Friday 7 July 2006

Wendy Frew
The Age

A FEDERAL Government taskforce investigating nuclear energy is again under attack after Prime Minister John Howard yesterday ruled out receiving offshore nuclear waste.

Two days after the taskforce issued a paper listing the areas it would investigate, including handling nuclear waste from overseas, Mr Howard said Australia would not take the waste from other countries.

Only a month ago, he was defending taking back spent nuclear fuel from countries that buy Australian uranium. Those comments came after he returned from Washington, where he was reportedly briefed about a US plan for Australia to export enriched uranium and store foreign nuclear waste.

Asked on ABC radio yesterday if he would rule out Australia becoming an international nuclear waste dump, Mr Howard said he did not have it in mind, but still wanted the inquiry to look into it.

Pressed on the matter, he said: "I am not going to have this country used as some kind of repository for other people's nuclear problems - waste problems."

Opposition Deputy Leader Jenny Macklin said Mr Howard's comments showed the inquiry was purely political.

"We can see quite clearly today (the inquiry) is not independent, it's going to be doing whatever John Howard tells them," Ms Macklin said.

Questions were also raised about a visit by Industry Minister Ian Macfarlane this week to a Scottish nuclear power plant. The visit coincided with a Guardian report that the plant was among several ageing nuclear reactors whose cores had cracks in their graphite bricks.