Uranium mine workers in the Northern Territory are still not on the National Radiation Dose Register, five months after their exclusion was revealed by the Australian Greens.

Greens Senator Scott Ludlam exposed the information black hole during Estimates hearings in May, and today while quizzing representatives from the Australian Radiation Protection and Nuclear Safety Agency discovered that nothing had been done to fix it.

“In July 2010 the register began collecting data on the radiation doses to which workers had been exposed. There are now over 18,000 workers on the database – covering about five years - but there is no information at all on the radiation workers have been exposed to at the Ranger Mine in the Northern Territory. We revealed this in May, and urged the Territory and Federal authorities to address it. ARPANSA told us today that nothing has changed, and to raise the issue with the office of energy and resources minister Martin Ferguson.”

“We will write to Northern Territory Chief Minister Paul Henderson to encourage urgent action to fix this problem.”

The Australian National Radiation Dose Register was an election policy for Labor in 2007. The system records the lifetime radiation dose of workers throughout their career in uranium mining and milling in Australia, enabling workers to access their own dose histories and notifying regulators when an individual has exceeded their annual dose limit.

 “Excluding work in the Northern Territory is a huge crack in the system, and it was revealed five months ago and NT uranium mine workers are still off the radiation dose radar. The system will only have integrity if all radiation doses are included.”