We won't hand back contaminated land: Bishop
Thursday, 16 November, 2006
by David Crawshaw
National Indigenous Times
Laws were introduced to parliament in early November aimed at preventing legal challenges against any move by the Northern Territory's Northern Land Council to offer up its land for a radioactive waste dump.
The government is examining three Commonwealth-owned sites in the Territory for a repository to store low and medium-level radioactive waste.
But it is also negotiating with Indigenous communities in the hope an Aboriginal land council may offer some of its land to the government to build the waste facility.
Science Minister Julie Bishop said the Commonwealth Radioactive Waste Management Legislation Amendment Bill would provide for the eventual return of any "volunteered" Aboriginal land should it be chosen for the controversial radioactive dump.
Ms Bishop pledged the government would not hand back a contaminated site.
"Through this bill, the Australian government seeks to ensure, should a volunteer site be selected for the facility, that there is a mechanism for the land to be returned to its original owners or successors when the site is no longer required," said Ms Bishop.
"We will not be returning a dirty or polluted site.
"In the extremely unlikely event that contamination occurs as the result of use of the land for the facility, the traditional owners will be indemnified by the commonwealth against any resultant claims."
The site would not be handed back to Aboriginal people until they consented to its return and nuclear safety authorities gave it the all-clear, she said.
Ms Bishop said the bill also prevented "politically motivated challenges" to any land council decision to nominate land for a waste dump.
"It is no secret that the Northern Land Council has been supportive of provisions in the current act that allow Aboriginal landowners to consider nominating their land," she said.
"What the government will not accept is speculative legal challenges against the land council, or me as minister, that are designed not to ensure that Aboriginal people have given informed consent to a land nomination but to frustrate and delay establishment of the facility."
She urged the Opposition to support the bill.
A spokesman for Ms Bishop later said a private contractor was examining the three mooted commonwealth-owned sites in the territory - Harts Range and Mt Everard, near Alice Springs; and Fishers Ridge, near Katherine.
A full report on the possible sites was due by March 2007, he said. Debate on the bill was adjourned.