Jim Green
National nuclear campaigner - Friends of the Earth, Australia
<jim.green@foe.org.au>

ACRONYMS

* ANSTO - Australian Nuclear Science and Technology Organisation - runs the nuclear plant at Lucas Heights, south of Sydney
* ARPANSA - Australian Radiation Protection and Nuclear Safety Agency - non-independent federal nuclear regulator
* DEST - federal Department of Education, Science and Training
* EIS - Environmental Impact Statement

NO INFORMED CONSENT

The federal government is breaching promises made before the 2004 federal election not to impose a nuclear waste facility on Northern Territorians. Will promises made in relation to safety, security and other such issues also be breached?

The federal government is also ignoring legislation passed in the NT Parliament which seeks to ban the imposition of nuclear dumps - the Northern Territory Nuclear Waste Transport, Storage and Disposal (Prohibition) Act 2004.

Legislation was passed through the federal parliament in December 2005 to by-pass normal decision-making processes in relation to the proposed nuclear waste facility. This legislation – the Commonwealth Radioactive Waste Management Act 2005 – undermines environmental, public safety and Aboriginal heritage protections. It prevents the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Heritage Protection Act 1984 from having effect during investigation of the sites, and it excludes the Native Title Act 1993 from operating at all.

The Commonwealth Radioactive Waste Management Act is in stark contrast to the international trend towards accepting community input into decision making regarding radioactive waste management options. These trends are reflected in the International Atomic Energy Agency's February 2005 publication, 'Radioactive Waste Management Status and Trends', which states: "There is now a widely held view that one of the greatest challenges to the development of geological repositories for high-level waste or spent nuclear fuel is the need to develop greater public confidence in this waste management approach. The scientific and engineering aspects of waste management safety are therefore no longer of exclusive importance, with issues relating to the quality of the decision making process being of comparable importance to a constructive outcome."

SITING ISSUES

None of the sites under consideration in the NT was short-listed when scientific and environmental criteria were used by the federal government's Bureau of Resource Sciences to assess alternative sites around in Australia for a repository for low-level waste  and short-lived intermediate-level waste  in the 1990s.

The Bureau of Resource Sciences identified equally suitable land in five states/territories. The Bureau of Resource Sciences evaluated two regions in the NT (and six in other states/territories), finding little if any land it considered 'Suitable' in the Bloods Range region in the south-west of the NT but some 'Suitable' sites in the Tanami region further north. But none of the sites now under consideration, near Katherine, Tennant Creek and Alice Springs, were classified as 'Suitable' by the Bureau of Resource Sciences.

It is not known whether any of the sites currently under consideration were short-listed for the storage of long-lived intermediate-level waste when the National Store Advisory Committee undertook a site selection process from 2001-03 because the federal government refuses to release the list of short-listed sites. This is one example of a broader problem of government secrecy. To give another example, when the federal government was targeting SA, South Australians only learnt the detail of a paid public relations campaign because the SA government pursued a Freedom of Information request. The documents revealed that PR company Michels Warren described its role as "softening up" the SA community for a radioactive waste repository. Another PR company used by the federal government was notorious for its prior work for the tobacco and asbestos industries and for the scandal-plagued US company Enron. Is the federal government using PR companies to "soften up" Territorians for a nuclear waste dump?

In short, the three sites in the NT clearly were not chosen on the basis of any objective, scientific criteria. The government says that the NT sites near Katherine and Alice Springs were chosen because they are on Defence Department land. But there are of course Defence Department states in all other states/territories - including NSW, the source of most of the waste. In fact, in 2005, then science minister Brendan Nelson acknowledged that no sites in NSW were considered and that the decision to exclude NSW was a political decision which had nothing to do with scientific or environmental criteria.

It is clear that the federal government decided to impose a nuclear waste dump on the NT because the NT has fewer legal powers than the states and less political clout given its small population. The government's attempt to impose a nuclear waste dump on SA also rested on the assumption that public and political opposition could more easily be overcome there. South Australians proved the federal government wrong.

HOW LONG IS 'INTERIM' STORAGE

The federal government says that long-lived intermediate-level nuclear waste including spent nuclear fuel reprocessing wastes will be sent to the NT for an "interim" period and that in the long term this waste is destined for disposal in a deep geological repository - some hundreds of metres underground.

