Friday 9 December 2005
NT News
by Nigel Adlam

CLP Senator Nigel Scullion yesterday defended his decision to vote in favour of a nuclear waste facility being built in the Territory.

He said the depository had to be built before a reactor for nuclear medicine could go ahead.

Senator Scullion said all Australians would benefit.

The debate had been marred by "lies and scaremongering" over the past six months.

He said the NT Labor Government was happy to allow yellowcake to be transported from Roxby Downs uranium mine in SA to Darwin's East Arm Port for export.

"That is absolutely outrageous hypocrisy," he said.

Labor Senator Trish Crossin ripped up a copy of the NT Self-Government Act in a protest against the waste facility vote.

She said the Commonwealth Radioactive Waste Management Bill was an abuse of power by the Federal Government.

She told the Senate the Federal Government had given itself the right to override any NT law that would stop the facility being built in the NT. The Bill was passed by the Senate at 11am NT time.

The Northern Land Council supported the law but the Central Land Council said traditional owners had been "let down".

A group of leading Australian doctors yesterday said radioactive waste from nuclear power plants could not be dealt with in a safe and effective way -- 18 doctors spoke out against the expansion of the nuclear power and waste industries.

The Australian Conservation Foundation hinted at a civil disobedience campaign by saying the new law would not silence opposition to the waste facility.

"People in NT, along the waste transport route from Sydney and right around Australia, are angry and determined to stop this unwanted and unnecessary radioactive rubbish tip," the foundation's Dave Sweeney said in Darwin.