Local Councils power to declare nuclear-free roads to be subject to state veto

Extract from Hansard

Legislative Council
26 October 1999

Sandra Kanck
Deputy Leader Australian Democrats
Member of the Legislative Council

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The Hon. SANDRA KANCK: I understand that the purpose of this Bill is to ensure that any action taken by a local government entity to exclude vehicles from a road under the care and control of the Commissioner of Highways can have no effect unless the commissioner approves the action. I believe that this bill has occurred, at least in part, because of by-laws passed by Prospect council to prevent certain heavy vehicles from travelling through that area. I am quite disturbed by the legislation and wonder whether it is necessary.

I wrote to the Local Government Association, which said that it has no particular problem with it. Nevertheless, it strikes me that, with federal government plans to build a low to medium level nuclear waste repository and the threat of Pangea's locating a high level waste repository here in South Australia, being able to make a decision through by-laws that certain vehicles carrying radioactive waste would not be able to travel through particular local government areas might be a very useful device to have to prevent these dumps taking the waste and, effectively, to prevent the dumps from operating.

It may be that, if a particular local government entity were to pass a by-law that prevented that from occurring, the Commissioner of Highways might concur, but there is no guarantee that that would be the case. I am rather concerned that, with the emphasis that the present government puts on employment at any cost, there would be a certain attractiveness to having a low, medium or high level waste repository, and if a local government entity were to say, `We don't want vehicles carrying nuclear waste coming through our area,' the commissioner, with advice, obviously, from the minister and the government, may well decide that they would not agree with such a by-law.

Because I see this as being a weapon that we can use in being able to prevent this nuclear waste being dumped in South Australia and turning us into the dump state, I will be opposing this legislation.