But there is no deep geological repository in Australia. In fact there is no deep geological repository for high-level nuclear waste anywhere in the world.

So the "interim" storage of higher level nuclear waste in the NT could stretch into many decades or even centuries.

Another possibility is that a dump site in the NT could be used for a deep geological repository. The site may not be suitable on scientific or environmental criteria, but as the government's current push to establish a nuclear waste facility in the NT demonstrates, political considerations override scientific and environmental criteria.

Brendan Nelson was asked where long-lived intermediate-level nuclear waste would be stored in the long term at a media conference in July 2005. Nelson was unable to give an answer.

LOOSE DEFINITIONS

Federal government representatives and some other proponents of the plan to establish a nuclear waste facility in the NT say the facility is for low-level waste. In fact, the government intends to dump a variety of waste forms in the NT including long-lived intermediate-level waste.

Nuclear engineer Alan Parkinson noted in a submission to a government inquiry (available on request) that the federal government uses different definitions and classifications of radioactive waste depending on the prevailing political circumstances. For example, government documents clearly state that long-lived radioactive waste is not suitable for shallow burial - but this is precisely what was done at the Maralinga radioactive dump site in SA. The government simply used different definitions and classifications to justify shallow burial of plutonium-contaminated waste at Maralinga.

SPENT FUEL IS HIGH-LEVEL WASTE AND IT MAY BE DUMPED IN THE NT

By volume, spent fuel reprocessing waste accounts for only a small fraction of the total to be dumped in the NT, and conversely, the lightly contaminated soil now stored at Woomera in SA accounts for about half of the total. However these measurements should use radioactivity as the criterion wherever possible because radioactivity is a far more accurate measure of public health and environmental hazard. Measured by radioactivity, the spent fuel accounts for an overwhelming majority of the total radioactivity, certainly over 90% and possibly over 99%.

The radioactivity of the soil at Woomera is an insignificant 0.3 gigabecquerels (GBq). For comparison, according to federal government agencies, the radioactivity of one single spent fuel element from the reactor under construction at Lucas Heights is as follows:
Radioactive content per fuel element one year after discharge
- Fission products - 647,500 GBq
- Actinides - 873 GBq

In fact the radioactivity of the entire 3,700 cubic metres of waste the government planned to dump in SA was about 6,000 gigabecquerels - about 100 times lower than the radioactivity of a single fuel element from the new Lucas Heights reactor (one year after discharge).

Reprocessing waste from Lucas Heights spent nuclear fuel contains the same mixture of uranium fission products and transuranics (including plutonium isotopes) as the spent fuel. Only the uranium is removed during reprocessing of Lucas Heights spent fuel. Thus Senator Scullion was making yet another factual error when he stated that the spent fuel reprocessing waste "... would be an entirely different material from a nuclear fuel rod. It's intermediate level radioactive material. ... I think there's a clear gap between something coming straight from Lucas Heights to here." (ABC NT Local News, 24/7/05.)

The government agreed to a legislative amendment prohibiting the use of the planned NT nuclear waste facility for high-level radioactive waste. But does the amendment prohibit the long-term storage of high-level radioactive waste in the NT? Contrary to government/ANSTO misinformation, ANSTO's spent fuel meets both the radiological and heat criteria for classification as high-level waste when it is removed from the reactors and for some months thereafter. The government and ANSTO side-step this issue by making the disingenuous claim that spent nuclear fuel is not waste but an asset. As the 1993 Research Reactor Review (p.xxiii) said: "The pretence that spent fuel rods constitute an asset must stop." Likewise, the NSW Environmental Protection Agency argued in its submission to the NSW Nuclear Waste Inquiry (Appendix 6) that the spent fuel must be treated as high-level waste since it meets the relevant criteria.

It is not certain that overseas reprocessing/storage options will be available for spent nuclear fuel from Lucas Heights reactors over the coming decades. ANSTO has said that its contingency plan for spent nuclear fuel would be storage at the national radioactive waste storage facility - ANSTO's draft reactor EIS (p.10-18) states: "In the unlikely event that the overseas options should become unavailable, it would be possible at short notice to take advantage of off-the-shelf dry-storage casks for extended interim storage at the national storage facility, pending renewed arrangements being negotiated for reprocessing/conditioning of the fuel."

