Gary Humphries (ACT, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

by leave—I move the motion as amended:

That the Senate—

(a)

notes:

(i)

that 20 years have passed since the nuclear reactor accident which occurred on 26 April 1986 at Chornobyl, with adverse consequences for approximately 2 million people in each of Belarus, Ukraine and Russia, with some 600 000 clean-up workers and more than 350 000 evacuees being exposed to high levels of radiation,

(ii)

some estimates that the radiation emitted by the Chornobyl blast delivered into the atmosphere 90 times the radioactive materials of the atomic bomb blast at Hiroshima,

(iii)

that a radius of 30 kilometres around the Chornobyl reactor has been declared an exclusion zone that will be uninhabitable for centuries,

(iv)

that as far away as Britain, hundreds of farms are still suffering from low-level radioactive debris, which was borne thousands of kilometres by winds from Chornobyl,

(v)

that of the three most affected countries, Ukraine has a special role as custodian of the Chornobyl reactor site, with the cost of a new sarcophagus likely to slow the development of its economy, and

(vi)

that Ukraine and Belarus have, since independence, demonstrated good faith to the world community by eliminating their stockpiles of Soviet nuclear warheads, and Ukraine has shut down the three remaining operable reactors on the Chornobyl site;

(b)

expresses concern that:

(i)

as time progresses there has been a gradual downgrading of awareness in the Australian and world community about the Chornobyl tragedy and its lessons,

(ii)

the affected people in Belarus, Ukraine and Russia are not receiving appropriate treatment due to a lack of funding, alternative priorities and ignorance of the full consequences, which include thousands of thyroid cancers in the affected zone,

(iii)

difficult economic conditions in Ukraine will hinder that country’s ability to fully respond to the challenge of securing the safety of the closed Chornobyl power station, and

(iv)

Ukraine needs to secure the safety of currently operating reactors, especially in light of its plans to expand nuclear power; and

(c)

calls on the Government to ensure that, in any debate regarding the future of nuclear power in Australia, the lessons of Chornobyl are heeded.

Question agreed to.

Bob Brown (Tasmania, Australian Greens) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Mr Acting Deputy President, I ask that the Australian Greens’ support for that motion be registered.