Northern Territory Global Nuclear Waste Dump Rejected

Member for Lingiari and Shadow Parliamentary Secretary for Indigenous Affairs and Northern Australia Warren Snowdon said today he believed Territorians would reject any suggestion that Australia – and particularly the NT - become a repository for the world's nuclear waste.

Mr Snowdon said Mr Howard and the leader of the National Party, Mark Vaile, have already begun talking up the possibility ahead of Mr Howard's meetings with US President George Bush this week.

'I'm flatly opposed to any such move, particularly since there's been no dialogue with the Australian community about it, and I believe all Australians would be seriously worried at any plan for us accept the world's nuclear waste,' he said.

'It's a particularly chilling prospect for Territorians, because the Howard Government, with the support of the Country Liberal Party, is already forcing us to accept the prospect of being a dump for Australia's own waste.

'Now we're seeing what many suspected all along – that a so-called low-level waste dump is more than likely to be a Trojan Horse for the full catastrophe.

'Now we have Mr Howard hawking our country overseas as the world's nuclear garbage collector and, given the atmosphere before his meetings with Mr Bush, it looks to me like yet another fait accompli.

'Both Mr Howard and Mr Vaile have been trying to take the high moral ground by suggesting that we have an obligation to take back waste from the uranium we sell to stop the spread of nuclear weapons.

'Morality is the last thing on their mind.

'This is about finding a way to sell Australian uranium to countries that are not signatories to the nuclear non-proliferation treaty,' Mr Snowdon said.

2006-05-15