment of Roxby Downs in the early 1980s. Roxby Downs is predominantly a copper project, but it does have significant uranium supplies. Mr Rann even wrote a book called A mirage in the desertI do not think it is in print anymore, I would be surprised if it was and I do not know if it has sold any more copies than the book by the Minister for Finance and Deregulation. The mine, the primary product of which is copper, was totally opposed by the Labor Party. The mine would never have been established if it were not for the personal courage of Norm Foster, who crossed the floor and voted against his party because he knew that the project was essential. The industry was safe, it was desirable and the arguments against its establishment were nought but political opportunism. Norm Foster was rewarded for his courage and his strength of character with expulsion from the Labor Party that he had served all his life. Now we in South Australia have to watch Premier Mike Rann swanning around the state, giving the impression that if he did not discover the resource at Roxby Downs he did at least dig the mine himself single-handedly. You have never heard such hypocrisy. Where are the statesmen on this issue?

Gary Gray (Brand, Australian Labor Party, Parliamentary Secretary for Western and Northern Australia) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

On a point of order, Madam Deputy Speaker, we have been patient but the title of the bill is the National Radioactive Waste Management Bill and I would draw your attention to the fact the speaker is way off the subject.

Ms Anna Burke (Chisholm, Deputy-Speaker) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I ask the member for Grey to return to the bill. He has had some latitude from the chair.

Rowan Ramsey (Grey, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I would be pleased to, Madam Deputy Speaker. The reason I brought the subject into the House is the political debate in the past on the establishment of the low-level repository in South Australia is a clear indicator of why this subject is so dangerous for political parties in Australia to broach unless we have some sign of political bipartisanship or at least a discussion on the subject. To return to the bill, I was pleased with the comments by the member for Brand in his summing up. He does recognise that most of this waste is hospital waste, industrial waste or smoke alarms and is not highly dangerous. The scare campaign run in the past had people from my electorate ringing up and saying, ‘We just heard there’s been a shipment go to temporary storage in Port Augusta. What if it falls off the bridge?’ If it fell off the bridge it would have less of an effect on the upper Spencer Gulf than if a load of industrial chemicals fell off the bridge or even if a load of cement fell off the bridge. It is not that dangerous and yet we have had a continued rush to the political low ground where people seek cheap, short-term political advantage on a subject that should never have raised any contention at all. This establishment should have been completed probably 10 years ago and certainly five years ago. The waste should not be in temporary storage in Woomera and it should not be in hospital basements all over Australia as the member for Brand, the Parliamentary Secretary for Western and Northern Australia, pointed out. I am pleased that at last this is being addressed in an appropriate manner. It is a shame that it has taken so long to get to this point.

Barry Haase (Kalgoorlie, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

with the few moments left in this debate before a very important question time, I take this opportunity gladly. The National Radioactive Waste Management Bill 2010 is going to resolve finally the vexed issue of who is going to be playing host to the storage of our industrial waste of a radioactive nature. But I remind you it is just that: industrial waste. In the main, if one checks the detail, it includes 4,020 cubic metres of low-level and short-lived intermediate-level waste.

The majority of this is a product of ANSTO at Lucas Heights. Presently, that material is stored in lined—albeit limed—44-gallon drums stacked very high in tin sheds in the middle of a population of 150,000 or thereabouts. It is a clear indication that the hype and the terror that is being created in our society at large with the mere mention of ‘radioactive waste’ is simply an unnecessary alarmist condition that has been underlined by a number of political operators in this field for many decades. It is time that the situation was brought into the light of day and that the debate was put to rest once and for all.

This proposition to site this single management facility in the Northern Territory is the continuity of a proposition that was put together by the Howard government. There was never any expectation from the current Labor government that we would resist the passage of this legislation because it clarifies the situation. If the public of Australia are a little better informed about the reality of radioactive waste after this debate then henceforth we will be living in a better Australia—an Australia where there is a little less hype and fear mongering and a little more reality and, frankly, better and more efficient management of the storage of industrial waste.

A colleague associated with the uranium industry said to me only yesterday that it is time Australians at large took a different view of radioactive waste material. He explained to me that at a press conference not so long ago he used descriptive terms for his audience, for instance, that ‘this is your waste’. It is the waste that has been accumulated after use by many Australians right across the nation.

If there were a proposition put forward because of the result of fear mongering in the community that we should shut down the use of radioactive materials for fear that the depleted materials had to be stored somewhere there would be a great and justified hue and cry across the nation because one particular component of radioactive waste comes from radioactive isotopes, which are saving lives and speeding up diagnostic activities right across Australia. To propose that we suddenly took ourselves back to the Dark Ages and ignored the use of the facility of radioactive isotopes in X-ray to diagnose diseases would be unheard of. There would be a justified hue and cry about us taking medicine back to the Dark Ages and the bloodied bandages of the blood-letter in the barber shop. It is just nonsense, and yet there is an equal amount of nonsense being trotted out by those with a political objective in mind to put the fear of God into the population of Australia because there is a proposition to store in one single well-managed location the industrial waste which results from our use of radioactive materials.

Every time somebody goes into a building in Australia and sees an exit light, that is radioactive material. In the good old days I used to have a Phantom ring that glowed in the dark. I thought it was wonderful and that it was the greatest acquisition I had ever made as a boy. That was radioactive material. As we look around ourselves radioactivity is used as an asset by mankind every day of our lives.

The storage of radioactive material today, with its high-class regulation, is probably less dangerous than the storage of LPG or petrol. I know that if I were, for instance, asked to store a drum of yellowcake or a bucket of petrol in my garage, I would certainly refuse to store the bucket of petrol. I would much rather store the drum of yellowcake. I might add that I have held yellowcake in my hand, I suggest with no detrimental effects. It is something that is quite innocuous. But many people would scoff at that idea because they have no understanding whatsoever of the nature of yellowcake and they have no understanding whatsoever of the danger associated with industrial waste as a result of our use of radioactive material. It is just industrial waste, albeit with some of the most highly regulated storage conditions one could ever imagine because it has this connotation of ‘radioactive’.

All of us know about Chernobyl, All of us know about the Three Mile Island accident, and all of us know about Hiroshima. Radioactive nuclear materials can be used in a very dangerous way, but we are not talking about that sort of radioactivity or nuclear material: we are simply talking about industrial waste that happens to have previously been of a radioactive nature.

We have had, for instance, in the House today a luncheon for kids suffering from juvenile diabetes. Those children are desperately seeking a solution to be found in medical research for their condition. That is one of the very conditions shared by 140,000 Australians, a condition for which the solution will be found by modern medicine and modern medical research. That research will involve radioactive materials, and having been used in that research they become industrial waste and that waste needs to be stored somewhere. So if after this debate there continues to exist in any microcosm of Australian society the idea that industrial waste of a radioactive nature is somehow so forbidden or horrendous that no-one is going to store it, then that is a condition that we must not tolerate as leaders of opinion in Australia today.

We have sitting on the frontbench of the government right now somebody whose whole previous career was predicated on the basis of nuclear being evil: anything nuclear had to be put down and removed from the vocabulary of Australians.

Harry Jenkins (Speaker) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Order! It being 2 pm the debate is interrupted in accordance with standing order 97. The debate may be resumed at a later hour and the member for Kalgoorlie will have leave to continue speaking when the debate is resumed.