Anthony Chisholm (Queensland, Australian Labor Party, Assistant Minister for Education) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I present the government response to the report of the Foreign Affairs, Defence and Trade Legislation Committee on the provisions of the Australian Naval Nuclear Power Safety Bill 2023 and a related bill. In accordance with the usual practice, I seek leave to have the document incorporated into Hansard.

Leave granted.

The document read as follows—

Australian Government response to the Senate Foreign Affairs, Defence and Trade Legislation Committee report:

Inquiry into Australian Naval Nuclear Power Safety Bill 2023 [Provisions] and Australian Naval Nuclear Power Safety (Transitional Provisions) Bill 2023 [Provisions]

SEPTEMBER 2024

Introduction

On 16 November 2023 the Deputy Prime Minister and Minister for Defence, the Hon Richard Marles MP, introduced the Australian Naval Nuclear Power Safety Bill 2023 [Provisions] and Australian Naval Nuclear Power Safety (Transitional Provisions) Bill 2023 [Provisions] (together, the ANNPS bills).

These bills are a significant legislative step in delivering a conventionally armed, nuclear- powered submarine capability for Australia under AUKUS, building on the Defence Legislation Amendment (Naval Nuclear Propulsion) Act 2023.

The legislation is specifically focused on ensuring Australia maintains the highest level of nuclear safety in respect of conventionally-armed, nuclear-powered submarines by establishing a new regulatory framework, including an independent regulator, to ensure nuclear safety within Australia's conventionally-armed, nuclear-powered submarine enterprise.

The Senate referred the ANNPS bills to the Senate Foreign Affairs, Defence and Trade Legislation Committee for inquiry and report by 26 April 2024.

On 16 April 2024, the Senate Foreign Affairs, Defence and Trade Legislation Committee tabled a progress report requesting to extend the reporting date. The Committee subsequently tabled its final report on 13 May 2024.

The Government's response to the recommendations of the Report follows below. The Government thanks the Committee for its work on the bills.

Government Response to the Senate Committee on Foreign Affairs, Defence and Trade Legislation Report:

Inquiry into Australian Naval Nuclear Power Safety Bill 2023 [Provisions] and Australian Naval Nuclear Power Safety (Transitional Provisions) Bill 2023 [Provisions]

Dissenting Recommendations (Australian Greens)

The Government notes the comments and recommendations in the Australian Greens' Dissenting Report, and further notes that the stated policy position of The Greens is that Australia should withdraw from the AUKUS Agreement. While the Government does not agree with this position, a substantive response to the recommendations is provided below.

Additional comments by Senator Lidia Thorpe

The Government notes the additional comments by Senator Thorpe, in particular the Senator's stated opposition to AUKUS. While the Government does not agree with this position, a substantive response to the Senator's recommendations is provided below.

Ross Cadell (NSW, National Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I move:

That the Senate take note of the document.

I seek leave to continue my remarks later.

Leave granted.

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

I rise to speak on the government response to the Foreign Affairs, Defence and Trade Legislation Committee report on the Australian Naval Nuclear Power Safety Bill 2023. We asked for the usual courtesy of an early provision of the government's response. We weren't afforded that courtesy; it's Defence, so there's a love of secrecy. It is a bit odd in this case because it's now been made public by being tabled, but we asked for the usual courtesy and we weren't granted the usual courtesy. I think that speaks to the ongoing frustration many people have with the way Defence treats parliament and democratic oversight. It's part of a pattern of aggressive nondisclosure that comes from Defence.

This bill was first presented in 2023. It proposes to set up a standalone naval nuclear regulator. The government thought they could just wave it through because the impetus of AUKUS would somehow drive the parliament to wave this through without close scrutiny. The difficulty the government had was the bill not only deals with an incredibly controversial matter of public interest—putting in place a regulatory regime to deal with nuclear powered submarines—and brings into that the growing public disquiet and opposition to the AUKUS project—last time I checked, the AUKUS project was not much more popular than the Labor Party; I think it had about 33 per cent public support, and it was falling. There were those matters of genuine public interest with the subject matter.

