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House of Assembly - Fifty-Third Parliament, Second Session (53-2)
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Bills

Nuclear Waste Storage Facility (Prohibition) (Public Money) Amendment (2017) Bill

Second Reading

The Hon. S.C. MULLIGHAN (Lee—Minister for Transport and Infrastructure, Minister for Housing and Urban Development) (12:20): I move:

That this bill be now read a second time.

I seek leave to have the second reading explanation inserted in Hansard without my reading it.

Leave granted.

In April 2016, the Parliament amended section 13 of the Nuclear Waste Storage Facility (Prohibition) Act 2000. Section 13 read:

'Despite any other Act or law to the contrary, no public money may be appropriated, expended or advanced to any person for the purpose of encouraging or financing any activity associated with the construction or operation of a nuclear waste storage facility in this State.'

The amendment made by Parliament re-numbered the existing provision as subsection (1) and provided a new clarification of the extent of the prohibition as subsection (2). The clarification reads:

'Subsection (1) does not prohibit the appropriation, expenditure or advancement to a person of public money for the purpose of encouraging or financing community consultation or debate on the desirability or otherwise of constructing or operating a nuclear waste storage facility in this State.'

The Private Members Bill, as introduced by Hon Mark Parnell MLC in the other place, re-instated the Act to its pre-2016 state by deleting this clarification. He did so on the grounds that the provision was no longer necessary since the Royal Commission, Citizens' Jury and Community Advice & Response Agency processes were completed.

The Government introduced an amendment to replace current section 13(2) and state that the ban in section 13(1) on public money being appropriated, expended or advanced will 'not prohibit the appropriation, expenditure or advancement to a person of public money for the purpose of financing the maintenance or sharing of information or to enable the State to engage with other jurisdictions'.

The amendment ensures that integrity of information is maintained over time and that records are accessible; that government is able to share information and be responsive to the community and stakeholders, including in other jurisdictions; that consideration is given to the diversity of perspectives within the community and their needs; and that public value will continue to be delivered from the nuclear fuel cycle royal commission and community consultation process and outcomes.

As those amendments were accepted by the Legislative Council, the Government commends the Bill to the House.

Mr VAN HOLST PELLEKAAN (Stuart) (12:21): I rise to speak on the Nuclear Waste Storage Facility (Prohibition)(Public Money) Amendment Bill 2017. I am the lead speaker for the opposition, but I will not be keeping the house too long. I think this will go fairly smoothly, but I would like to put a few things on the record. This is a bill that came first to the other place. It was brought forward by the Hon. Mark Parnell, and it is essentially in response to a bill which went through both houses many months ago—I do not remember exactly, but certainly more than a year—which had a direct effect upon the state government's desire to import high-level radioactive waste from overseas.

The way the law was set out was that not only at that point in time (and still is I should say) was it illegal in South Australia to develop a nuclear waste storage facility of any type but it was also illegal to spend any public money on developing one. So the government, which was already deep into consultation—it had already funded a royal commission to look into this and already had public servants working on it—realised that they had probably better try to catch up, close the loop and get the law changed so that they were entitled to spend public money on that sort of work.

The opposition supported that change because we believed that to have a frank, thorough and open look at that issue it would be necessary to spend some public money on it, so we certainly supported that. That then enabled all that to be done and, of course, we are at where we are at now, with the reality that that effort is not going to be pursued any longer. The state Labor government was and probably still is extremely keen on importing toxic radioactive high-level waste from overseas and bringing it into South Australia for permanent storage.

The opposition opposed that position, and we opposed that position for several reasons. One was that the citizens' jury, which was established by the government to gauge public opinion, and which the government fully expected would support the proposal, actually opposed the proposal. Putting aside for a second the merits of how that citizens' jury was run, the reality is that it had very close to a two-thirds opposition to the process.

