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

Pursuant to standing order 74(5), I ask the Minister representing the Minister for Resources, Energy and Regional Australia, Mr Frydenberg, for an explanation as to why answers have not yet been provided to questions on notice No. 2642 and No. 2907. For 2907, notice was given on 19 January of this year, so I acknowledge that it is only a matter of a week or so overdue. It relates to the transportation of radioactive materials through Australian ports from overseas. Notice of question 2642 was given on 24 November 2015. That is now months overdue. The question was around shipments of radioactive waste from France that have since returned to Lucas Heights in Sydney. I am seeking some explanation as to why answers to these questions are so vastly overdue.

Matthew Canavan (Queensland, Liberal National Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I thank the senator for the advance warning, before question time, of this issue. I have asked the Minister for Resources, Energy and Regional Australia and his office to come back with some information about the delay on these questions, and I am happy to provide that information to Senator Ludlam as soon as it is available.

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

I would like to briefly take note of Senator Canavan's response. I thank him for that. I also understand that there has been a bit of churn in that portfolio, and maybe Mr Frydenberg has taken time to get his head across the issues. Nonetheless, these are immensely serious issues regarding the return of Australian obligated nuclear fuel or reprocessing wastes from nuclear reactor and research reactor operations here in Sydney from reprocessing plants in Europe and elsewhere. I do not propose to detain the chamber for long, but I think it does go to the bigger picture of what is occurring here. And Mr Shorten, the Leader of the Opposition, apparently, rather than outright condemning and putting to rest propositions not just to import Australian obligated nuclear materials from overseas but also to turn outback South Australia into the world's radioactive waste dump—rather than putting Premier Weatherill in his box, in the public interest, and ruling out any proposition to do such a thing—is in fact entertaining the notion.

Sean Edwards (SA, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Absolute nonsense!

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

It is good that Senator Edwards is still here, because in some ways Senator Edwards has been leading the debate, and I acknowledge Senator Edwards's longstanding interest in this issue and the fact that he is leading the debate and has put quite a detailed submission to the South Australian royal commission led by Mr Scarce. I will make a couple of remarks on that basis before I close this afternoon. The fact is that Australia has for decades been unable to figure out how to handle the relatively small by international standards inventory of radioactive waste from our research reactor operations at Lucas Heights. I am not attempting to minimise the sheer volume or activity of the waste that is being generated in Australia, but compared to that which is produced by commercial nuclear reactor operations in countries around the world who went down the nuclear power path, Australia has a relatively small inventory of waste. It has waste from the 10 megawatt and then 20 megawatt research reactors that have operated in Sydney. Yet, look at the multi-decade rolling debacle of attempting to site this radioactive waste at some remote location in Australia. And compare that with the remarkable consistency of the Australian experience of trying to find somewhere to dump radioactive waste in jurisdictions overseas. Just to give one example—what is consistent between the Australian experience and the experience in the United States? It is that remote Aboriginal communities have been asked to bear the brunt of the world's and the nation's most dangerous categories of waste. And you have to wonder why it is. I asked ANSTO couple of years ago and their answers were surprisingly consistent with those contained in a promotional video by Pangea Resources that provoked debate in 1999 about the importing of radioactive spent fuel from overseas for dumping in Australia.

In fact Mr Scarce's royal commission uses very similar language as well. Why is it that the nuclear industry here and globally looks for high-isolation sites, stable geology, very deep groundwater with low movements, low seismic activity, distance from agricultural areas, distance from mineral resources and, most importantly, distance from population centres? Why is it that they seek such sites and then shortlist places like south-west South Africa, Mongolia or inland South Australia? Why is it that the nuclear industry looks for these remote high-isolation sites? The Scarce royal commission gives it away in one sense. For each facility, hypothetical facilities in this case, they propose, 'In these facilities the risk of the radionuclides migrating into the environment is managed by the geology in which the facility is situated, as well as its engineered barriers.' A little bit later, and I am reading from the executive summary here, it says, 'Each facility is sited in geological conditions that naturally limit the potential pathways for migration.' What is that code for, colleagues? It is that the engineered containment will fail, and when the engineered containment fails and the facility begins to leak they want to be as far from it as possible. They want that stable geology so that when their radioactive waste dump leaks it is a long way from them. That was in the Pangea video, and I thought that was a remarkable moment of honesty.