In other words, spent nuclear fuel could be sent to the NT for long-term storage. There appears to be no legal restriction on that course of action, and even if there is, any legal impediments could be dealt with via legislative amendment.

In a worst-case scenario, selective concentration of enriched uranium in spent fuel could lead to a criticality accident as ANSTO itself has acknowledged. The risk of a criticality accident applies not only to the highly-enriched uranium used in HIFAR but also proposed low-enriched uranium fuels for the new reactor as ANSTO acknowledged in its draft reactor EIS (p.10-18): "... even low-enriched uranium research reactor fuels are sufficiently enriched for selective leaching and reconcentration effects to have the potential to lead to criticality concerns at long times after disposal."

It is not widely known that the federal government intends to dismantle three Lucas Heights reactors and to dump the radioactive reactor components at the NT dump site. This waste will comprise various waste forms including long-lived intermediate-level waste. The three reactors are: MOATA (already shut down), HIFAR (due to be permanently shut down in 2006-07) and the OPAL reactor now under construction, which is expected to operate for about 40 years. The HIFAR and OPAL reactors will each generate up to 2500 cubic metres of radioactive waste in the form of dismantled reactor components.

INTERNATIONAL HIGH-LEVEL NUCLEAR WASTE DUMP

Pangea - now called ARIUS - has previously attempted to establish a high-level nuclear waste dump in Australia, and said in September 2002 that its plans for a high-level nuclear waste dump in Australia should be linked to the federal government's plans for managing Australia's long-lived intermediate-level waste.

Ex-Pangea managers have said they intend to return to Australia in 2006 for another push; in the words of one representative, they intend to "deliberately try to stir the pot" in Australia.

The federal government says it could use customs legislation to block attempts to establish an international high-level nuclear waste dump in the NT or elsewhere in Australia. But the government could equally choose not to use customs legislation to block an international high-level nuclear waste dump. The federal government has rejected repeated calls for stronger, specific legislation blocking an international high-level nuclear waste dump.

As at May 2006, the possibility of Australia hosting an international high-level nuclear waste dump is very much on the political agenda, connected to plans by a number of countries - the US, France, China, Britain, Russia and Japan - to establish a nuclear trading bloc. In this context, Australia is seen as a uranium supplier and potentially as a nuclear waste dump site. British Nuclear Fuels Ltd. was the major backer of Pangea.

RISKS AND BENEFITS

The federal government has acknowledged problems with a number of overseas dumps: "Facilities established in the past were not always established under strict environmental guidelines and licensing. This has resulted in some facilities, for example three repositories in the US, being closed because of a lack of environmental control." (A research paper on the many problems with radioactive waste repositories in the United States is available on request.)

The government has yet to announce what sort of waste facility it is planning in the NT. When the government was attempting to dump in SA, the plan was to place drums of waste in a shallow, unlined trench.

Further, there was no plan for a permanent on-site security presence with the proposed SA dump. This is relevant not only to safety and security but also to the question of jobs. There will be very few if any long-term jobs associated with the hosting of a nuclear waste dump in the NT.

More generally, an assessment of the risks associated with the planned nuclear waste facility must be considered in the context of a risk-benefit analysis. The central question for Northern Territorians is whether the benefits outweigh the risks. This appears to be a simple question to answer. The risks must outweigh the benefits because the benefits are negligible. Few if any jobs will be associated with the planned nuclear waste facility. When the federal government planned to impose a nuclear waste repository in SA, it never once proposed paying compensation beyond the limited requirements pertaining to the 1989 Land Acquisition Act. Compensation under the Land Acquisition Act does not arise in the case of land already owned by the federal government, such as Defence Department sites.

Nuclear engineer Alan Parkinson has warned that the proposed NT dump would be attractive to terrorists wanting to make a 'dirty bomb', a radioactive weapon delivered by conventional means. ''If terrorists can raid a nuclear waste repository or store and steal radioactive material, they can easily spread it by conventional explosives,'' Mr. Parkinson told the NT News on 1/11/05.