When the bill was actually read by my office and subject matter experts, it became clear that it was a dangerous and reckless proposal from the Albanese government in a number of ways. The first way in which it is dangerous and reckless is that it's proposing a standalone regulator for naval nuclear propulsion, and it proposes that that regulator report to the defence minister and be oversighted by the defence minister. The defence minister is at least notionally the person in charge of the Australian Defence Force. Where you have both the operator and the regulator of a nuclear facility or facilities responsible to the same minister, you have a shameful lack of independence.

One of the non-negotiable minimum standards under the International Atomic Energy Agency for nuclear regulation—and that's whether it's civilian or military—and one of the non-negotiable key safety features the International Atomic Energy Agency requires for a nuclear regulator is legal, structural and practical independence from the operator. The United States, for its nuclear submarine project, addresses that by having both the Department of Energy and the Department of the Navy as co-regulators of its naval nuclear propulsion. The UK has a blended form of regulation, with both civilian and military regulators forming a combined regulator of the UK naval nuclear propulsion ecosystem. Australia decided to reject both of those and come up with its own model, which literally has the regulator solely reporting to the defence minister and indeed giving the defence minister the power to direct the regulator as well—a critical, inherent and fundamental flaw in the legislation.

The second issue that became apparent on a close reading of the legislation was that it was putting in place a regulatory system that was giving the defence minister, through regulation, the power to nominate anywhere in the country—whether public land or private land, defence land or not defence land—to be a high-level nuclear waste dump. This is in circumstances where Australia has failed to get a low-level nuclear waste facility approved, because of the intense opposition from First Nations traditional owners and local communities. The government attempts to avoid all of that by creating an absolute power, in the defence minister, to nominate anywhere in the country, at any point and without any process, to be a high-level nuclear waste dump. This dump would take the most toxic nuclear waste on the planet, which is highly radioactive material, including the reactor components and spent nuclear fuel from highly enriched uranium that is in UK and US nuclear submarines and potentially Australian nuclear submarines. The community couldn't believe that the government was proposing to give that absolutely unrestrained power to the defence minister. They were appalled by the proposal.

The third aspect which really set an irradiated cat amongst the pigeons was the decision by whoever the genius drafters of the bill were—someone in Defence, no doubt—to permit the United States and the United Kingdom to dump their nuclear waste at any one of these nuclear waste facilities to be created at the stroke of a pen by the defence minister. The legislation automatically creates a nuclear waste facility just off Perth, on Garden Island, and another nuclear waste facility in Port Adelaide, 10 kays from the Adelaide CBD. It is already creating those two nuclear waste facilities. The legislation then said that it would be permissible to dump nuclear waste from an AUKUS submarine in not only those two facilities but any other facility in the country. And an AUKUS submarine is defined in the act to be a UK sub, a US sub or an Australian sub.

We know that the UK, for example, has a couple of dozen rusting hulks of nuclear submarines chock-full of highly irradiated reactor parts and highly enriched uranium that they don't have a solution for. You can go on Google and look at them. The United States has a similar problem of rusting hulks of nuclear submarines tied up and chock-a-block with high-level nuclear waste. They're just looking for some sucker to take all their nuclear waste, and in walks the Albanese government, which puts its hand up and says, 'We'll take all your high-level nuclear waste.' Is it any wonder that the community was in revolt about this?

At every hearing we went to we heard the same thing: How could they possibly be doing this? How reckless! There's no independence in the regulator, no community consultation, and we're taking US and UK high-level nuclear waste. Who came up with this stuff? The answer, it appears, is Minister Marles and his genius advisers in the Australian Submarine Agency; that's who came up with it.

We now see that the government is moving to make some minor changes, and we welcome what we understand these changes to be. There'll be some form of community consultation, some form of slightly greater independence, in terms of the senior positions, in the new nuclear regulator. This wouldn't have happened without a widespread community campaign.

When we first raised the issue of the high-level waste being from US and UK submarines, at the end of last year, we had the defence minister come out and say it was Greens scaremongering. He actually got a front-page headline in the Sydney Morning Herald saying it was Greens scaremongering. They now realise it's a significant issue, but they'll be moving an amendment that is grossly inadequate. The legislation is still permitting high-level nuclear waste, if it's contaminated reactor parts or cooling rods, to be dumped in Australia.

There will be a lot more to be said on this when we read in detail the response and consider the amendments. I seek leave to continue my remarks later.

Leave granted; debate adjourned.