Don Farrell (SA, Australian Labor Party, Parliamentary Secretary for Sustainability and Urban Water) Share this | Hansard source

The paper that Australia presented to the conference in Vienna addressed what we considered to be gaps in safety arrangements and outlined actions to address them. These included independent fact-finding and review missions for nuclear incidents—again, to be coordinated by the IAEA; nuclear safety missions, also coordinated by the IAEA; and improved national reporting under the provisions of the Convention on Nuclear Safety. That IAEA meeting endorsed a vision for improvements in the form of a practical action plan on nuclear safety. That action plan incorporated a number of ideas advanced by Australia and our foreign minister for improving nuclear safety. Those included, firstly, the IAEA conducting fact-finding missions when nuclear accidents occur and publishing those results; secondly, an expansion of the IAEA's nuclear safety review role; and, thirdly, greater transparency by states in reporting their nuclear safety activities.

The High-Level Meeting on Nuclear Safety and Security which Senator Siewert mentioned will be convened by the United Nations Secretary-General, Ban Ki-moon, tomorrow in New York. Australia hopes that the meeting will formally endorse that action plan. Importantly, the action plan recognises that all countries have a stake in nuclear safety, whether or not they have nuclear programs of their own. (Time expired)