TRADITIONAL Northern Territory landowners say plans to site Australia's first nuclear dump in the area are a betrayal of a Labor election promise.

Newspapers on Monday, June 9, reported that Resources Minister Martin Ferguson wants to act soon on "one of the tough decisions of this parliament".

He reportedly said there was pressure to decide on a site because waste produced by the Lucas Heights nuclear reactor in southern Sydney will be returned to Australia from Scotland and France from 2011.

Mr Ferguson also said the federal government could force a dump on the NT by using laws enacted by the Howard government.

The previous Howard government earmarked several sites in the Northern Territory for investigation for accepting nuclear waste but Labor opposed the plan before the 2007 federal election.

Mitch, a spokeswoman for the Ngwana people, north-west of Alice Springs, said the nominated Hart's Range site should not be chosen.

She said then-opposition frontbenchers Martin Ferguson and Peter Garrett told her people before the election that Labor would abandon the proposals for a nuclear dump because they did not agree with the Howard government's decision to impose it on the Northern Territory.

Her people were told Labor "would do a new reassessment and offer a larger cheque to another community," Mitch said.

"We relied on what they said in the pre-election (period), that they would reassess the dump stuff and a lot of people voted for them on that issue.

She said more than 10,000 people lived in the wider Hart's Range area.

The Ngwana community, on Alkuda Station, is less than 5km from the proposed dump site.

"They'll be directly affected because they get their water out of the rivers and the soakage," Mitch said. "They also own the Alkuda Station.

"It will be much harder for them to sell their cattle overseas as well as in Australia if it's coming from a uranium dump country."

Traditional owner of the Athenge Lhere people, Kath Martin, said Labor spoke "with forked tongues".

"I've gone to no end to try and explain our cultural existence on this land and what it means to us," she said.

Ms Martin said Mount Everard held very strong ties for her because of cultural beliefs.

"Mt Everard in the Arenthe language is called Ultirra. That translated means Dreamtime," Ms Martin said.

"In my Dreamtime stories left to me by my grandfather, there were two sacred underground rivers there and they must be preserved at all times."

Beyond Nuclear Initiative co-ordinator Natalie Wasley said Labor had promised to overturn the Commonwealth Radioactive Waste Management Act. The National ALP conference in 2007 had passed a motion stating the legislation would be repealed, she said.

When the previous government passed the legislation in 2006, Labor ministers called it "arrogant, extreme, draconian, sordid, and profoundly shameful", Ms Wasley said.

Four sites in the NT were being considered by the Howard government, including Muckaty Station, about 120km north of Tennant Creek, and commonwealth defence land at Harts Range, Mt Everard and Fishers Ridge.

Consultants were expected to report back to the Government this month on a series of sites being investigated in the Top End.