TONY EASTLEY: It's been a red hot issue for generations but now it seems the creation of a home grown nuclear waste dump is a step closer to reality.

Federal Parliament has passed legislation for radioactive waste to eventually be dumped on Aboriginal land at Muckaty near Tennant Creek in the Northern Territory.

While both major parties support the move there's still strident opposition from Green groups, the Northern Territory Government and some local landowners.

As Simon Santow reports there is one last legal hurdle.

SIMON SANTOW: There's not much love between Federal Labor and Territory Labor on the issue of a nuclear waste dump.

The Territory's Chief Minister is Paul Henderson.

PAUL HENDERSON: Look I'm very disappointed that the Federal Parliament has once again trampled over the rights of Territorians by legislating away our rights in regards to Muckaty Station.

SIMON SANTOW: Senator Kim Carr is the Acting Resources Minister in the Gillard Government.

KIM CARR: We know that when it comes to dealing with material of this type that there's always an attitude that this should not be in my backyard. 

We have to deal with the by-products of cancer treatments in this country. We have to deal with the soil that's left over from the CSIRO (inaudible) experiments going back now 60, 70 years. 

These are very, very low-level waste materials but they still have to be stored safely.

PAUL HENDERSON: My argument all along has been that this is a very big decision for our nation. I expect of our Federal Parliament to make those decisions based on science, not based on a constitutional weakness as to where they can put this waste because all of the other states don't approve of it going into their particular areas.

SIMON SANTOW: The Australian Conservation Foundation describes the legislation as heavy handed and undemocratic.

The ACF's nuclear campaigner Dave Sweeney:

DAVE SWEENEY: It's extraordinary for Australia as a responsible, as a mature, as a rich nation setting about creating a national radioactive waste management framework in 2012 to have that based on a secret agreement, a commercial in-confidence agreement, an agreement that is under active contest in the Federal Court now by senior traditional owners of the affected area. 

That is just a remarkable and a shabby way of doing business.

SIMON SANTOW: The Acting Minister may be prepared to bypass Territory politicians but his Government insists it won't defy the wishes of local Aborigines.

SIMON SANTOW: Lawyer Elizabeth O'Shea from firm Maurice Blackburn is representing a group of traditional owners and their families in the Federal Court.

ELIZABETH O'SHEA: Our case is that the traditional owners of the land at Muckaty Station were not properly consulted with. They were not fully aware of the proposal that the Commonwealth and the Northern Land Council were putting forward. And as such, they were not able to consent to that nomination and many of them did not in fact consent to that nomination. 

There is obviously at dispute a number of issues, including the responsibilities of the Northern Land Council in this instance but also who are the relevant traditional owners that needed to be consulted and needed to have their consent obtained.

SIMON SANTOW: Procedural hearings are set down for later this month and it's hoped the case will begin in earnest before the end of the year.