Nuclear Waste Storage Facility (Prohibition) Bill

Extract from Hansard

Legislative Council
17 November 1999

Sandra Kanck
Deputy Leader Australian Democrats
Member of the Legislative Council

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The Hon. SANDRA KANCK obtained leave and introduced a bill for an act to prohibit the establishment of a nuclear waste storage facility in South Australia, and for other purposes. Read a first time.

Almost 12 months ago a leaked promotional video from a company named Pangea Resources Pty Ltd hit the headlines. It hit the headlines because it promoted Australia as the dumping ground for the world's nuclear waste; in particular, it promoted the idea that locations in Western Australia and South Australia were just what the doctor ordered because of our stable geology and stable political systems. This repository is needed because so many of the countries which produce nuclear power have not taken responsibility for the associated waste they have produced.

Aside from one Australian director, the directors of Pangea Resources Pty Ltd have home addresses in Canada and the United States and, with the exception of that same Australian, the directors of Pangea Resources Australia Pty Ltd have their home bases in England, Switzerland and the United States. Pangea Resources Pty Ltd has offices in Canada and, once again, the United States. It is not surprising that the United States connection keeps coming up. The US is one of the more irresponsible producers of nuclear waste, having been at the forefront of the development of nuclear power with its `atoms for peace' program. It might have called it `atoms for pollution', given the amount of waste it produced and that the US now wants to dump in South Australia.

That atoms for peace program, which began soon after the Second World War, was very much a subterfuge to cover the real agenda of producing nuclear weaponry. So, here is a country which has developed nuclear waste, from the production of both energy and weapons, yet it wants us to accept its waste on the basis that the area under consideration meets Pangea's criteria of `high isolation characteristics including extremely low relief topography, very low rainfall, very high evaporation, stable geology and hydrogeology, absence of important minimal resources.' But geological stability does not last forever, as evidenced by the earth tremors in South Australia already this year, at least one of which has occurred reasonably close to the South Australian area proposed by Pangea.

The other criteria of importance for it is `based on the technology capabilities, the societal stability, the political and legal system, and the economic status of potential host countries'. The notorious promotional video puts it this way:

Before any responsible country would send their waste for disposal, they must be certain not only that the repository is safe but also that its safety must be seen to be clearly and rigorously regulated. International agreements on standards exist and any host country would have to honour these. This will clearly be more credible where the host country has a stable democratic government and the technical, legal and economic infrastructure to both finance and regulate such a major project.

I cannot resist observing that any responsible country would either look after its own waste or stop producing it.

The Hon. SANDRA KANCK: Before the break I was talking about the reasons why Pangea particularly wants to locate in Australia, either in South Australia or Western Australia, and these reasons are the geological and the political stability of this particular area. Just as I have observed that geological stability does not last forever, neither does political stability. Has any human culture lasted more than a thousand years? I simply cannot bring to mind a single example. Yet the levels of radioactivity of the waste proposed to be shipped to Australia will last many hundreds and thousands of years beyond that.

Pangea itself acknowledges that there will be toxicity levels of some of the waste remaining beyond 100 000 years. Pangea representatives recently told a conference in Darwin that we are talking about 250 000 tonnes of that stuff looking for a home by the year 2015. I believe that this exposes the real motives of those countries seeking to dump their nuclear waste in Australia.

Earlier this year when we dealt with the Wingfield Waste Depot Closure Bill, I referred to the OOSOOM factor. People who often oppose things close to their homes and their cities are often accused of the NIMBY (not in my backyard) syndrome, but I advocate that there is another syndrome that we should talk about, and that is OOSOOM, which is out of sight out of mind. When we were talking about Wingfield, I argued that it would allow the people of Adelaide to think that their waste management problem was solved by virtue of the fact that they could no longer see it.

The OOSOOM factor applies with even more dangerous implications when we are talking about high level nuclear waste. It is clearly a potential danger for us and it would lead those who are creating the waste to consider that the problem is solved, so any in- built feedback systems to reduce the production of nuclear waste are broken down in the process. The users of nuclear power would continue to use still more power in the mistaken belief that the problem had been solved. That is what is being proposed and Australians, and in particular South Australians, are the fall guys.

Late last year Pangea's representatives claimed that they had been having discussions with the government. Ministers at the federal level all ducked for cover, denying that they had anything to do with it, and they did not support such a facility being located anywhere in Australia. Subsequently, one government member came forward to reveal that he had had talks with Pangea. On 25 May this year, I placed questions on notice in this parliament regarding any contacts that might have been made by Pangea in South Australia. I remind members what those questions were:

1. Has Pangea Resources made direct contact with the Premier, any minister or any backbencher of the government?

2. Has any South Australian government department received any mail, e-mail or faxes or logged any telephone calls from Pangea Resources?

