Waste laws 'sideline traditional owners'
Thursday, 9 November, 2006
by Tara Ravens and David Crawshaw
Courier Mail
Legislative changes were introduced to Federal Parliament last week aimed at preventing legal challenges against any move by the Northern Land Council (NLC) to offer up its land for a radioactive waste dump.
The Government is currently looking at three commonwealth-owned sites in the territory for a repository to store low and medium-level radioactive waste.
It also is 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.
She pledged that the Government would not hand back a contaminated site.
But environmentalists said today the legislative changes would remove the need for procedural fairness and community consent.
"These changes have seen (Prime Minister) John Howard and Julie Bishop stoop to new lows," said Natalie Wasley of the Beyond Nuclear Initiative.
"There's a real reason to fear that the passage of these amendments may be designed to expedite this process."
Ms Wasley said the proposed changes meant that a nomination by a land council would no longer require consultation with the traditional owners.
"Clearly the federal Liberal government sees procedural fairness as something that could prevent them imposing their radioactive waste on the territory," she said.
Tim Collins, coordinator of the Arid Lands Environment Centre, called on the NLC to take a stand on the issue and back traditional Aboriginal owners.
"Given the likely passage of the amendments the ball is now squarely in the Northern Land Council's court," he said.
"(It) must publicly declare its intentions in regard to the consultation of the traditional owners ...
"If their process is anything but completely transparent, it will raise questions that they have either bowed to bully-boy tactics of the Howard government, or have been enticed by undisclosed benefits that may have been offered."
A spokesman for Ms Bishop last week told AAP that 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.