Overseas experience shows that professional management and independent regulation are important determinants of the safety of waste management facilities. However:
* The federal Department of Education, Science and Training has repeatedly demonstrated its incompetence with the botched clean-up of the Maralinga nuclear weapons test site, and with its failed campaign to impose a dump on SA.
* There is no independent regulator. The head of the Lucas Heights nuclear agency (ANSTO) was directly involved in the selection of the head of the Australian Radiation Protection and Nuclear Safety Agency. ANSTO is the source of 80-90% of the waste the government wants to dump in the NT.

Nuclear advocates often say that radiation doses received from a particular nuclear facility are below background levels and below permissible limits, the implication being that the radiation doses are ‘safe’. However, the doses received are additional to background radiation so people are at additional risk of fatal cancers.

Brendan Nelson repeatedly - and falsely - claimed that: "This waste represents no threat to human health or life". In fact, international cancer incidence and mortality data demonstrate statistically significant links between radiation and all solid tumours as a group, as well as for cancers of the stomach, colon, liver, lung, breast, ovary, bladder, thyroid, and for non-melanoma skin cancers and most types of leukaemia.

Over the years the permitted levels of radiation exposure for workers and the public have dropped dramatically as research, particularly from radiation biologists, indicates harmful effects still exist at much lower exposure levels. For workers, the permitted dose was set at 500 millisieverts per year in 1934, 150 mSv in 1950, 50 mSv in 1956, and 20 mSv (averaged over five years) in 1991. The limit for members of the public is currently 1 mSv per year.

Based on previous experience, further reductions in permitted doses can be expected. In 2003, the European Committee on Radiation Risk, comprising 30 independent scientists, released a report which concluded that the total permissible dose to members of the public from all human practices should be reduced to no more than 0.1 mSv (a ten-fold reduction), with a limit of 5 mSv for nuclear workers (a four-fold reduction).

Risk estimates for low-level radiation exposure are based on the Linear No Threshold (LNT) model of radiological risk assessment. The LNT model holds that the adverse health risks arising from radiation exposure are proportional to the radiation dose and that there is no level of exposure below which radiation is safe. An important recent study by the US National Research Council has added significant weight to the LNT model and the associated risk estimates. Chair of the Council's research panel, Professor Richard Monson, concluded: "The scientific research base shows that there is no threshold of exposure below which low levels of ionizing radiation can be demonstrated to be harmless or beneficial." (National Research Council (of the US National Academy of Sciences), 2005, "Health Risks from Exposure to Low Levels of Ionizing Radiation (BEIR VII – Phase 2)", written by the NRC's Board on Radiation Research Effects, <www.nap.edu/books/030909156X/html>.)

Inevitably, there would be incidents and accidents at a nuclear waste facility in the NT, just as there have been at Lucas Heights. Examples of waste accidents at Lucas Heights include the following:
* In early 1998, it was revealed that "airtight" spent fuel storage canisters had been infiltrated by water - 90 litres in one case - and a number of rods had corroded as a result. When canisters were retrieved for closer inspection, three accidents took place (2/3/98, 13/8/98, 1/2/99), all of them involving the dropping of canisters containing spent fuel. The public may never have learnt about those accidents if not for the fact that an ANSTO whistleblower told the local press. One of those accidents (1/2/99) subjected four ANSTO staff members to radiation doses of up to 500 microsieverts (half the public dose limit).
* On March 15, 2002, an accident occurred during the cropping (cutting) of a spent fuel rod, releasing radioactivity to the spent fuel pond. Again, the public learnt about this accident only after an ANSTO whistleblower told the local press.

Former science minister Brendan Nelson falsely claimed that: "... you've got a lot of uranium in the ground up there in the Territory, and that's actually more radioactive than the waste we're talking about." (Radio 8HA, 15/7/05.) The spent fuel reprocessing waste - and some other waste to be dumped in the NT - is far more radioactive and hazardous than uranium.

Nelson said: "It's often not appreciated that in Australia each year, there are 30,000 shipments of nuclear waste material by road across Australia ..." (Press conference, Lucas Heights, 15/7/05.) This was yet another false statement. Only a tiny percentage of the 30,000 shipments involve waste. ANSTO says in its submission to the NSW Nuclear Waste Inquiry that 1-2 accidents or incidents involving radioactive package movements to or from Lucas Heights occur per 30,000 package movements.

