Scott Ludlam (WA, Australian Greens) Share this | Hansard source

That is a fascinating answer and I look forward to having that fleshed out when the minister has had some time to provide you with a definition of 'serious'. But I understand where you are going and I look forward to your answer. The last thing I would like to get on the record—and perhaps this provides some homework for the advisers to take away before we bring this debate back—goes to the issues that Senator Scullion raised about what exactly we are proposing to store in this dump. My understanding—and I am happy to be corrected if this is wrong—is that there are two very broad categories of material that this dump will host. The first category is low-level material, which I think this dump is designed to host until it has stopped ticking in 200 or 300 years and is no longer a risk to the host population. The second category of waste, which Senator Scullion was referring to, is the reprocessed materials, the spent fuel, that comes back to us from Europe. The dwindling number of countries that do nuclear fuel processing have the plutonium and other fissile elements remo­ved and then we get back a sort of cemented, solidified garbage from reprocessing plants in Europe.

I am interested to know, firstly, if the minister could provide us with an update, after the debate resumes, on how much of that category of material will arrive back here from overseas by 2014 and how much equivalent material of that nature is already hosted at Lucas Heights. The government makes a big deal about how this stuff is on its way back and we need to look after it and have somewhere for it to go. My under­standing is that roughly 15 times that volume of material is already parked out the back of Lucas Heights and has been there for decades, and that what we are getting back is a relatively small fraction of what we already host. I would appreciate clarification and quantification. I think the minister has done an admirable job of defending the government's position this afternoon. I cannot say that I look forward to the debate resuming, because I hope it does not. I think all we are doing here is giving life to the adage that you cannot polish a dump, if I can put it that way—you cannot polish the proverbial. The minister is doing his best, but this should not be occurring.

Progress reported.