Lyn Allison (Victoria, Australian Democrats) Share this | Hansard source

I move:

That the Senate take note of the answer given by the Minister for Finance and Administration (Senator Minchin) to a question without notice asked by Senator Allison today relating to nuclear waste management.

I must say, I am very pleased that the minister was as firm as he was in assuring us that the government was opposed to taking the radioactive waste of other countries. He said, ‘The policy is clear: each country should have responsibility for its own waste.’ Unfortunately, that will come as news to quite a few people—people who have heard the Prime Minister floating the idea of ‘product stewardship’, which are of course weasel words for taking back waste and storing radioactive material that might have emanated from this country.

They will also be surprised to hear that because of the report put out today by the House of Representatives Standing Committee on Industry and Resources. It was unanimous, I understand. Both major parties were represented on that committee. The report makes it very clear that it wants to take Australia down the nuclear fuel cycle path, including taking waste back. The report says:

The Committee concludes that, by virtue of its highly suitable geology and political stability, Australia could also play an important role at the back-end of the fuel cycle in waste storage and disposal. Again, such a development could be highly profitable …

It goes on to say:

The Committee also notes that the IAEA has suggested the eventual establishment of back-end facilities on a multinational basis. Given the prospect that some nations currently using nuclear power will not be able to establish domestic repositories (e.g. due to unsuitable geology), this is a service that Australia could be uniquely positioned to provide for the world.

You cannot get much clearer than that. One wonders how it is, if the government’s policy is so strong on this issue—that is, that we are not going to touch any other country’s radioactive waste—that so many members of the government, and the opposition, I might say, would put their name to a report which suggested the opposite.

Again we have seen the Prime Minister floating ideas and sending everybody off—Ziggy Switkowski to do a review of nuclear power in this country and the aforementioned committee to produce a huge document about expanding Australia’s role in uranium mining and going into the nuclear fuel cycle. What is it all about when the government is saying that that is not their policy? It is my understanding that it is not the policy of the ALP either. Is it some runaway committee that has gone off and done this report, despite the fact that it is nobody’s policy? Or is it just trying to persuade all of us, including the two major parties, that this is feasible on the basis of the almighty dollar—that if we do this we will make more money and there will be economic benefits for Australia?

I challenge those economic benefits, even in expanding uranium mining. I have not had the chance to read this document in full, but it does have some tables which I think are pretty interesting. The tables show that there are only 24 reactors on order around the world and even fewer being planned. Of that 24, Asia will have seven, Europe will have just two, the former USSR will have five, India, Pakistan and Iran will have by far the most at 10 and the US will have just one. So much for this idea that the future is going to be very rosy for this country because of the ‘dig it up and ship it out’ mentality. In fact, it is very hard to see where our uranium is going to be sold because, as I understand it, of the 441 or 443—depending on whose figures you read—nuclear reactors operating around the world, quite a large percentage are reaching the end of their natural life. They are going to go out of commission and what is there to replace them? There are just 24 reactors that are currently under construction or on order. It is fanciful to suggest that suddenly we will be making squillions of dollars selling uranium to a world which is phasing out nuclear power. I know that is not something the nuclear industry wants to hear about. It has clutched onto the greenhouse effect as one saviour but the reality is that countries around the world, other than the ones I have mentioned, are not signing on to nuclear power. (Time expired)

Question agreed to.