Andrew Hastie (Canning, Liberal Party, Shadow Minister for Defence) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

My question is to the Minister for Defence. When will the government announce where the nuclear waste and end-of-life reactors of the nuclear submarines will be stored? Can the minister rule out any state or territory?

Richard Marles (Corio, Australian Labor Party, Minister for Defence) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I thank the member for his question. The answer to the second part of the question is that we won't rule out any state or territory. In answer to the first part of the question, the first nuclear reactor that we will need to be dealing with comes into play in about the 2050s, so we do have time in which to go through a process by which we determine where that nuclear waste will be stored. Part of being a responsible nuclear steward in the context of AUKUS is that we take responsibility for the full nuclear cycle, which includes the disposal of the reactors. We take that very seriously. We have indicated that we will go through an exhaustive process to assess where that will occur. The one statement that we've made up to this point in time about where is that it will happen on the current or future Defence estate.