Thursday 3 August 2006
AAP

LABOR will repeal legislation that imposes a nuclear waste dump on the Northern Territory if it wins government.

But Opposition Leader Kim Beazley said there would still be a need for a nuclear waste facility and believed a site should be found "by negotiation".

In Darwin on a whirlwind tour of the NT, Mr Beazley said the way the NT had been treated on the issue was "shocking".

The Federal Government is moving ahead with plans for a nuclear waste repository in the territory despite its parliament passing legislation prohibiting such a facility.

Three sites are being considered; Harts Range, 100km north east of Alice Springs, Mt Everard, also in Central Australia, and Fishers Ridge, near Katherine.

In December, federal Parliament passed two Bills to override the NT's objection to the dump, after the SA government opposed the Federal Government's preferred site near Woomera.

"We'll not use that legislation, we'll repeal it and we'll put something else in place," Mr Beazley told ABC radio.

"We do have to find an alternative, a location for that dump, but we oppose that legislation."

Mr Beazley said he believed it would be possible to find a solution to the problem of waste through negotiation.

"There is a need for a nuclear waste dump and that ought to be talked through with the communities and done in a way that at the end of the day is based on a consensus," Mr Beazley said.

"I oppose the way the NT has been treated on this.

"If we are in a position because final decisions or substantial decisions have not been taken, contracts let and all the rest of it ... we will sit down and make our way through this issue to come to a conclusion that is not on the basis of an imposition."