2016-04-29
The Australian Greens have called for an independent, deliberative inquiry into long-term stewardship options for spent nuclear fuel, drawing widely on international experience in light of today’s announcement to use Wallerberdina Station near Barndioota in South Australia's Flinders Ranges as a proposed dump site.
Greens co-deputy leader and nuclear spokesperson, Senator for WA Scott Ludlam said this should start with the question, what is the safest way to isolate long-lived wastes from people and the environment for tens of thousands of years, rather than where should we dump it?
“Existing spent fuel and reprocessing wastes should be properly containerised in 60-year licenced castors, effectively big bomb-proof lead and steel containers, and remain at Lucas Heights under active care and maintenance,” he said.
The Government must also come clean about what kinds of waste they intend to dump.
“While the Government emphasises that this debate is about low-level medical wastes (gloves and discarded diagnostic equipment), the real debate is about where the spent nuclear fuel from the Lucas Heights research reactor ends up,” he said.
Mr Ludlam said today’s announcement was only happening because community action led by Aboriginal leaders managed to defeat the proposal to dump nuclear waste at Muckaty Station in the Northern Territory.
“Unless the Government wants a repeat of that disaster, it needs to listen to local voices now. Minister Josh Freydenberg and his predecessor Ian MacFarlane said they would not proceed without consent. That consent is clearly missing: the community is saying no, and this must be respected,” he said.
"What we needed was a genuinely deliberative investigation into how to isolate this waste for tens of thousands of years; instead we got this attempt to cut corners and dump it off on an unsuspecting community.”
The Greens have committed to support local Aboriginal people who recently led a tour of the region for Australian Greens representatives.
The Greens also call for:
· Dispersed low-level wastes (the medical trash etc that the Government refers to) should be properly audited, and any material in unsafe storage should be transferred to existing intractable waste facilities (there is a licenced facility at Esk, in Queensland, for example).
· An immediate research effort to transition to non-reactor based production of medical isotopes so that in time we cease production of radioactive waste – this is the Canadian approach
· Strong and unambiguous confirmation from Labor and the LNP that they oppose the import of nuclear waste from overseas.