Alex Gallacher (SA, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Hansard source

I too rise to take note of this very important report and put some perspective into the South Australian position. Clearly, Senator Hanson-Young has articulated the Greens' party position, but I'd just like to take the opportunity to recommend to senators who are interested in this matter to read the evidence. You need to read the evidence. This is a very challenging process that's been ongoing for some 45 years. Sooner or later we're going to get the solution to it. I do believe that the community that shows broad agreement will be economically beneficial in this process.

On the tourism argument, the simple fact is the most visited place on the planet is the country of France, with 83-odd million tourists per annum and with an increase of eight per cent last year. There are 18 nuclear reactors in operation every day. That's a high level of nuclear waste under the region of Champagne. Last time I looked, people were still buying champagne. The position that we will not have tourism and we will not have agriculture is a really unfortunate one to put, because clearly the evidence is against that.

We can look at the geology. I was startled to be made aware that, despite concerns raised about the geological soundness or appropriateness of the Hawker site, Canberra is actually more geologically unsound—Hawker sits behind Canberra. That's what Geoscience Australia's evidence is saying.

The simple fact is we have 225 radioactive shipments each week in Australia. That's not low-level waste; that's radioactive shipments each week. Our transport industry is more than capable of doing it successfully and safely—that is our lived experience. Eighty per cent of those shipments will be used in better imaging and radioactive isotopes for medical imaging. The other 30 per cent, I believe, is used for cancer treatments. No-one is going to forgo the opportunity to have a better medical outcome or a better cancer treatment.

We, as a country, simply need to deal with this problem. I accept it's a very challenging problem. I was at the hearings. Unfortunately, Senator Hanson-Young's diary didn't allow her to go to Hawker and/or Kimba and hear the evidence directly. I heard the evidence from our Indigenous communities, and it's fair to say they haven't been treated appropriately in the process. That's not shied away from in the report; that's a recommendation of the report.

It's also fair to say that, like the rest of the community, there's a divergence of view in this matter. There are some people in Indigenous communities who support an outcome which will allow training and Indigenous employment and there are other people saying that it's totally abhorrent. I accept that as evidence. The minister's got to work his way through that, and, if there is broad community consultation, then there'll be an acceptable outcome.

I'd like to go to the issue of the dump and the waste. The evidence is this: within two metres of a low-level radioactive shipment, you'll get the same amount of radioactive exposure as you would eating a banana. That's what the evidence says. If you eat a banana or you're two metres away from a radioactive waste shipment, you will get the same level of exposure. So let's not try and pretend that this is going to be an outcome that is detrimental to a community that accepts it. At the moment we do tranship—out of Port Pirie, Whyalla and all of those places in South Australia—extremely volatile mining chemicals. They are probably equally as dangerous as radioactive waste, and the volume is much more, but we do it safely because that's what transport does. There are always appropriate protocols and security. So I don't regard low-level waste—or whatever waste—as being particularly challenging to the transport industry, because that's not the evidence. There are fly ash and acid B-doubles on the road to Roxby Downs 24 hours a day, seven days a week. I used to look after 150 drivers that did it. They got paid well and they did it safely and with very few incidents.

I don't have the same view as the Greens party on this, clearly, but I do have this broad view that wherever it goes, it needs to have good, solid support and it needs to have really good economic outcomes. I think that's achievable and, no matter which government it is, it will have to happen. In South Australia, we shouldn't shy away from the fact that we have four—I think it's four—of the five producers of uranium in the country. If we're going to take the benefits of production, it's a bit rich to say we want nothing to do with the end product. With those few short words, I seek leave to continue my remarks later.

Leave granted.