Christine Milne (Tasmania, Australian Greens) Share this | Hansard source

I am very interested in the interjection, especially since the Russian navy, as a matter of course, uses disposal at sea as its main method of disposal of nuclear waste. We have heard from the senator that nobody has been hurt by the storage of nuclear waste. I suggest that the senator pay attention to what is happening in Russia, as thousands of people die from exposure to illegal dumps of nuclear materials. It is happening right across eastern Europe because of completely unsafe storage, and that is quite apart from what happened at Chernobyl and other places. If you care to look into what is going on in eastern Europe, you will find that there are people today dying because of exposure to radioactive waste not put into so-called safe storage facilities.

I cite the words of the 1970 Nobel laureate in physics, Hannes Alfven, who said: ‘We want to use the energy now and leave the radioactive waste for our children and grandchildren to take care of. This is against the ecological imperative: thou shalt not leave a polluted and poisoned world to future generations.’ I would suggest that the government consider that very carefully. In the context of what we are doing this evening, the purpose of the legislation we have before us is to allow the Australian Nuclear Science and Technology Organisation to prepare, manage or store radioactive materials from a much wider range of sources and circumstances than presently permitted under the Australian Nuclear Science and Technology Organisation Act 1987. So we are expanding the power of ANSTO to deal with nuclear waste.

The context in which we are doing that is a world which I would suggest is less safe than I can remember for many decades. In 1953 President Eisenhower wrote in his diary that he had a clear conviction that the world was racing towards catastrophe. You only have to look at what has been going on with global warming, nuclear proliferation, the nuclear weapons test today and global insecurity to know that in fact that is where we are going again: a clear conviction that the world is racing towards catastrophe. But apparently the government does not think so in relation to global warming and it does not think so in relation to proliferation. In fact, the government’s statements would suggest that it thinks the IAEA has things under control.

Both Liberal and Labor support the expansion of uranium mining and the putting into the global nuclear cycle of increased quantities of uranium, which will leak into weapons programs and which will come to the attention of nuclear terrorists. The government acknowledges that itself, because in its ANSTO bill this evening it is trying to give ANSTO the power to deal with waste arising from a relevant incident, including a terrorist or criminal act.

Since 2002 the IAEA says there have been 300 interceptions of terrorists trying to take nuclear materials across borders et cetera—300 since 2002. But, no, the government thinks that the best way of dealing with the fact that there have been 300 arrests—the IAEA site says it quite clearly—from terrorist activities related to nuclear materials is not to prevent the nuclear materials in the first place. The government’s response is to say: ‘Well, let’s give ANSTO the capacity to deal with that in the event that we arrest someone and take it from them.’ What if they use it rather than be arrested and have it taken from them?

The third point of the legislation is with regard to taking waste from overseas. Currently that is prohibited, but the government acknowledges in this bill that, technically, returned waste is not exclusively from ANSTO’s reactors. It wants to clarify that ANSTO can receive materials not generated from ANSTO’s activities in the first place. What a coincidence that earlier this year Prime Minister Howard talked to President Bush, who has a grand plan—the Global Nuclear Energy Partnership. The nuclear energy partnership undermines the non-proliferation treaty. It allows for the United States to decide which countries in the world will be allowed to have nuclear power and which will not and it sets up a series of nuclear supplier groups or centres around the world.

Prime Minister Howard was clearly impressed by the notion that Australia could become one of George Bush’s nuclear fuel supply centres. The problem with that is that as part of the nuclear fuel supply centre we would be obliged to take back the waste under the leasing arrangements. A bill has come into this chamber that provides the capacity for ANSTO to handle waste not generated in Australia. Am I being too cynical in suggesting that the two are in some way connected? When Prime Minister Howard came back from speaking with President Bush he said:

If we are not a nuclear fuel supplier then that shuts us out of certain gatherings.

We know that the Prime Minister could not bear to be shut out of a gathering with President Bush and his associates in the partnership of the willing. It was after the Prime Minister came back from visiting the US and speaking about the global nuclear energy partnership that he suddenly had a burst of enthusiasm for investigating enrichment, leasing and taking back nuclear waste.

He had a cheerleader in the Labor member Martin Ferguson, who immediately got on the bandwagon and said it was a fabulous idea. That followed former Prime Minister Hawke saying that Australia should become a repository for the world’s nuclear waste and that, in fact, it was a moral imperative that we did so. Minister Abbott said that was a visionary suggestion and then along came Labor’s Martin Ferguson saying that he believed that we should have a ‘cradle to grave’ plan, which is precisely what President Bush wants with his global nuclear energy partnership. What he is not saying is that the United States has terrible problems storing its waste because its proposal to build a new waste dump at Yucca Mountain has met with enormous opposition and they have not been able to get it through. What could be more desirable for the United States than to find a lackey somewhere in the world prepared to hand over land for a high-level nuclear waste dump to take nuclear waste from elsewhere? The ANSTO bill provides for precisely that—it creates that loophole.

Let me look at the three provisions of the bill. It extends ANSTO’s functions to handle radioactive materials in three broad scenarios. The first is that it will allow ANSTO to manage the proposed Northern Territory facility, which we totally oppose. We remind the Senate that this entirely overrules and is against the wishes of the Northern Territory. As the Chief Minister said, we have been lied to, bullied and treated like second-class Australians since the prospect of building the dump in the Territory was first raised. She went on to say that it is no surprise that CLP senator Nigel Scullion supported the prospect of the short inquiry and acknowledged the Territory had been lied to and treated appallingly but failed to stand up against Canberra. That is the fact of the matter.

