Secrecy on nuclear waste plans, as Fed govt delays announcing site for radioactive trash dump
Federal Government delays announcement of Australian waste dump site after silence from NT October 5, 2015 NT News http://www.dailytelegraph.com.au/news/federal-government-delays-announcement-of-australian-waste-dump-site-after-silence-from-nt/story-fnk1w5xx-1227557268139THE Federal Government has missed its due date to announce a shortlist of potential sites for Australia’s nuclear waste dump.
And despite promising last week the process would be “open and transparent”, new Northern Australia and Resources Minister Josh Frydenberg will not reveal how many nominations have been put forward, where they have come from, or when any government announcements will come.
The month-long call to nominate sites for Australia’s radioactive waste management facility was thrown open to all landholders in March because Northern Territory traditional owners, who had exclusive nomination rights, had not offered land before the Government-imposed deadline.
A controversial bid by traditional owners north of Tennant Creek to house the facility on the Muckaty Land Trust collapsed in June last year amid clan feuds and environmental activism.
The deal would have netted traditional owners about $12 million in compensation.
Industry Minister Ian Macfarlane left Cabinet after the Malcolm Turnbull leadership coup and Mr Frydenberg assumed responsibility for the facility in the subsequent reshuffle.
In his first interview about the troubled quest to store 70 years’ worth of Australia’s low and intermediate level nuclear waste, Mr Frydenberg told the The Adelaide Advertiser last week “the (Federal) Government is running an open and transparent process to choose a voluntary site for a national radioactive waste facility.”
Mr Macfarlane had also promised “extensive public consultation” at every stage.
But nearly five months after nominations have closed, the government will not reveal any details about the search.Ironically, Mr Frydenberg’s office has twice referred the NT News to the “open and transparent” remark while at the same time refusing to answer questions.
Australia, specifically Lucas Heights in Sydney, has already begun to take back nuclear waste from Europe, meaning the government can ill afford more Muckaty Station-style stops, starts and failures.
According to government timelines, the minister in charge, then Mr MacFarlane, was due to shortlist sites before August.
By July next year, Mr Frydenberg is supposed to announce the government’s preferred site, and by 2020 the facility is supposed to be operational. Moves to offer another site on Muckaty Station north of the original plan fell away early this year. Traditional owners from the Tanami Desert, under the auspices of the Central Land Council, had also indicated support but never nominated a site.
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of the week – Disrupting War & Militarism in Oceania. Active solidarity. Radical practice.
Antinuclear 
I imagine the silence and procrastination has something to do with the outcome of the rigged Royal Commission and SA’s lobbying for an International waste dump. Seemingly the cowboys out of Adelaide believe they are more competent at meddling with the atom than all the nuclear states on the globe who’ve failed to inter the diabolical mess they’ve made across the planet. I imagine the lobbyists in Adelaide would be miffed if they didn’t get their hands on the waste dump and the subsequent filthy lucre that drives them into a frenzy.
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