David Shoebridge (NSW, Australian Greens) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I move:

That the Senate take note of the document.

This is the Australian Radiation Protection and Nuclear Safety Agency quarterly report for the period of 1 January to 31 March 2023, and it's an interesting read. The report highlights just some of the work that ARPANSA is conducting around Australia. Part of ARPANSA's work is ensuring that there's effective regulation of nuclear waste and monitoring of radioactive material.

With the work of ARPANSA and other Public Service agencies like the CSIRO, you have to wonder why it is that Defence has contracted out the framework for creating a new nuclear regulatory body to a private consultancy. In fact, you have to wonder why it is that there's a proposed new nuclear regulatory body being established just for Defence that is within the Defence cluster and responsible to the defence minister.

International minimum standards for nuclear safety regulation require not just structural but also practical separation between the regulator and the operator. But the Albanese government's proposal for nuclear submarines, cheered in by the coalition, has both the operator of nuclear submarines—Defence—and the proposed new regulator responsible to the same minister, in breach of the basic minimum standards for effective nuclear regulation set by the International Atomic Energy Agency.

But it actually gets worse than that. Having established that as the basic structure, the Albanese government has then said, 'Well, who do we get to write the rules for the new regulator?' Do they get ARPANSA, which has been doing it effectively as a public agency? Do they get someone from CSIRO to do it? No. Who do they get? They choose from a list of pre-approved tenderers. They don't go out to a public tender; they choose EY consultants to do it. In just the last few months, they have signed a fresh contact with EY, an $8.4 million contract, to design Defence's nuclear submarine regulator for the AUKUS nuclear submarines. That's the same EY that has deep ties to the nuclear industry and is repeatedly advocating for an expanded nuclear industry and working with major nuclear power companies, including NuScale Power corporation and the China General Nuclear Power corporation. There's nobody on the planet EY won't get into bed with for nuclear power if there's a dollar in it for them. They're the guys that the Albanese government said they want—'Yes, they're the ones we want.'

That's the same EY that was TEPCO's long-term auditor. Who's TEPCO? It's the Tokyo Electric Power Company, who did what nuclear reactor? The Fukushima nuclear reactor—the one that more than a decade later is tipping nuclear waste into the middle of the Pacific. Who was their long-term auditor? EY. Who's designing our nuclear regulator? EY. You can't make this stuff up.

EY is already under investigation in Australia for undisclosed conflicts of interest with the New South Wales government, who are already investigating how EY was working both sides of the record in New South Wales—on the one hand it was developing the Future of gas statement with the New South Wales government while on the other it was getting a nice little side deal with Santos, who of course were desperately trying to frack First Nations land for their own private profit. EY are already working both sides of the record in Australia and are under investigation by the New South Wales government. Does that stop the Albanese government and Defence giving them an $8.4 million contract? No. What about working for a company that had a major nuclear disaster like Fukushima? No.

How can it be that Defence is allowed to handpick a pro-nuclear consultant to design a regulatory body within Defence that will report to the defence minister? As I said, international nuclear energy standards require separation. What we've got here is the fox watching the radioactive henhouse. That's what we've got. I seek leave to continue my remarks later.

Leave granted; debate adjourned.