Glenn Sterle (WA, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Hansard source

I rise today to speak to the Australian Nuclear Science and Technology Organisation Amendment Bill 2006. In particular, I would like to speak in support of the Labor Party’s second reading amendments to the bill. These amendments call on the Senate to condemn the Howard government for its arrogance in breaking a promise not to locate a waste dump in the Northern Territory and for keeping secret all plans for the siting of nuclear power stations and related nuclear waste dumps.

The bill extends the Australian Nuclear Science and Technology Organisation’s ability to handle, manage or store radioactive materials from a wider range of sources and circumstances than it is able to at present. As such, the bill might be better called the ‘Increasing Nuclear Waste Bill’, because that is what it is effectively about. As a result of this bill, larger quantities of radioactive waste will be transported to Lucas Heights prior to eventually being stored at the Commonwealth’s planned nuclear waste dump.

The bill explicitly provides that materials and waste generated, processed or controlled by a Commonwealth contractor are taken to be generated, processed or controlled by the Commonwealth itself. As such, contractors are covered by the same responsibilities and immunities as the Commonwealth. Senators will note that this approach to contractors is very different from the approach the government is taking with its so-called Independent Contractors Bill 2006. It is instead a clear attempt to prevent any residual capacity for a legal challenge to a nuclear waste dump in the Northern Territory by removing the avenue to challenge ANSTO’s authority to manage waste generated by non-ANSTO sources. The Howard government, as we all know, is determined to dump radioactive waste in the Northern Territory.

Before the last election, the people of the Northern Territory were given an undertaking—a promise, in fact—by this government that there would not be a dump in the Northern Territory. When this government needed to be re-elected, it could not wait to reassure Territorians that there would be no nuclear waste dump in the Territory. However, once the Howard government was safely back in office, it seems that it could not break that commitment fast enough. Just last year, Mr Tollner, the member for Solomon, claimed not to support the nuclear waste dump in the Territory. At that time he said:

There’s not going to be a national nuclear waste dump in the Northern Territory. That was the commitment undertaken in the lead-up to the federal election, and I have not heard anything apart from that view expressed since that election.

It seems Mr Tollner was either asleep in the party room or no-one in the cabinet saw fit to tell him the truth.

But Mr Tollner should not feel left out, because he is not alone. The member for Solomon might wish to consider forming a faction with the member for Hasluck and the member for Kalgoorlie for backbench Liberals whose voices carry absolutely no weight with the Howard government ministers. They could even call it the ‘left right out’ faction, because that is what they are. Just ask them: they cannot wait to tell you. They will sob on your shoulder about how they are left right out of the decision-making processes of the Howard government they are supposed to be a part of. Despite their public pleading over issues in their electorates, they are all ignored and rolled in spectacular fashion by the Howard government.

Just ask the member for Hasluck. For nearly a year, Mr Stuart Henry, the member for Hasluck, called on the Howard government’s Minister for Transport and Regional Services to reject BGC’s proposal for a brickworks on Commonwealth land at Perth airport, in his electorate. He pleaded in parliament a number of times for the minister to reject the proposal. And a fat lot of good it did. It seems that Len Buckeridge’s millions carried a lot more weight with the Howard government than Mr Henry’s feeble pleas.

The Howard government granted the approval, and BGC’s bulldozers have already cleared the bushland in preparation for the smokestack. And Mr Henry must be hurting over being knifed so viciously by his own government. There is blood in the water. In today’s West Australian newspaper someone from the Liberal Party, who will remain nameless, has even leaked details of Crosby Textor polling to Andrew Probyn of the West Australian which shows that Mr Henry is looking pretty crook.

I reckon the polling must be accurate because not only is Mr Henry pumping propaganda into the electorate of Hasluck as fast as he can but honourable Senators Lightfoot and Adams have been enlisted to help. Senator Lightfoot and Senator Adams are using their postage entitlement to send newsletters and letters to the good people of Hasluck, claiming that somehow, because a Howard government minister for transport approved the building of brickworks against Mr Henry’s express wishes, it is the Western Australian state government’s fault.