Lidia Thorpe (Victoria, Independent) Share this | Hansard source

Despite the coalition claiming nuclear energy is in the national interest, nothing about it is in the national interest. It might be in the Nationals' interest, but the risk, costs and waste are certainly not in the interests of future generations nor are they in the interests of my people.

First Peoples in this country have a long history of continuous resistance against nuclear proposals of all kinds, including 30 years of successfully fighting against proposed nuclear waste dumps. In two weeks time it will be the 20th anniversary of the Kupa Piti Kungka Tjuta's win against the federal government's trying to put a nuclear waste dump at Coober Pedy in South Australia, with Coober Pedy in 2000 being declared a nuclear-free zone. Billa Kalina in South Australia, Muckaty in the NT, and Woomera, Yappala and Kimba, all in South Australia, were targeted for nuclear waste dumps. Isn't it strange that it was First Nations communities there were being targeted every time? Just put it in the blackfellas' backyard—which is the whole country, mind you. Yet we fought back successfully every time.

On 18 July it will be the one-year anniversary of the Federal Court determination that the former federal resources minister Keith Pitt was way out of step when he used ministerial powers to declare Kimba as the site for a federal nuclear waste dump. Just as the former coalition government was out of order on nuclear then, they are certainly out of order on nuclear power now. It is time governments upheld First Peoples' rights in this country, including self-determination and free, prior and informed consent, because you have no consent for nuclear waste or reactors ever on these lands. It is stolen anyway.