2024-10-11
The Albanese Government today teamed up with Peter Dutton’s Coalition to push through a controversial AUKUS Bill that will allow the dumping of high-level naval nuclear waste anywhere in Australia.
The Albanese Government, in alliance with the Coalition, rammed the Australian Naval Nuclear Power Safety Bill through the Senate today without debate.
The Bill also created a new naval nuclear regulator as part of the AUKUS agreement with the UK and US on nuclear submarines. It initially allowed for all UK and US nuclear submarine waste to be dumped in Australia until the Albanese Government sheepishly amended it, due to growing public opposition, to prevent the dumping of UK or US ‘spent nuclear fuel’.
However, the amendments still allow the dumping of US and UK intermediate-level waste and other high-level nuclear waste from their nuclear submarines. The Greens moved amendments this afternoon that explicitly prevented this, and the major parties voted against these amendments and others.
The Bill immediately creates two nuclear dump ‘zones’, one off the coast of Perth and the other at Port Adelaide, without any community consultation or local support.
The Bill also allows nuclear dump zones to be declared anywhere in Australia that the Defence Minister chooses with the flick of their pen, again without any consent from local communities or First Nations traditional owners.
Senator David Shoebridge, Greens Spokesperson for Defence, said: “Albanese and Dutton have teamed up today to push this AUKUS nuclear waste legislation through the Senate without debate."
“Today’s actions see both Labor and the Coalition joining hands to ram through legislation that will let the UK and US dump their naval nuclear waste in Australia.”
“The Albanese Labor Government initially tried to sneak through a law that would allow the UK and US to dump all types of nuclear waste in Australia. The Greens called the Government out on this, and then people around Australia pushed back.
“Even with last-minute Labor amendments, this legislation still allows the dumping of US and UK nuclear waste in Australia. Labor’s amendments only prohibit the US and UK dumping 'spent nuclear fuel' from their submarines in Australia, but do not prohibit any other highly irradiated UK and US nuclear waste.
“This legislation green-lights dumping of all Australian naval nuclear waste anywhere in Australia. To be clear, exposure to even intermediate-level waste is lethal to humans, and the risk lasts for hundreds of years.
“Everyone can see AUKUS is sinking, the question is now becoming how much environmental and financial damage it will do before it hits rock bottom,” Senator Shoebridge said.