Through the parliamentary select committee, which looked into this issue, we discovered from evidence given to us that it would require approximately $600 million of taxpayers' money just to get to the decision stage. That was not to build anything, to do anything or to take any affirmative action if it was the case that affirmative action was recommended. It was $600 million just to get to the point of making a decision on whether or not to proceed.

If the state got to that stage, then there was going to be a massive investment required—in the billions of dollars—to start the process of storing nuclear waste: importing, storing temporarily, going through different phases through to permanent storage. The state did not have that money, so it would have been necessary for the state to import the waste and take up-front payment before the final storage solution was developed. That was the only way that the state could have afforded to do it.

The other option was to spend the money to develop the final storage solution, then take the waste and the payment for the storage later on, but of course the state could not afford to do that. We then got to the stage where the Premier said, 'If it gets the nod and it looks like we want to do it, I will run a referendum on whether or not we should proceed.' Most referendums fail. The Premier then said, 'If the referendum happens to get up, then Aboriginal people will have a right of veto.'

So the citizens' jury said, no, that the state does not have $600 million just to get to the decision-making point, that the state does not have the billions of dollars required to fully develop the final storage solution before receiving an income, and I do not believe anybody in the public would have been comfortable with the idea of taking the waste onto our shores and the up-front payment before having the final storage solution clearly planned, clearly articulated and clearly implemented. I think it was very unlikely that a referendum would have got up and I think it was very unlikely that Aboriginal people would not have used that right of veto.

On that last point, there is a range of opinions within the Aboriginal community on this topic. I think it is fair to say that most Aboriginal people oppose this, but not everybody. As I say regularly, Aboriginal people are just as entitled to have a range of opinions within their community as non-Aboriginal people are, of course. It is important to recognise that Aboriginal people have a range of views on this, but I think it is also true to say that most Aboriginal people—at least most Aboriginal people who have spoken out—are in opposition to this.

If you go through all those steps—$600 million, citizens' jury, Aboriginal veto, a referendum, trying to find the money to build a solution and so on—it actually was just not going to happen anytime soon, so the Liberal Party said, 'We do not support continuing the process when we know it will not happen anytime soon.' The Premier then said, 'Okay, it's a dead duck for now.'

Let me also say that nothing I have said so far and nothing I believe has anything to do with a concern about our capacity to actually store the waste responsibly. I believe that South Australia, given the appropriate funding and given the appropriate time, could access the right scientific and engineering information, knowledge and skills that would be required to do this job properly. I am not saying that the job could not be done. I am saying that the job was never actually going to get done anytime soon. It was just impossible to do it.

I would also like to put on the record my appreciation for the work former governor Kevin Scarce did in leading the royal commission. I know that he would have been very disappointed with where this topic ended up, but I also know that he put in an enormous amount of work, which he did in a very open-minded and objective way. He kept his personal opinions in the background, whatever they may have been, but he went about this work in an extremely professional way. The fact that, in the end, both the Liberal Party and the Labor Party decided not to proceed is no reflection whatsoever on the work that he did.

When all that was all wrapped up, the Hon. Mark Parnell in the other place quite understandably brought forward a bill to say, 'Right, let's undo what was done previously by the parliament to allow public money to be spent on this effort.' It is quite sensible, quite natural and quite understandable that the Hon. Mark Parnell, representing the Greens, would want that to happen. The reason that that is very relevant is not only because of the particular beliefs of the Hon. Mark Parnell but also because, at the moment, the federal government is undertaking an investigation into whether it is possible to have a low-level nuclear waste storage facility, with the potential for some medium-level waste as well, somewhere in Australia. They are currently short-listing and investigating three possible sites in South Australia: two near Kimba and one near Hawker.

I think this process should be allowed to continue. I think we should all just take a breath, sit back and let the local communities get their views well and truly sorted out. Let them participate in the federal process and let us see where they land before any of us make a decision on this issue. We certainly support the amended bill that has come back to this house from the other place.

