Antinuclear

Need for an Independent Commission of Inquiry into Australia’s Nuclear Waste Management – FOE Submission

Friends of the Earth , Contact: Jim Green B.Med.Sci.(Hons.) PhD National Nuclear Campaigner ‒Australia SUBMISSION TO SENATE STANDING COMMITTEES ON ECONOMICS Selection process for a national radioactive waste management facility in South Australia Friends of the Earth Australia  www.nuclear.foe.org.au/waste(Submission No. 86)

(Ed note. This copy of this submission does not include the copious references which are provided on the original at the Senate website. )

CONTENTS 

1. Introduction
2. The financial compensation offered to applicants for the acquisition of land under the nominations of land guidelines
3. How the need for ‘broad community support’ has played and will continue to play a part in the process
4. How any need for Indigenous support has played and will continue to play a part in the process
5. Whether and/or how the Government’s ‘community benefit program’ payments affect broad community and Indigenous community sentiment
6. Whether wider (Eyre Peninsular or state-wide) community views should be taken into consideration and, if so, how this is occurring or should be occurring
7. Any Other Related Matters ‒ Alleged Need for a Dump and Store
8. Any Other Related Matters ‒ Long-lived Intermediate-level Waste
9. Any Other Related Matters ‒ Need for an Independent Commission of Inquiry
10. Introduction

Friends of the Earth Australia (FoE) welcomes the opportunity to provide a submission to this inquiry and would welcome the opportunity to appear at a hearing of the Senate Committee.

This submission comments on terms of reference (a) to (e).

Comment is also provided on several issues under term of reference (f) ‘any other related matters’.

In this introduction we wish to draw attention to two vital issues: the grossly deficient National Radioactive Waste Management Act, and the alleged need for a central waste facility. National Radioactive Waste Management Act We wish to emphasise gross deficiencies in the National Radioactive Waste Management Act (NRWMA), the federal legislation governing the nuclear waste management process.

The NRWMA is grossly undemocratic and it systematically disadvantages Aboriginal people. There is little point in seeking to improve processes under the NRWMA when the overarching legislation is itself deeply flawed. Conversely, significantly amending the NRWMA would be a logical starting point for resolution of intractable waste management issues. For those reasons, consideration of this issue should be central to the Committee’s deliberations.

It is noteworthy that in defending the government’s decision to oppose this Senate Inquiry, the Assistant Minister to the Prime Minister said the government is assessing three sites in SA “following a voluntary and fully transparent, community-driven process, consistent with the National Radioactive Waste Management Act 2012.” 1 Yet the government itself implicitly acknowledged serious flaws in the process by significantly amending it (for example compare the initial and subsequent nominations of sites near Kimba). Deficient processes have arisen from deficient legislation and the logical starting point to resolve the situation is to amend the legislation.

The NRWMA gives the federal government the power to extinguish rights and interests in land targeted for a radioactive waste facility. The Minister must “take into account any relevant comments by persons with a right or interest in the land” but there is no requirement to secure consent. Traditional Owners, local communities, pastoralists, business owners, local councils and State/Territory Governments are all disadvantaged and disempowered by the NRWMA.

The NRWMA disempowers Traditional Owners in multiple ways, including:

• The nomination of a site for a radioactive waste facility is valid even if Aboriginal owners were not consulted and did not give consent.
• The NRWMA has sections which nullify State or Territory laws that protect the archaeological or heritage values of land or objects, including those which relate to Indigenous traditions.
• The NRWMA curtails the application of Commonwealth laws including the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Heritage Protection Act 1984 and the Native Title Act 1993 in the important site-selection stage

. • The Native Title Act 1993 is expressly overridden in relation to land acquisition for a radioactive waste facility.

The NRWMA also puts the federal government’s radioactive waste agenda above environmental protection as it seeks to curtail the application of the Environment Protection and Biodiversity Conservation Act 1999.

The NRWMA needs to be radically amended or replaced

Further deficiencies in the NRWMA are discussed in a briefing paper written by Monash University fifth-year law student Amanda Ngo in 2017. Her paper, ‘National Radioactive Waste Management Act 2012’, is posted at http://tinyurl.com/nrwma-2017 and we urge Committee members to read the paper.

The alleged need for a centralised site and the absurdity of moving intermediate-level waste from Lucas Heights to a store adjacent to the planned repository.

