It's been decided that the Senate inquiry looking into proposed laws that could see a nuclear waste dump being forced on the Northern Territory will not be visiting Tennant Creek.

Public hearings will be held in Darwin and Canberra, but not in Central Australia, where the government is planning to put the dump.

Greens Senator Scott Ludlum is on the committee and said he opposed the decision to not to go to Tennant Creek

Labor senator Trish Crossin is the Senate inquiry's chair and explains only four submissions were received from Tennant Creek and eight from Alice Springs.

She says the committee will be specifically looking into the legal aspects of the legislation and the submissions sent in from those centres did not reflect that line of inquiry.

"It doesn't actually go to the legal aspects of the legislation that we want to look at in a microscopic forensic way, so we have decided to not go to Tennant Creek."

If the legislation is passed in its current form, the Federal resources minister will then look closer at the proposed sites for a nuclear waste dump; the only one on the table at the moment is Muckaty Station near Tennant Creek.

"This legislation provides for a regional consultative committee to be established," says Ms Crossin.