Thursday, 7 September, 2006

ABC News Online

Australia's nuclear research organisation is set to take responsibility for dangerous radioactive material in the event of nuclear terrorism.

ANSTO will be able to take control of radioactive material or waste if an Australian nuclear facility becomes the target of a terrorist or criminal attack or accident under changes passed by the House of Representatives.

Under present laws, ANSTO can only provide advice to governments.

Science Minister Julie Bishop said the legislation would also allow ANSTO to assist police and emergency services in event of a radiological incident.

Ms Bishop said current legislation required a specific regulation to be made every time ANSTO was requested to provide waste management services.

She said Labor was supporting the bill, although some Labor speakers had made opportunistic and blatantly false assertions.

"The Australian government has no intention of establishing a long-term storage facility at Lucas Height for non-ANSTO waste," she said.

"In July 2005 the government made clear its intention in relation to radioactive waste management when three potential sites in the Northern Territory were nominated for the Commonwealth radioactive waste management facility."

Ms Bishop said any Australian government waste treated at Lucas Heights would be later transferred to the NT facility.

She said any additional waste requiring treatment at Lucas Heights amounted to less than a quarter of what waste was already there.

Labor attacked the government over the plan to establish a waste storage facility in the Northern Territory.

"The decision of the Howard government to dump waste in the Northern Territory was a clear breach of an election promise," NSW Labor MP Peter Garrett told parliament.

"There is no doubt the interests and rights of the people in the Northern Territory were both ignored and compromised by the Howard government."

Mr Garrett said there was growing recognition it was not ethically acceptable for a society to impose a nuclear waste storage facility on an unwilling community.

He said the government was pushing for a full-scale nuclear industry and wanted to offer up Australia as the world's storage base of all long-lived nuclear waste.

The Australian Nuclear Science and Technology Organisation (ANSTO) Amendment Bill 2006 now goes to the Senate.