The Hon. T.R. KENYON (Newland) (12:31): I rise to make a few comments on this bill. It will not be a surprise to anyone in the house that I am disappointed with the result of the discussion we had on the proposal for a nuclear spent fuel storage facility. I am disappointed that we could not continue that discussion. I acknowledge the point that the member for Stuart made, that nothing was going to happen soon, but no-one ever suggested that it would happen quickly. It was always expected to take a significant amount of time, so the excuse to not continue the discussion rings a bit hollow. Be that as it may, it is dead, it is finished and it is done, and that is the way it is.

Those of us who supported the idea are disappointed and those of us who opposed the idea are happy, and we move on to the next discussion. But there are a number of people who contributed a lot of work to this proposal, particularly, as the member for Stuart already mentioned, Rear Admiral Kevin Scarce, commissioner of the royal commission, who certainly did a lot of work. I would like to congratulate him on the quality of the work that was done in that royal commission. It was a very political debate, and that is not surprising—it should be expected that this would be a political debate—but the suggestion that he was somehow biased was, in my opinion, deeply unfair.

I think Kevin was certainly not opposed to the idea; I think he was fairly neutral. Regardless of his personal views, he certainly conducted himself in a very thorough and, I think, impartial way. I very much enjoyed reading the report. It was surprisingly very readable for a royal commission report. It contained a lot of information. It was very well thought out and very well structured, and I think the economic case behind it was very solid. The member for Stuart is right that it did—and it especially came out in the parliamentary committee, of which I was member—talk about the need for $600 million up front, and possibly an even higher figure.

What the member for Stuart has not talked about is the fact that some of that could be defrayed by getting other countries to contribute, or in fact the NECG report, which was the economic report looking into the economic report of the royal commission, suggested a way that it might be done cheaply and with less risk in allowing you to make a decision much more quickly. There is no point rehashing the details in any great way, but there is a huge amount of work that went into the royal commission. There was a huge amount of work that went into the citizens' jury. The contributions made by those who put together the citizens' jury, who appeared as witnesses, and those who participated in the citizens' jury should all be acknowledged. They certainly gave it their best efforts. They went in there and gave it thorough consideration, and I thank them for that.

I thank everybody who participated in the wider consultation process right around the state. It was probably one of the largest consultation processes the state has seen. It was heartening to see so many people participate, so I thank those who undertook that consultation and those who participated in it. Finally, I thank my fellow members of the committee, the parliamentary select committee in this matter, who were part of the investigation. It was an enjoyable committee to be on, despite the way it ended. It was certainly a very enlightening committee. A lot of information was taken on. Even though I thought I knew a lot about it, I certainly learned a lot as that process went on.

I note that there is still a discussion to be had about a low-level waste repository. I think that is a really important discussion not only for our state, with the amount of low-level waste that sits around in South Australia, but for the country. This is a matter that we as a country and as a state need to resolve. It is not difficult. It is more difficult politically than it is technically. One of the interesting things to come out of the select committee was that there was very little focus on the safety aspect. Almost everyone agreed that burying nuclear waste, or spent fuel, was the appropriate solution, and it was really just a matter of where that was located.

No-one seriously questioned the safety of the handling of the waste. No-one seriously questioned the technical ability to handle the spent fuel. It happens every day all around the world, and there was no serious technical challenge to our ability to do that. Ironically, it came down to a discussion about economics. I certainly did not expect that when I went into the process. I certainly did not expect that there would be much criticism of the economics. It looked like an open-and-shut case to me on the economics, but that is where it ended up. I think that there were positions there that were grossly misrepresented but, be that as it may, we are still here.

Again, I commend the bill to the house. I thank the people who were involved, especially Kevin Scarce, and I look forward to contributing in some way to the debate and decision around low-level waste in the future.

Bill read a second time.

Third Reading

The Hon. T.R. KENYON (Newland) (12:37): I move:

That this bill be now read a third time.

Bill read a third time and passed.

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