MORNING PROGRAM

REPORTER: JULIA CHRISTENSEN
INTERVIEWEE: TRISH CROSSIN
RE: NUCLEAR WASTE DUMP

The Federal Government’s nuclear waste dump has moved a step closer to the Territory. An engineering company has won a tender to review the three proposed radioactive waste dump sites in the NT, one near Katherine and two in Central Australia. But Labor Senator, Trish Crossin reckons this is just window dressing and the decision has already been made, Trish Crossin, good morning.

CROSSIN Julia, good morning.

REPTR How did you find out about this latest step?

CROSSIN Well we think, we noticed the one line sentence on the website and I think the question has to be asked, why is it that this construction of this dump is going to proceed in secret? It was put up on the website Monday, but you would never have known, no press release from the Minister, no public statement, just simply one sentence on a website saying, this is the company that have been awarded the tender.

REPTR On the Government’s website?

CROSSIN On the website yes, of DEST, the Department of Education, Science and Training.

REPTR So pretty low key announcement or no announcement at all really.

CROSSIN Well no announcement at all, just a sentence. I understand that another media outlet in the Territory might have had a bit more information about it. But this is certainly something that the Minister is not going to keep publicly disclosing each step by step progress of this dump. This is a dump that’s going to be built in secret.

REPTR But this company, Parsons Brinkerhoff* have been engaged to conduct site characterisation studies, what does that mean? What do you understand about the process?

CROSSIN In Estimates, we’ve been told that the tenderer that will be chosen will be asked to do a range of assessments about the suitability of that site, from an engineering assessment to a geological assessment, to look at weather patterns and all of that sort of information that would be needed to see if in fact, that site is suitable to put a dump on. Now no criticism of the company,
I understand they are also the company that did the assessment for the site in South Australia when that was chosen previously by this Federal Government. The issue is really, are we going to have to mysteriously discover each step of this process or is the Federal Government actually going to be open and honest and transparent about it.

REPTR But you actually believe a decision’s already been made, which site?

CROSSIN Well I understand that the Federal Government’s going to be targeting Harts Range simply because earlier in the stages of this process, we were led to believe that this company would look at the three sites, make an assessment and recommend a site to the Minister. I understand that the ground has now shifted and I’d be very pleased if the Federal Minister discounted this, but I understand that they’ve now just been asked to assess the three sites and provide essentially three assessments to the Government of which the Government will then choose one. I believe all along that the Government has been eyeing off Harts Range, Senator Scullion announced some funding for the Plenty Highway down there, I also understand that that site’s been fenced or is about to be fenced. So I think all along, this Government has predetermined a site and what we’re simply doing now is going through the process that looks like it’s being done logically and strategically. But we’ve been told all along that the company can actually engineer a site when it is built. So why don’t they just come clean and say it’s going to be at Harts Range despite what the outcome of this study says, we’ll construct the site and engineer it on paper so that it will hold the nuclear waste.

REPTR We’ve put calls into Julie Bishop who’s the Minister for Science and Technology and the Minister responsible, waiting to hear back from her. Have you asked her the question?

CROSSIN We’ve asked a whole series of questions in Estimates, but since we’ve had Estimates in February, we’ll have another round of Estimates in May. I believe the ground has shifted or we’ve uncovered a little bit more about where this Government is going and the question we really want to ask is, why is it being done in secret? Why is there not a public transparent process here and the process that seems to be happening is quite different to the one that we were told about in Estimates. So this has got many more questions to be asked and we’d like a bit of honesty from the Government about exactly where this is heading.

REPTR Trish Crossin, thanks for your time.

CROSSIN Thanks Julia.