Much of the discussion around nuclear waste management in Australia assume the need for a centralised, remote waste management site. Yet successive governments have failed to demonstrate the need for a centralised site. This contradiction is most acute in regards to long-lived intermediate-level waste (LLILW) (including spent fuel reprocessing waste) currently stored at Lucas Heights.

Plans to move LLILW from Lucas Heights (and elsewhere) to an above-ground store colocated with the repository for lower-level wastes, and then to an unspecified site at an unspecified later date, make no sense from a policy perspective and they significantly raise public-acceptance obstacles. At best, the current co-location proposal would mean double handling i.e. transport to the interim national store then future transport to a currently undetermined disposal site. Such an approach would fail a net-benefit test (as required under the ARPANS Act) as it would involve a net increase in public health and environmental risks. The government plans to increase public health and environmental risks, and increase public acceptance obstacles, for no logical, defensible reason whatsoever. The current Coalition government should revert to the policy of the previous Howard Coalition government and separate the processes for managing LLILW and lower-level waste.

Even if the Senate Committee is unwilling to systematically investigate the claimed need for a centralised repository and co-located LLILW store, the Committee should at the very least explore the absurd proposal to transport LLILW from Lucas Heights to a co-located store and thence to a disposal site which could be located in any of Australia’s states or territories.

Sites other than those in SA.

Sites other than those in SA (Flinders Ranges and Kimba) have progressed towards formal nomination ‒ in particular, Leonora (WA) and Brewarrina (NSW). We urge the Senate Committee to consider submissions from local people and groups in those areas. Those sites are not further discussed in this submission but other submissions will alert the Committee to glaring process errors, such as a community survey initiated by the Brewarrina Council which made no mention of the words ‘radioactive’ or ‘nuclear’. 2.

The financial compensation offered to applicants for the acquisition of land under the nominations of land guidelines.

The federal government is offering $10 million for hosting the radioactive waste management facility. The facility will operate for approximately 300 years. Thus the compensation amounts to about $33,000 per year, i.e. next to nothing. The $10 million would likely be spent in a matter of years ‒ so for decades and centuries the local community would have to deal with the risks and problems associated with the facility, with no compensation.

There has been discussion about states/territories paying for the use of the national radioactive waste facility but details are vague and it is inconceivable that that could amount to anything more than a negligible revenue stream given that total national radioactive waste generation amounts to approx. 45 cubic metres annually according to the federal government (40 cubic metres of low-level waste and 5 cubic metres of intermediatelevel waste).2

The government’s claims about job creation are implausible and we urge the Senate Committee to say so clearly in its report. From 1998-2004, the Howard government stated that there would be zero permanent jobs at its proposed national repository site near Woomera. When attention later focused on the Muckaty site in the NT, successive governments said there would be six security jobs at the site and no other permanent jobs. Work would be available when waste was transferred to the facility, but there was no expectation that it would involve locals, and waste transfers to the site were only anticipated infrequently (once every 3‒5 years).3

The current government position is that “at least 15 full-time equivalent jobs will be needed to operate the facility.” 4 It is plausible that there might be 15 jobs in the initial stage as waste holdings are transferred to the site, processed/packaged and disposed of (or stored in the case of LLILW). However, it is implausible that 15 permanent jobs would be maintained beyond that initial phase given that waste transfers to the site would be low-volume and infrequent (once every three to five years). Annual generation of 45 cubic metres of waste could not sustain 15 jobs ‒ the claim is absurd and the government should be held to account by the Senate Committee for raising false expectations.

3. How the need for ‘broad community support’ has played and will continue to play a part in the process, including: i) the definition of ‘broad community support’, and ii) how ‘broad community support’ has been or will be determined for each process advancement stage.

Minister Matt Canavan suggested 65% as the marker for ‘broad community support’ but then continued with the Kimba sites even after an AEC survey determined that support fell considerably short of that level at 56%.

There seems little point in assessing the level of community support and opposition when the government simply shifts the goal-posts to suit its political purposes. This issue will arise again with the government’s plan to formally survey local public opinion around nominated sites in August / September 2018 Continue reading →

June 16, 2018 Posted by Christina Macpherson | AUSTRALIA - NATIONAL, Federal nuclear waste dump | Leave a comment