Nuclear Safety

The Hon. M.C. PARNELL (15:15): I seek leave to make a brief explanation before asking the Minister for Sustainability, Environment and Conservation a question about nuclear safety.

Leave granted.

The Hon. M.C. PARNELL: A recent publication from the state government, the Department of State Development, is entitled, 'The facts about uranium mining in South Australia'. This document has 14 pages that have writing on them, including an introduction from the Minister for Mineral Resources and Energy, the Hon. Tom Koutsantonis MP, where he says:

…we need to challenge the perceptions of unacceptable hazards associated with the uranium industry. Risks associated with nuclear energy are judged harsher than competing energy sources.

Access to information and education is the key to challenging these perceptions. Uranium—The Facts is just that, the facts that should be the basis for any informed debate about uranium and South Australia's current role in the global nuclear fuel cycle.

In these 14 pages, when you get to page 11 the subject of that page is the heading, 'Is uranium safe?' It takes only 30 words to answer that question: is uranium safe? In fact, it is so short that it could perhaps almost form a tweet. The words are:

Uranium is naturally occurring and is found in: rivers, oceans, earth's crust.

That is one sentence, and there are pictures as well. The other sentence is:

The Australian government has agreements in place so Australian uranium is sold only to countries for peaceful purposes.

Then the topic is changed and it goes on to uses of uranium, including electricity production. My questions of the minister are:

1. Was the Radiation Protection Branch, which, as members would know, is a part of the EPA but is under the control of the minister, consulted about this publication?

2. Does the minister agree that the content of this section of this publication is inadequate?

3. What steps will he take to ensure that this publication is amended to provide at least basic safety information in relation to the health hazards posed by ionising radiation in general and uranium in particular?

The Hon. I.K. HUNTER (Minister for Sustainability, Environment and Conservation, Minister for Water and the River Murray, Minister for Climate Change) (15:17): I thank the honourable member for his most important if somewhat muddled question. It is muddled because, in fact—

The Hon. M.C. Parnell: You're the minister for radiation protection.

The Hon. I.K. HUNTER: Yes, I might be the minister for the EPA that looks after radiation issues, but I'm not the minister that can make pronouncements about health. I'm not the minister that can make pronouncements about mining, or the safety of mining. The EPA—

The Hon. M.C. Parnell: The Radiation Protection Branch is all about uranium.

The Hon. I.K. HUNTER: The Radiation Protection Branch is certainly about radiation, but it's not about health hazards: it's about how do you manage radiation in, particularly, occupational situations.

The Hon. M.C. Parnell: For health reasons.

The Hon. I.K. HUNTER: Well, yes, but we act on the advice of the health department. This is what I am trying to get through to the Hon. Mr Parnell: you can't come into this place and ask a question of a particular minister who is responsible for the EPA and expect that minister to be able to respond about health issues.

We take our advice from the health department on health issues and apply it to the work the EPA does. That's the way it works. That's the way you would expect it to be. We don't have health professionals to give us health advice inside the EPA; we have environmental protection officers with the suitable training to apply what we are advised by the Department for Health in these matters, particularly when it pertains to human health.

So, that is why it is muddled. He is pulling together streams from across government agencies, plonking them on my desk here in question time and saying, 'There you are, minister. You answer this question because I deem you to be the responsible minister,' but in fact he is actually drawing on different streams of information across different departments. I don't believe I have seen the publication he refers to; therefore, it is not appropriate for me to make a pronouncement on it right now.

If he wants me to make pronouncements about health hazards, I will have to refer those to the health minister, quite properly. So, I think the best thing to do with this muddled question is to take this back to my agencies, ask them to prepare a cross-government response for him and bring it back in due course.