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Legislative Council - Fifty-First Parliament, Second Session (51-2)
2007-10-17 Daily Xml
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NUCLEAR WASTE STORAGE FACILITY (PROHIBITION) (PROHIBITION OF OTHER NUCLEAR FACILITIES) AMENDMENT BILL

Second Reading

Adjourned debate on second reading.

(Continued from 1 August 2007. Page 587.)

The Hon. SANDRA KANCK (17:45): I have a feeling that, when the Hon. Mark Parnell said that he fully expects the Rann government to support this bill, he had his tongue firmly planted in his cheek. There is no doubt that the Rann Labor government is pro-nuclear. Mike Rann led the successful push earlier this year for the ALP to drop its three mines policy on uranium, and this was a move that was clearly aimed at opening up the uranium mining industry in South Australia. Occasionally, this government appears to be pro-environment, such as when it introduced legislation to prevent a national nuclear waste dump being foisted on South Australia by the federal government. It suited Mike Rann at the time because it allowed him to play wedge politics with the Liberal Party in the lead up to a federal election. I do not think it showed that there had been any latter-day conversion.

Sadly, and against my better judgment and efforts, I think it is just a question of time before South Australia gets a uranium enrichment plant because that is part of the agenda of the mining industry, and this government finds it almost impossible to resist its lobbying and, no doubt, donations to the ALP. I remind members, because it is 11 years ago, that in 1996 when the Roxby Downs (Indenture Ratification) (Amendment of Indenture) Amendment Bill was dealt with by this parliament I moved an amendment to prohibit the enrichment of uranium or the reprocessing of nuclear waste in the Stuart shelf area, which is where the Roxby Downs mine is located. I could not get support for that amendment from the Labor Party (then in opposition) or the Liberal Party government. So, if I was not able to get that sort of prohibition of those activities in a much smaller area 11 years ago when there was less uranium mining on the horizon, I would be absolutely bowled over if the Labor Party in government was prepared to accept a similar proposition involving the whole of the state.

Also, for the record, because not everyone will go back to look at the Hansard of 1996, the amendment that I moved back then also included the following clause:

Nothing in this act or the Indenture prevents the imposition of rates or charges to discourage excessive depletion of artesian water supplies.

That did not get support either, and I think that, looking at it now with the number of mines that are likely to be opening up and the demands that are going to be there on artesian basin water, it would have been a very sensible amendment to adopt. I hope that the Hon. Mark Parnell is right about the government, but he should not be disappointed if it does not support the bill because, after all, it is a pro-nuclear government. I think that all we can do is wish him luck. I indicate Democrat support for the bill.

Debate adjourned on motion of the Hon. I. Hunter.

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