Government's waste dump fiasco, continued
Tuesday, 6 March, 2007
by Warren Snowdon (MP), Senator Kim Carr, Senator Trish Crossin
ALP
After ten long years of deliberations you’d think the Howard Government might be about to get it right, but alas it seems the site selection will be yet another sorry chapter in what has become a completely corrupted process.
After discussions with landowners at Mukaty Station in the Northern Territory, an announcement seems imminent. The Government has been deliberating over three sites in the NT since the last election. Mukaty Station has not been one of those.
The Howard Government has tried to impose the controversy-ridden dump on communities all over the nation. A rocket range in South Australia was one proposed site, before the High Court ruled SA out of the equation. Then the Government tried to shove the dump off shore and are now trying to impose it on the NT.
The Howard Government has ridden roughshod over the rights of all Territorians and Australians shoving legislation through Federal Parliament which gives Science Minister Julie Bishop absolute control over the sighting of a nuclear waste facility.
Labor will legislate to restore transparency, accountability and procedural fairness including the right of access to appeal mechanisms in any decisions I relation the sighting of any nuclear waste facilities.
Labor will ensure that any proposal for the siting of a nuclear waste facility on Aboriginal Land in the Northern Territory would adhere to the requirements that exist under the Aboriginal Land Rights , Northern Territory Act (ALRA).
Labor will restore the balance and pending contractural obligation and will not proceed with the establishment of a nuclear waste facility on or off Aboriginal land until the rights removed by the Howard government are restored and a proper and agreed site selection process is carried out.
Labor will not arbitrarily impose a nuclear waste facility without agreement on any community, anywhere in Australia.