Antinuclear

The revelation comes after Premier Jay Weatherill last week announced a royal commission into nuclear power, saying it was time for a “mature” discussion about the potential to expand the state’s role in the fuel cycle.

However, the most senior South Australian Liberal, Christopher Pyne, yesterday rejected Mr Weatherill’s inquiry, putting him at odds with Tony Abbott.

“We have all the energy we need here in Australia … whether it’s coal energy — I do not support an extension to nuclear energy,” the Education Minister told ABC radio.

The Prime Minister has backed the royal commission, saying Mr Weatherill had offered “a gale of common sense”.

Mr Weatherill was Premier when then employment minister Tom Kenyon presented the “silver bullet” proposal to a cabinet planning day, arguing that a pro-nuclear policy to build on the state having one of the world’s largest uranium mines, Olympic Dam, would turn around the state’s finances. It flags the problems of spiralling debt of more than $10 billion, “no sign of a turnaround in budget” and flagging confidence in the economic future of the state as reasons for building a nuclear storage facility.

“Rather than suffering a ‘death by a thousand cuts’ in the lead up to 2014, a single decision could turn the budget on its head,” the document says.

A series of bilateral deals with targeted nations such as Taiwan, South Korea, Japan and the US are flagged to provide “an unprece­dented revenue windfall” in exchange for taking thousands of tonnes of nuclear waste.

“It is proposed this windfall be used to wipe out state debt, and implement a state infrastructure fund to enable a huge program of building works to drive the economy and deliver a boom to the state well in excess of any ‘mining boom’,” the report says.

Hosting Australia’s low-level waste would be conditional on ­allowing imported waste — a “non-negotiable aspect of the ­arrangement”.

Yesterday, Mr Kenyon — who remains a backbench MP — said all ministers received the ­November 2012 document, but he would not comment on cabinet deliberations.

“I think it has a lot of ­potential for the economy and I will ­certainly be putting that to the royal commission,” he said.

Mr Weatherill told The Australian yesterday that Mr Kenyon had been a “long-time advocate for increased involvement in the nuclear fuel cycle”.

“There are many views both in the Labor Party and in the wider community on this issue and I would ask anyone interested to make a submission to the royal commission,” Mr Weatherill said.

Mr Kenyon’s proposal raises the idea of locating the storage ­facility at sites previously earmarked by the commonwealth for a nuclear dump site, despite these being fiercely opposed by former Labor premier Mike Rann in 2004