I had a similar moment of honesty from ANSTO at a Senate committee hearing a couple of years ago. Here it is again in the royal commission's findings—'Geological containment: when our waste dump leaks we want it to be out there in the middle of nowhere.' As those proponents from the Howard government and then Minister Martin Ferguson and more recently, Mr Ian Macfarlane, discovered when they prosecuted their case, going back to Senator Minchin, but particularly from the Muckaty experience, when you try to dump this material in the middle of nowhere you find people speaking up for that country. You find people who have occupied that country for tens of thousands of years, who put very strongly that they are not in 'the middle of nowhere'. In fact, if it is so dangerous that it needs to be moved as far from human habitation as possible then dumping it on an Aboriginal outstation or a cattle station in the Barkly region is in fact totally inappropriate. No wonder the people at the six sites around the country are discovering, now responsibility for this issue has passed to Minister Frydenberg, that people do not want this stuff. And it is very easy to understand why not. If it is so urgent to move the stuff from Lucas Heights because it is unsafe, how can you then make the case to the local people who you are asking to host this material that it is suddenly safe?

Senator Edwards has upped the ante on the debate somewhat by going even further than Mr Scarce has done in his South Australian royal commission—which, by the way, effectively pronounced the uranium industry moribund, correctly. It pronounced the global nuclear power industry moribund, correctly, and it correctly acknowledged that there were simply no possibility of a commercial nuclear power industry getting on its feet any time soon in Australia. It pronounced correctly that the reprocessing market is overdone and that there is no market for fuel enrichment in this country. Nevertheless, it left the door open for the import of spent fuel.

Is there a market for spent fuel that would allow you to adequately figure out what kind of price we could get for importing this poisonous material from jurisdictions overseas? No, there is not, so in the absence of a market and in the absence of any kind of international experience around price they have just made up some numbers. They made numbers up, and they have no idea what kind of revenues you could get from hosting international nuclear waste. They ended up with half a trillion dollars. How on earth do you arrive at a figure like half a trillion dollars, from various other countries putting this stuff on ships and it somehow magically arriving in outback South Australia? How do you get a number like that? The way that they did it was by saying you get $5 billion in annual revenues every year for the first 30 years. They just made that figure up by inventing a per tonne figure and then rounding up. And with 390,000 tonnes of spent fuel around the world, you end up with 60-odd thousand tonnes of the material landing in outback South Australia. Then you put the profit in a sovereign wealth fund, and over 120 years or so you will end up with this imaginary half trillion dollar figure. Senator Edwards has then leveraged these ideas and gone even further and said, 'What if we took 4,000 tonnes of that material and fed it into imaginary prism reactors that do not exist, and will not exist until at the earliest 2040?'

Sean Edwards (SA, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

That's not true.

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

Senator Edwards might want to enlighten us either now or at another time on what he proposes happen to the other 56,000 tonnes, because we have no idea. Apparently it is just left in some kind of outdoor car park in remote South Australia, sitting on the surface. The costs of a secure, dedicated port are not included. The costs of a dedicated rail corridor to inland South Australia are not included. The costs of the radical increases in security that you would need to safeguard this material from mishandling or misadventure are not included. The cost of safeguarding it for 300,000 years is not included. The costs of dropping it a mile below the desert in South Australia in 100 years time are not included.

How on earth has the debate come to this, where the best the major parties appear to be able to offer up for the people of South Australia as the economy slowly caves in is hosting the world's radiotoxic waste? How on earth has it come to this?

This parliament and the South Australian parliament should have ruled this out. Mr Scarce has done us something of a favour. I must admit that I was a sceptic. I did not think that using a royal commission for something like this was the right vehicle to do some taxpayer funded industry research. Nonetheless, they have come back and said: 'The industry is stuffed. It's barely viable, but why don't we—on the basis of completely imaginary fabricated economics—take the world's most lethal garbage and stick it in a parking lot out the back of South Australia?' Instead of repudiating that proposal, Mr Shorten is entertaining it. Mr Weatherill is entertaining it. Mr Turnbull is entertaining it. This debate should have been closed at the point at which the industry admitted that the reason it wants remote sites is that its engineered containment barriers will leak.

Surely we can do better than that for the people of South Australia. I look forward to getting some answers from the minister on the questions that I have raised.

