In Opposition the now Government made much of their opposition to the siting of a nuclear waste dump in the Northern Territory.  You might remember the bumper stickers “Say no to Dave’s nuclear waste dump’ that was 2004 and then eighteen months ago the promises to repeal the legislation that could compel the Northern Territory to accept a waste site here.  But it’s different in government and radioactive isotopes are very patient things indeed.  Now the Labor Party has to make some hard decisions on where to put our nuclear waste and they’ve been pretty much silent on the subject.  Martin Ferguson is Minister for Tourism and Resources; he’s in the Northern Territory today.

REPTR   Minister good morning to you and thank you for coming into the studio.

FERGUSON                No problem Leon.

REPTR   When will you repeal the law that can force the Northern Territory to accept nuclear waste here without us being part of the decision making process?

FERGUSON                Government will repeal the law as part an appropriate comprehensive outcome which not only guarantees that wherever we place a low and medium level repository, there’ll be proper consultation with state and territory governments and local communities.  But also resolves once and for all a process commenced in 1988 for Australia to front up to its responsibilities to actually store in a proper way its low and medium level waste.  The act is irrelevant because the government gave a commitment at the last election that we would repeal it.  Well we’re not going to take a piecemeal approach to an issue that has hung around us as a nation with successive governments since 1988.  It’s our responsibility to lead and make hard decisions.  We will work out an appropriate site and as part of a comprehensive outcome the legislation will be repealed.  The commitment was given at the last election…

REPTR   …The question is when, when will the legislation be repealed?  It would seem that this is the easy part of the deal.  Repeal the legislation then start working on the issues of where in the consultation…

FERGUSON                …The repeal of the legislation is simple…

REPTR   …But why hasn’t that happened yet?  You’ve been in government for eighteen months.

FERGUSON                It will be done as part of a package, because it will effectively mean that we have to take forward to the Australian community not only the proposal to repeal the legislation, but also a process which means that Australia actually resolves an issue that has hung around us since 1988.  I might say it’s also about time all of us are mature about this debate.  A lot of this waste is already stored around Australia at the moment in old shipping containers in a hundred different sites including here in Darwin at Darwin Hospital and principally in universities and hospitals around Australia in our capital cities.  People in Australia want the benefit of nuclear medicine.  Nuclear medicine, there’s hardly a family who has not benefited from that, also brings responsibilities.  That means we as a government have to accept one a repeal of an act, but also explain to the Australian community where and how we’ll go about a process of consultation to actually locate and store our waste.

REPTR   So when will you be repealing this legislation?

FERGUSON                It will be repealed as part of a cabinet decision that finally puts in place a process…

REPTR   …Why can’t you answer the question of when?  How far down the, where is the process at the moment?  When will the legislation be repealed?

FERGUSON                The scientific reports are just about completed with respect to the assessment of potential sites.  When that is finally considered by cabinet in association with the implementation of a decision to repeal legislation, then we’ll go forward with a whole of government decision.

REPTR   What are those scientific reports telling you at the moment?

FERGUSON                They are in the process of being peer reviewed by my department and in due course a report prepared by my department based on proper scientific considerations will be brought to me for consideration and my recommendations to cabinet.

REPTR   Muckaty Station is one of the sites that is being talked about in the Northern Territory because of the fact that the NLC garnered support from some of the local community there to consider the opportunities that the storage of nuclear waste might provide for them.  What’s the science telling you about Muckaty Station as a location?

FERGUSON                Well I haven’t seen the report yet.  Muckaty Station was one site properly assessed for the scientific assessment.  I’d also say that in terms of indigenous considerations there was strong support for a number of indigenous traditional owners from that area.  This is no different than issues I confronted recently in the Kimberley’s with the respect to the siting of a potential gas province.  We’re always going to have some divisions in the community with respect to these hard decisions.  But the position of the government is clear, the act will be repealed.  But the position of the government is also clear that the Australian community accepts it, we have to find a site to locate our low and medium level waste.

FERGUSON                When we actually made a recommendation about an appropriate site there were proper consultations not only with traditional owners but also local communities and respective state and territory government.  I give that guarantee that’s the way I’ve always operated.  And I’m not going to go around this country wasting taxpayers’ dollars having consultations about a potential site that has not been determined.  My responsibilities as was the case with the Kimberley’s was to establish a process which guaranteed that the traditional owners identified by proper process, cause there is a debate about who are the traditional owners, are appropriately consulted.  And if they decide that there should be allocation of a site, there is a proper process for negotiation which also guarantees that traditional owners and their communities get some compensation in terms of the use of their land.  This is no different than the process that occurs for example with the opening of a potential mine.