Trish Crossin (NT, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Hansard source

I rise to provide a contribution to this debate on the Commonwealth Radioactive Waste Management Legislation Amendment Bill 2006. This bill perpetuates the lies and half-truths that were told to Territorians before the last election about the placement of this nation’s radioactive waste, which is now going to be dumped in the Northern Territory. This is despite the fact that we were given a categorical assurance that the dump would not be built in the Northern Territory and that an offshore option was being considered. This was never ever the intention of this dishonest government.

This time last year we were faced with the first piece of legislation that bulldozed the Territory’s legislation out of existence. It overrode the Territory’s right to conduct its own affairs and it began the process of finding a place at which to dump the nation’s nuclear waste. The original bill, which the government is trying to amend today, was a huge embarrassment in the Northern Territory for Senator Scullion and his mate in the other place. I might add, as I refer to Senator Scullion’s mate one Mr David Tollner that, while reading the Hansard of last week’s proceedings of the House of Representatives, I noted that Mr Tollner did not even bother to make a contribution to the debate on this bill when it went through that house. He has given up trying to defend his position of overriding the rights of the Territory.