Sean Edwards (SA, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I rise to speak on the motion of Senator Ludlam, and of course it behoves me to refute most of the issues which Senator Ludlam has raised. I understand that Senator Ludlam is ideologically opposed to this industry. It is what his brand is built on. It is what his trademark is. And his very small percentage of followers in the world who subscribe to his beatnik politics would subscribe to it. I do not know where you have been locked into, Senator Ludlam, but there is no higher inquiring authority in this land than a royal commission. To completely denigrate the findings of a royal commission, with the resources it has, in the way you have in the 12 minutes that I heard you speak is somewhat abusing the whole way in which our democracy and this government are run. You tell me a higher authority than a royal commission. I would be very interested.

George Brandis (Queensland, Liberal Party, Attorney-General) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

The parliament.

Sean Edwards (SA, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

There is the parliament. You can come to the parliament and you can debate this, which you are.

I will put what I know on the record. The suggestion and your inflammatory language, which is flowery and purposeful, about 'putting waste in a car park out the back of South Australia' just put your intellectual rigour which you have applied to this in perspective. You have not applied it. Have you actually read—and I would love an indication; I will take your interjection—my submission to the royal commission from cover to cover?

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

Yes, you provided me a copy not that long ago.

Sean Edwards (SA, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Yes. Have you read it, Senator?

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

No, not cover to cover.

Sean Edwards (SA, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

So you have not read it. Through you, Deputy President, I would inquire whether Senator Ludlam read the full findings of the royal commission before his contribution today.

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

I've read their summaries that they provided.

Sean Edwards (SA, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Oh, you have read the summary. I have read every word of the royal commission preliminary findings, and I found them to be quite encouraging. What we have now is a report on the table. Senator Ludlam and his assertions—the Greens political party can make a submission to the royal commission and put their contentions, and they can refute the facts of that royal commission that they believe are non-factual. They can tear down the findings of the royal commission, like Senator Ludlam has attempted to do in this chamber today.

He can do his own economic modelling. Senator Ludlam can do his. I have done mine. Mine also is vindicated by the findings of the royal commission. I had my paper peer reviewed around the world by a dozen different groups, scientific and economic. I am wondering whether Senator Ludlam has brought the same intellectual rigour to his submission here today in this chamber. I suspect not. I suspect the royal commission have also had their findings tested by eminent scientists and by people who have a background in economics, unlike what he has here today.

Also, there is this whole sense of fearmongering that goes with the contribution that was made by Senator Ludlam, whose trademark is opposing any progression in this area. He is now conflating the issues of low-level medical waste—medical waste which will come about as a result of one in two people in this country having an interaction with oncology services in this country. What we are doing by pulling these two together is subscribing to the Greens' fear and loathing of this whole policy position, which I suspect that in their heart of hearts they do not really believe, but they are so entrenched in this policy now that they cannot step away from it. They are so entrenched in it that they cannot stop it. Even the eight per cent of people who might vote for them around this country—

Senator Brandis interjecting—

They are just dogmatists in this whole debate. They just cannot move, because they think that if they do they will give up part of their branding.

What do we do then with all of the nuclear medical waste which is stored in 100 sites around this country? Just leave it in the basements of hospitals, shall we? Shall we not take it into a managed, controlled space where we can responsibly handle this? Your inflammatory language of, 'Oh, we'll put it in a car park out the back of South Australia,' demeans you, and it demeans the mentality of the debate which we are supposed to be having.

We are talking about a world-class arrangement, and Australia has been rated No. 1 in terms of regulation and governance of its nuclear facility. You heard that yourself, Senator Ludlam, at the last estimates. We are No. 1—ANSTO, our facility; in regulation; and the way in which we operate our nuclear science technology. That is no mean feat. I want to let anybody listening to this contribution know that, of the G20 countries, Australia is only one of two that are not nuclear nations—us and Italy, and Italy will be going down that path very soon.

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

No, they got out. They closed theirs down.

Sean Edwards (SA, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

And now they are buying coal fired power. You failed to embrace the imperative in this. You claim to stand for zero carbon emissions. I ask the Greens political party: what is the only power source that will provide baseload energy to this country at an internationally competitive rate? There is only one answer, and it is nuclear power generation. I repeat: zero carbon emissions and the only thing that will provide the baseload energy. My home state of South Australia has the third highest power costs in the world. We are trying to invigorate that state. How on earth can we do that when we are competing with other countries that are nuclear countries? How are we ever going to be able to contemplate doing that?

