Antinuclear

Dispute in South Australia, as Labor govt wants to scrap law against expenditure towards nuclear waste dumping

State Parliament has backed removing a law against investigating nuclear dumping, with dispute over when it should take effect, The Advertiser, March 22, 2016  Daniel Wills State Political Editor The Royal Commission’s tentative findings were that a nuclear dump could be constructed safely in SA STATE Parliament has taken its first step toward supporting nuclear waste storage, with bipartisan support to repeal laws that ban spending money on investigating its establishment.

However, a dispute has emerged over State Government plans to make the changes effective as of several weeks ago amid Opposition questions about if the law has already been broken.

Premier Jay Weatherill a fortnight ago announced plans to change laws enacted under the former Liberal government which stop public money being spent on encouraging a dump.

He said the move did not signal support for a dump in SA, but the laws could prevent robust debate and investigations once the final Nuclear Fuel Cycle Royal Commission report is released.

The existing law states: “no public money may be appropriated, expended or advanced to any person for the purpose of encouraging or financing any activity associated with the construction or operation of a nuclear waste storage facility in this state”.

Mr Weatherill said legal advice found the Commission did not break existing law……..

Greens MP Mark Parnell has previously told Parliament he believes the law may have been broken by commissioning telephone interviews with citizens seeking their views on storage.

Conservation SA today released a report from left-leaning think-tank The Australia Institute which cast doubts on the economic benefits of nuclear storage in SA.

Conservation SA chief executive Craig Wilkins said it “confirms what many South Australians suspect”, in that “the dump proposal being pushed seems way too good to be true”.

“Because there is no international market for high level nuclear waste, any prices, or costs underpinning any possible return for our state are pure guesswork based on assumptions and modelling,” Mr Wilkins said. “The consultants have made some extraordinarily optimistic assumptions about the price other countries will be willing to pay.

“They assume South Australia will be able to do something that even experienced nuclear countries have never managed to do, at a cheaper price.

“They also ignore the very real possibility that SA could take a cut in its GST revenue if this project did manage to make money.

“A project with this level of risk to future South Australians needs to stack up on economic grounds as well as safety and ethical ones. Our concern is that this fails on all three.” http://www.adelaidenow.com.au/news/south-australia/state-parliament-has-backed-removing-a-law-against-investigating-nuclear-dumping-with-dispute-over-when-it-should-take-effect/news-story/a9bb5ee604fc4f7e850e4a9116cbdd0d

March 23, 2016 - Posted by Christina Macpherson | politics, South Australia