Antinuclear

South Australia Nuclear Citizens Jury afternoon session 9 July

In this session, facilitator (probably Emily Jenke from DemocracyCo) was asking the jury to discuss and develop a consensus on the wording of their reports on several topics.

I hope that there will be a transcript of this – (a) because I missed quite a lot and (b) because the to and fro of questions between jurors is hard to follow in an attempted transcript such as I’m doing.

In fact, I learned only some of the discussion on subjects of Education, Community Consent and Trust, and Safety.

Parts that I found particularly significant –

• On Economics – how much investment does the State of South Australia have to put into development of nuclear waste importing facilities? Some jurors felt that there was not enough economic modelling. on education: when will a yes or no answer be acceptable?
• on Trust : it was stressed that this is important because the current South Australian legislation prohibits import and storage of foreign nuclear waste. We need to decide if South Australia, as producer of uranium,  has a moral and ethical obligation to take back wastes. Apparently Haydn Manning in a previous hearing has suggested that there is this obligation. However, one juror stated that this was not the finding of the old Ranger Inquiry.  International standards state that the society that generates the waste (i.e in nuclear reactors) has that obligation, (not the society that provides the uranium). The Royal Commission Report also states this.
• on Safety – a comprehensive report was given on this, outlining many questions. Here one juror complained that the risks had been emphasised, rather than safety. He referred the jurors back to then evidence given the previous week on radiation risks. At this point my live-stream reception cut out –  just as it was getting interesting, seeing that last week’s Citizens’ jury speakers  produced a whole lot of trivial nonsense on this topic.

July 9, 2016 - Posted by Christina Macpherson | NUCLEAR ROYAL COMMISSION 2016, politics, South Australia, wastes