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Nuclear politics: taking the A train

By Alison Broinowski - posted Wednesday, 17 October 2007


A survey found three “suitable” sites under Federal Government control in the Northern Territory, two north of Alice Springs and one near Katherine. In November 2005, the enabling legislation to establish a “safe and secure facility” had been pushed through Federal Parliament. Further changes enacted late in 2006 appear to remove the rights to procedural fairness of Indigenous people living there. In May 2007, Howard revealed a deal negotiated in secret for two years that would enable his government to store nuclear waste on a 1.5 square kilometre site on Muckaty station for 200 years, for a payment of $12 million to the Ngapa people.

At Muckaty, north of Tennant Creek, close to the Stuart Highway and the railway, Parsons Brinckerhoff are reported to be exploring for a waste site. The Minister for Science, Julie Bishop, does not call it a nuclear dump: it is to be a “radioactive waste management facility”. But because no proven technology for permanent, secure disposal exists, how and where to dump nuclear waste are two questions that remain unanswered.

A third is: whose waste? If a nuclear power industry is set up in Australia, it will be Australian waste, which should be more methodically collected and more safely stored than it is now. But the US clearly has interests in Australian nuclear policy and in the railway. Given unresolved problems with three nuclear waste sites in the US, it could well be American waste too.

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Some critics of Howard’s nuclear policy point out that power plants are 10 to15 years off, and doubt that he intends them to be built at all. Instead, Australian observers like journalist Julie Macken and the Wilderness Society’s Imogen Zethoven speculate that Howard’s real interest is in processing and exporting nuclear fuel and developing a world nuclear waste storage in Australia.

Dr John White, who has advised Howard and heads Australian Nuclear Fuel Leasing, told Macken the United States would be the biggest customer for storage, and would be so appreciative of access to the dump that Australia would never again be obliged to send troops to join American coalitions.

But for now, Howard’s nuclear plans are all over the place. He has reversed his statement that commercial considerations would alone dictate the site of nuclear power plants, and says he will hold local plebiscites first. But he has said nothing about any plebiscites on nuclear waste, and Julie Bishop still says she is considering four dumping sites, including Muckaty. Ian Macfarlane ruled out nuclear power stations in August, but Ziggy Switkowski said a re-elected Howard Government would legislate for them.

More speeches from Howard are likely, leading up to the election, about Australia being a “global energy superpower” that is travelling on the “energy superhighway”. Some Australians will feel good about that, as well as about their country’s part in defending freedom. But on and around the Adelaide-Darwin railway, a lot more is happening than we will find in the election slogans.

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First published in New Matilda on October 1, 2007.



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About the Author

Dr Alison Broinowski is a Visiting Fellow at ANU and UNSW, and an Honorary Associate at Macquarie University.

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