Sussan Ley (Farrer, Liberal Party, Shadow Minister for Women) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

My question is to the Minister for Industry and Science. The minister has previously applauded Lucas Heights as:

the home of Australia's nuclear capabilities.

… … …

In 2023 Australia will celebrate seventy years of safe and practical stewardship of nuclear reactors and associated technologies.

Can the minister inform the house where the nuclear waste from Lucas Heights is stored?

Milton Dick (Speaker) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Order! The member for Grey will leave the chamber under 94(a). He was on a warning. There are to be no interjections while people are approaching the dispatch box, just as there are to be no interjections while people are asking questions as well. Order.

Ed Husic (Chifley, Australian Labor Party, Minister for Industry and Science) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

As the Deputy Leader of the Opposition knows, this has been a long-running issue. Some of that waste is being stored on site while we wait to actually find a location to store it long term. You heralded in the last parliament a proposed solution about how this would all work out, and then the courts found that that was all unworkable and all stuffed up—all as a result of those opposite. ANSTO has informed me that they are quite able to store those low levels of radioactive waste in the short term while a longer-term answer is found. We would certainly welcome—but we're not holding our breaths—a bipartisan response or approach to that. But in the absence of that, we will get the job done.

Hon. Members:

Honourable members interjecting—

Milton Dick (Speaker) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Order! The House will come to order. The Minister for the Environment and Water will cease interjecting before I ask a question—so will the Leader of the Opposition. Order! We're going to have the chamber return to order so I can hear from the member for Chisholm.