Wednesday 2 August 2006
ABC NT Local News

Federal Opposition Leader Kim Beazley says the Northern Territory will be an even bigger target for nuclear waste if Prime Minister John Howard is re-elected.

Mr Beazley is in Alice Springs today as part of a three-day NT tour, meeting with business leaders and community groups.

The Arid Lands Environment Centre (ALEC) has called on Mr Beazley to commit a future ALP Government to halt the Commonwealth's current plans for a nuclear waste dump in the Territory.

Mr Beazley says if Mr Howard is re-elected, it is likely the Northern Territory will be the dumping ground for a much bigger nuclear industry.

"I think that the Liberal Party has shamefully treated the Territory, having promised them that they were not going to put the dump in the Northern Territory," he said.

"They've decided they will now. We think there should be a proper process of assessing where the dump of middle-level waste should go."

He says he does not want to focus the nuclear debate on which mine will go ahead, but on achieving an economic and morally responsible future.

"Any mine which is developed should be environmentally sustainable and any issue globally related to the utilisation of nuclear power should see us at the forefront of the pressure to ensure that there's not a proliferation of weapons and that waste is properly disposed of in the countries which receive our uranium," he said.