Wasting the Territory - a few more facts'

Thursday 10 November 2005
John Brisbin, Arid Lands Environment Centre

Dr Cameron (Centralian Advocate, 8 Nov) wants to make sure we stop scaremongering the proposed nuclear waste repository. A good place to start might be to review a few of the “facts” that never quite seem to make it into Dr Cameron’s cool scientific justification for the proposed facility.

1. Sometime in the late 80’s or early 90’s ANSTO made a big decision: it would build a new reactor. Once that decision had been made, they ceased to be a “disinterested party” to any discussion on the merits of a reactor or on the necessity to take care of its waste. It is a fact that Dr Cameron has never pointed out that he is not the “neutral voice of science”. He has a fundamental conflict of interest as an ANSTO employee. We cannot expect to hear too many creative alternatives from Dr Cameron...that's not his job.

2. This new reactor is not necessary to meet industrial demand. Many of the “industrial benefits” offered by the current reactor are given away at a fraction of their market value because industry isn’t interested. The taxpayer makes up the difference between what ANSTO produces and what it can sell its services for. It is a fact that ANSTO’s new reactor is heavily subsidized from the public purse. While schools and hospitals and non-profits are told that they have to respond to market forces and not depend on public funding, ANSTO assumes it is free to dip as deeply as it likes to fund a big boy’s toy called a nuclear reactor.

3. This new reactor is not necessary to meet medical demand. Once ANSTO made its decision to build a new reactor, all efforts to secure non-reactor sources for radio medicine ground to a halt. So we’re in a worse situation now than we needed to be, but that doesn’t mean that our only option is to commission a new reactor. It is a fact that a nuclear reactor is not necessary in order to provide high quality health services for our people. In the short term, the existing reactor can be run at half-power and will produce all the necessary isotopes for many years to come. Dr Cameron has never published a factual table showing medical isotopes used in Australia, their availability from overseas sources, and alternative treatment options. That’s not his job, you see. His job is to sell the new reactor regardless of contrary evidence…hardly a “scientific” attitude.

The new reactor is the key driver for this ridiculous “process” by which the Commonwealth is trying to jam through legislation to override its own legislation, in which we've seen poor old Nigel squeezed like a ripe mango between his corporate Canberran masters and the clear voice of his electorate, and the public has been treated to ham-fisted sloganeering by otherwise reputable professionals like Dr Cameron. This is no way to run a democracy.

At ALEC, we continue to call for a considered and intelligent debate on the subject of Australia’s nuclear future before we all get lumbered with bad scientific solutions based on bad politics. In the near term, the limited amount of intermediate level waste can be safely and securely stored at the existing taxpayer-funded facility at Lucas Heights. In the longer term, the new reactor itself needs to be brought under full public scrutiny. All this takes time and careful deliberation. That’s what we’re calling for. Anything less, Dr Cameron, might be called scaremongering.