This bill provides for ANSTO to manage the nuclear waste dump proposed for the Northern Territory, which is opposed in the Northern Territory and imposed on the Northern Territory without its consent and imposed on Aboriginal communities without their consent. I visited the Mount Everard community and they are horrified by the prospect of having a nuclear waste dump imposed upon them. It is outrageous that the government is supporting the notion of imposing such a dump against the wishes of the traditional owners and the wishes of the Northern Territory.

Not only that, it is allowing a fallback position, a contingency plan, in the event that plans to dump waste in the Northern Territory are protracted or defeated. It makes way for Lucas Heights to fulfil that function. On countless occasions the government has insisted that waste arising from overseas reprocessing of Lucas Heights’s spent fuels will not be returned to Lucas Heights. Here we are again seeing weasel words concerning the difference between disposal of waste and storage of waste. It is quite clear that this is a recognition that the disposal of radioactive waste at Lucas Heights is legally prohibited but long-term storage is not. When you have a look at the way this bill is worded, you see that it provides for storage. We have two contingencies covered by giving ANSTO control of the Northern Territory waste dump and, if that is prevented, allowing storage at Lucas Heights. It would be very interesting to hear what the minister had to say in relation to that.

In relation to terrorist attacks, there is very clear evidence around the world that they are occurring. As I pointed out earlier, al-Qaeda is now calling on terrorists to come to Iraq and help them to make dirty bombs to be used against the US. I remind senators that that will effectively mean the US and its allies in its war in Iraq.

We also have the situation where seizures of smuggled radioactive material capable of making terrorist dirty bombs have been doubling in recent years. Smugglers have been caught trying to traffic radioactive materials more than 300 times and we know that Western security services cannot cope. That situation is recognition of the probability that a terrorist attack will happen somewhere in the world, and instead of preventing it from happening by ruling out expanded mining of uranium, by ruling out enrichment and by ruling out waste dumps, the government is moving legislation to facilitate all three.

Finally, there is the issue of bringing back the waste from overseas and expanding, again with weasel words, the capacity for Australia to accept waste not exclusively from ANSTO’s reactors. Of course that is a preparatory opening of the door to take waste in the context of President Bush’s Global Nuclear Energy Partnership. In the light of what has happened in North Korea today, I would be very interested to hear whether the Prime Minister is quite as gung-ho as he has been in recent months in condemning those who are concerned about proliferation around the world and whether he is quite as gung-ho as he has been about President Bush’s Global Nuclear Energy Partnership because that undermines the nuclear non-proliferation treaty.

We have watched the Prime Minister’s soft-shoe shuffle in recent weeks on selling uranium to India. Here we have a country prepared to wag its finger at North Korea whilst at the same time prepared to sell uranium to India, which is not a signatory of the nuclear non-proliferation treaty, and to wag its finger at Iran, which is exercising its right as it sees it under the provisions of the nuclear non-proliferation treaty to have nuclear power. I believe, as most other people do, that Iran is using that as an excuse, but that is the whole point of what is going on: how can Australia, when it is prepared to support the US in undermining the nuclear non-proliferation treaty with the deal it has done with India and when it is actively looking at selling uranium to India, turn around and wag its finger at other countries?

I utterly condemn what has happened in North Korea, I condemn the nuclear fuel cycle, I condemn expanded uranium mining, I condemn enrichment and I condemn taking back the waste. If you do not want to take back the waste, if you do not want the problems with waste and weapons, then do not dig up uranium in the first place. That is why we have taken the stand we have. We think it is hypocritical to be complaining about waste dumps if you are prepared to support uranium mining in the first place and send uranium overseas, as indeed Martin Ferguson and the Leader of the Opposition, Mr Kim Beazley, have done when they have said that they want to overturn the three mines policy.

In the case of Martin Ferguson, he wants to support cradle to grave, saying it is what industry wants and it is what the Labor Party wants. He argues it is what the community wants, but in fact he is absolutely wrong. The community does not want that. It does not want the Global Nuclear Energy Partnership. It does not want nuclear waste returned to Australia. It does not want nuclear waste generated in the first place. Most Australians are horrified by the way this government has been hurtling down the US deputy sheriff’s path of supporting an expansion of the nuclear fuel cycle globally.

Having read of the activities of Abdul Qadeer Khan over the last 30 years, and having looked at the unstable international security environment that has been caused because of the amount of illicit nuclear material around the world, it is utter madness to be coming in here with legislation expanding ANSTO’s role in those three areas and, in fact, making contingency plans for the dump in the Northern Territory and, in the event that that fails, making contingency plans for Lucas Heights to become a storage area. It is utter madness to be making contingency plans for dealing with a terrorist attack in terms of radioactive material when we should be preventing that material from going out in the first place, and it is utter madness to be making contingency plans for Australia to become the world’s nuclear waste dump, as is planned by President Bush.

The Greens will be totally opposing this legislation. As I said, our view is that you should not dig up uranium in the first place. We need a world which is supported by renewable energy. It is achievable, but it is not going to be achievable as long as this government is wedded to the notion of profit above principle, profit above the nuclear non-proliferation treaty. Anyone looking at this bill can see that it will lead to a worsening nuclear situation, not an improved one.