Almost six months later, those questions remain unanswered. Why is the South Australian government reluctant to provide this information? Do we assume from that that the South Australian government or representatives or agencies have been having talks with Pangea?

Since the initial revelation last year of the Pangea video, its preferred location has focused on Western Australia, to the relief of most sane South Australians, given that South Australia was already being targeted by the federal government to be the dumping ground for low to medium level radioactive waste generated principally in the Eastern States of Australia. Some weeks ago legislation was introduced by the opposition in the Western Australian parliament to prevent the location in that state of a nuclear waste dump of the type being envisaged by Pangea. That legislation is being supported by all parties in Western Australia.

So, whilst for a short time at least South Australians might have felt slightly less anxious about the location of Pangea's proposal, the imminent passage of this legislation in Western Australia puts the focus back on us. If the avenues are closed in Western Australia, then Pangea's next most preferred location (that is, a site in South Australia) would become its target.

In pressuring Australia to take US nuclear waste, the politicians and citizens of the United States are copping out. But it is not just the United States that desperately wants a dumping ground: the United Kingdom would also be vitally interested. For the most part, these countries are not being up-front about their intentions, leaving Pangea to take the running, and any flak, on the issue. The stuff is produced in other countries, and there is no good reason why they should transfer their problems to our backyard.

The bill itself prohibits the construction of a nuclear waste facility for storage of nuclear waste from an overseas origin. The Western Australian bill, on which I have modelled mine, has a penalty of a mere $500 000 for contravening this, but, although I have used the Western Australian bill as a model, at this point I have departed company from it and upped the penalty to $5 million.

The bill also prevents the use of any taxpayers' money for the development, construction or operation of a nuclear waste storage facility. Members will note that this bill is about the Pangea proposal and targets, specifically, imported nuclear waste. I have excluded nuclear waste of Australian origin as I believe that we need to keep the international proposal separate from the proposal of the federal government which has most recently been associated with the Billa Kalina region to the dismay of the locals. I will refrain from referring to that proposal in terms of that geographical name.

The state government's response to the federal government's proposal has been one of grudging acceptance, and there is at least one backbencher who has been candid in suggesting that it is a good idea. I suspect that there may be ministers who are privately quite enthusiastic about that proposal because of the carrot that is being offered of job creation. Certainly, a South Australian Liberal senator and minister, Nick Minchin, has pushed that view, and I recognise the political reality that state Liberal MPs might not wish to be seen to be disloyal to their federal colleagues.

Under those circumstances, bringing the federal government's proposal into the ambit of this legislation might be counterproductive. I must indicate, therefore, that I would be more than happy at a later stage to introduce separate legislation to deal with the federal government's proposal.

Some opposition members criticised me a few weeks ago by saying that my bill would not go far enough but, in its current form, unencumbered by the federal government's proposal for a low to medium level dump, there is a chance that this bill might have a chance of passing.

The Hon. SANDRA KANCK: John Hill, in particular, criticised me. However, I fear that some government members who would support this legislation in the form in which I introduce it might feel obliged to vote against it if we were to bring the federal government proposal into the ambit. When I indicated some weeks ago that I intended to introduce this legislation, resource minister and Deputy Premier Rob Kerin claimed on radio that it was not necessary because the federal government had stated that it was not supportive of such a dump being located in Australia.

The Hon. T.G. Cameron: That should make it easy for them to support your resolution.

The Hon. SANDRA KANCK: Absolutely, yes. I encourage members opposite to remember that, despite protestations from the federal government that it had not been involved in talks about a high level international nuclear waste dump, at least one of its number was subsequently found to have been talking to Pangea and, despite those protestations, 11½ months later Pangea is still hanging about. Clearly the `No' that the federal government claims to have given was not loud enough to encourage Pangea to depart our shores. Pangea is still here and it has even placed on the record its view that the leaking of the video last year was not such a bad thing after all because it made it easier for the company to conduct its business `more publicly and begin open communications at an earlier date'.

Greenpeace, in an Advertiser article of 27 October this year, stated that a survey it had commissioned showed that 85 per cent of Australians want legislation to prevent foreign nuclear waste entering Australia. Why would any South Australian MP not support this legislation? Relying on a statement from a federal minister that they are not talking with Pangea may well not be good enough protection for us in the end. Members of this parliament owe it to their constituents-many of whom are already concerned about the prospect of a low to medium level waste dump-to support legislation that will prevent this state being used as a dumping ground for high level nuclear waste. I commend the bill to the Council.