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House of Assembly - Fifty-Third Parliament, Second Session (53-2)
2016-07-26 Daily Xml
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Nuclear Fuel Cycle Royal Commission

Mr ODENWALDER (Little Para) (14:50): My question is to the Premier. Can the Premier update the house about the community engagement on the findings of the Nuclear Fuel Cycle Royal Commission, in particular the first citizens' jury?

Mr Pengilly interjecting:

The Hon. J.W. WEATHERILL (Cheltenham—Premier) (14:50): It is good to see that even the member for Finniss is getting involved in the spirit of community engagement.

Mr Pengilly: Get on with it, I said; get on with it.

The Hon. J.W. WEATHERILL: Get on with it. Yes, tremendous. We will note that remark and take it into account. The first citizens' jury into the findings of the Nuclear Fuel Cycle Royal Commission has now concluded. As members probably appreciate, about 50 randomly selected South Australians were asked to examine the commission's report and identify key issues that should be considered in depth in the next and probably most significant phase of the process, which is the community consultation program.

Those who took up the invitation to attend the jury or viewed the live streaming online would have seen that jury members were highly engaged in the topic and took their responsibilities as jurors very seriously. Most of them, in fact almost to a person, regarded it as a great privilege to be able to participate in this new form of democracy. After deliberating over two weekends and hearing the evidence of more than 30 expert witnesses representing a range of fields, they presented me with their report on Sunday 10 July, which we have now published.

The issues that they identified focus first on the high-level international used storage facility. That was the fundamental narrowing, if you like, of the issues, so now that is the focus for the attention of the next stage. They basically considered four critical issues: safety, consent, trust and economics. The jury highlighted the importance of social consent and a robust regulatory requirement. The members asked the broader community to consider the safety of both people and the environment, and the economic risks and benefits, including to future generations.

They had, I think, an important insight, which is that they believe that a critical factor for the community in beginning to understand the issue is to be able to grapple with this dispute that seems to have emerged about the benefits. I think most people, even those who are benign about the question of the storage of nuclear waste, say, 'Why would we get involved unless the benefits are very profound?' and so they need to understand it.

There are differences of opinion about that: on the one hand, the royal commission's findings are regarded by some experts as conservative; on the other hand, there are some experts who say that they are generous estimates. I think, intelligently, what the citizens' jury did was to unpack those expert opinions. Like all expert opinions, they are based on assumptions, and they thought that the way of resolving this was to interrogate the assumptions more deeply. The critical assumption really is how much an overseas country would be prepared to pay for the storage of this waste. They have asked us to do that further work. We will undertake that work, and it is an important part of ensuring that the community is able to take the next stage in the process.

The truth is that complex public policy decisions require a new way of actually reaching consensus in our community. We can get into our corners and shout at one another and have, essentially, referendums like the Brexit debate. I think we saw that extraordinary outcome where the most googled term after the referendum outcome of the weekend was, 'What is the EU?' What you had was a debate that was conducted which did not really grapple with the questions at stake. A proxy debate broke out over immigration and other concerns.

When you are dealing with complex issues, there is a real need to be able to reconcile these questions, and that's why we are undertaking such a detailed processing here. I do invite all those to keep participating. We will be out to 100 locations across metropolitan and regional South Australia. It kicks off this Friday, 29 July, in Rundle Mall, and people can visit online the www.yoursay.sa.gov.au/nuclear website.

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