The royal commission could not have been more unequivocal in leaving the door open. The royal commission was not an entrepreneurial vehicle. That is my job. My job is to provide government with an option to provide nuclear power and to speak to the countries that will become customers of this country. We are geographically placed on an island in a part of the world that is geologically stable and geopolitically stable. That combination, Senator Ludlam, puts us in the best position in the world to take advantage of this most lucrative opportunity. You deny the people of South Australia through your scaremongering, your fear and loathing, your politics of envy or whatever you want to call it. It is scientific bluster because you have not put one bit of evidence on the table that suggests that the royal commission is wrong in saying that the risks are manageable. With the record that we have, Senator Ludlam, you are doing this country a great disservice when you denigrate our science capacity—CSIRO, ANSTO and everything like that. I cannot wait to see the scientists front up at the next budget estimates to take your questions.

You are out of your depth. You should spend some time in this place. You should go around the world. You should go into these places. These facilities are pristine in every respect—the way they are governed, the way they are regulated and the way they are operated. But you have not, Senator Ludlam, because you will not. Lucas Heights will accept a visit from any of you at any point in time. What do you have against saving people's lives? What do you want to sustain? There are 100 sites around this country holding medical waste, and all we want to do is put that in a safe container.

Senator Ludlam said that we are going to put nuclear waste in canisters that are going to leak. That implies to everybody listening that nuclear waste has leaked. I ask Senator Ludlam to come up with proof that nuclear waste storage around the world has at any time ever leaked. You provide that information to the royal commission. You flesh out your scientific evidence for why your contribution previous to mine is credible in any way, shape or form. It is not. We just heard scaremongering in that contribution. That was the most profoundly irresponsible contribution I have ever heard Senator Ludlam make in this debate.

There are no voices of science or of economics that have come out since those royal commission preliminary findings. This has suffered scrutiny all over the world. Everybody in the science world and in the nuclear science world is interested in this. If there were one flaw in the science or one flaw in the economics, don't you think we would have heard about it already? All we have is the Australia Institute, who are employed by the South Australian Conservation Foundation, saying, 'Maybe this was a stitch up from the start.' That was the only voice we had heard until today when we have had this. I encourage every scientist and every person involved in nuclear science that understands the economics of nuclear science and what it can do for this country to take Senator Ludlam's contribution, pick it apart and copy me in on the email of where he has gone wrong, where he is not right and why he should come back into this chamber and address the contentions he has made.

Ian Macdonald (Queensland, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

What a wonderful speech by a serious adult and effective senator from South Australia. Senator Edwards, I congratulate you on that and thank you for putting some clarity into a debate that I and I suspect other senators might have needed. I will not keep the Senate long. For as long as the Greens continue this process of having a debate other than taking note of answers I intend to contribute as well.

I want to alert the Greens political party to what is happening in Europe. You would probably be aware that after Fukushima the German government, quite curiously I thought, started cutting down on their nuclear power. Instead, they just brought it across the border from France. Nevertheless, it gave the Greens equivalents in Germany some comfort that Germany was no longer using nuclear power—they were just buying it from France across the border!

So I am sure Senator Ludlam would have been happy about that.

But, of course, the hypocrisy of the Greens political party again comes to the fore, because Senator Ludlam would probably be aware—and if he is not he should look into this—that Germany is now building one of the biggest coal-fired power stations anywhere in the world. So here are the Greens. They do not want nuclear power, but what is replacing it? The largest coal-fired power station in the world, being constructed in Germany. So where is the Greens policy consistency on that? Yes, get rid of uranium and nuclear power but encourage coal-fired power stations. I am glad that Germany is going that way.

Similarly with China, I was at a presentation earlier today where it was stated that there are literally hundreds and hundreds of coal-fired power stations being constructed in China at the moment. They are mostly using the cleaner coal that Australia produces, and because of that the lessening of the CO2 emissions from these coal-fired power stations is very considerable. I might add—and I will give Senator Ludlam the statistics shortly—that the amount of reduction in CO2 from all the European emissions trading schemes is infinitesimal compared to the reduction in CO2 emissions from these clean coal power stations in China and elsewhere in Asia.

So again I thank Senator Edwards for clarifying that. I add to the debate again just to highlight—if any highlighting is necessary—the Greens' complete hypocrisy in their approach to issues of energy.

Question agreed to.