Justin Tutty, Darwin
The Radioactive Waste Management Act was passed by federal parliament on December 8 after debate was postponed to allow 20 days for an inquiry into the legislation. The inquiry was uncommonly brief — it failed to visit the threatened regions and allocated only one day for hearings. Nonetheless, in the eight days the inquiry was open to public input, 230 written submissions were received.
The act will allow a nuclear dump to be established in the Northern Territory, despite promises by federal politicians that this wouldn't occur.
The act seeks to eliminate any protection in the 1999 Environmental Protection and Biodiversity Conservation Act that might impede siting of the dump. In addition to providing the framework for environmental assessment, that legislation specifically addresses "nuclear actions", with detailed reference to controlling the establishment of a facility for the storage or disposal of radioactive waste.
These actions are held by the EPBC Act to be "matters of national environmental significance". And for good reason: radioactive materials present tangible risks to the environment, human health and indeed all life. The long-lived radioactive wastes from reprocessed nuclear fuels are highly dangerous materials, which must be handled with extreme caution. This is recognised and enshrined in both territory and federal legislation, but the new act seeks to negate it.
The act also presents an assault on legislation designed to protect the values, rights and interests of Indigenous people. These legal protections particularly serve many of the communities around the three sites proposed for a nuclear dump in the NT. The bill explicitly seeks to eliminate any protection in the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Heritage Protection Act 1984 and the Native Title Act 1993 that might hinder construction and operation of a nuclear dump.
While the bill may give the federal government the legal power sought, the law remains only one force, which is up against many others that will stand in opposition to the proposed dump — most prominently the force of public opinion.
[Justin Tutty is a member of Darwin's No Waste Alliance.]
From Green Left Weekly, January 25, 2006.
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