When the federal government planned to impose a dump in SA, the federal government itself acknowledged a 23% risk of one truck accident shifting the existing stockpile to SA. This was a simple calculation based on the distances involved and data on the frequency of truck accidents.

When the government tried to dump its radioactive waste on SA, it planned to dump drums of waste in unlined trenches and that is presumably the intention for the lower-level waste the government wants to send to the NT. Yet Nelson said in Parliament on 1/11/05 that: "The truth is low-level waste can be stored safely in concrete bunkers." This is reminiscent of former science minister Peter McGauran, who told Parliament that the waste he wanted to dump in SA would have a concrete barrier even though the plan was for an unlined trench with limited use of concrete for only a small fraction of the waste.

Many of the statements made by Brendan Nelson and other federal government representatives have been demonstrably false. Their claims cannot be taken at face value - they have been wrong too often in the past.

A COMMON-SENSE APPROACH

There are no entirely satisfactory solutions to the intractable problem of radioactive waste management. Technical magic bullets such as transmutation have been proposed and explored over the decades but there is no serious expectation that technical solutions will be available in the foreseeable future.

A common-sense approach to radioactive waste involves the following three steps:
1. Minimising the production of radioactive waste;
2. Thoroughly assessing all options for the management of radioactive waste; and
3. Using scientific and environmental siting criteria rather than choosing politically 'soft' targets (previously SA, now the NT).

Public involvement in decision making, and informed consent to proposals, is also essential if an equitable outcome is to be achieved. Involvement and informed consent are also desirable from a practical point of view. There is a long history of communities successfully mobilising to force the abandonment of nuclear dump proposals.

Waste minimisation

Before producing radioactive waste, it needs to be demonstrated that the benefits outweigh the risks. Unfortunately, waste minimisation principles are generally not applied in Australia. In particular, the plan for a new reactor at Lucas Heights - a major driving force for the current plan to dump nuclear waste in the NT - was not subject to thorough, independent analysis (research paper available on request).

Assessing all the options

Much of the debate on waste management options assumes the 'need' for off-site stores or dumps. But the option of storing waste where it is produced needs serious consideration.

On-site storage facilities must be adequately constructed and regulated whether or not centralised, off-site waste management facilities exist. Even if centralised facilities exist, waste is inevitably stored at the site of production, often for long periods.

With adequate on-site storage facilities, the case for centralised facilities is weakened, especially considering the progressive decline of the radioactivity and toxicity of radioactive waste.

Storage at the site of production has other, obvious advantages:
* Avoiding altogether the risks of transportation.
* Storage at the site of production is by far the best (and perhaps the only) way to get radioactive waste producers to get serious about minimising waste production. Conversely, the provision of an out-of-sight-out-of-mind disposal option, as with the federal government's planned facility in the NT, is likely to lead to more profligate waste production.

WHY NOT STORE THE WASTE AT LUCAS HEIGHTS?

It is possible that a good case for centralised, off-site waste management might be an appropriate response to Lucas Heights waste when the reactor plant is eventually shut down. For example, proposals might be developed to use the site for purposes incompatible with radioactive waste storage.

However, for the foreseeable future, ANSTO is capable of managing its own waste on-site, albeit the case that improved waste management systems and greater transparency are required at ANSTO.

Importantly, all of the key proponents of a nuclear waste facility in the NT have, at one point or another, clearly acknowledged that ANSTO can manage its own waste at Lucas Heights:
    * Dr Ron Cameron from ANSTO, at the ARPANSA forum in Adelaide on February 26, 2004, when asked if ANSTO could continue to manage its own waste and what the implications of that would be, said: "Really, we believe there are none. ANSTO is capable of handling and storing wastes for long periods of time. There is no difficulty with that. I think we've been doing it for many years. We have the capability and technology to do so."
    * ARPANSA CEO John Loy has also noted that ANSTO can manage its own waste without dumping it in the NT: "Should it come about that the national approach to a waste repository not proceed, it will be necessary for the Commonwealth to devise an approach to final disposal of LLW [low-level waste] from Lucas Heights, including LLW generated by operation of the RRR [replacement research reactor]. In the meantime, this waste will have to be continued to be handled properly on the Lucas Heights site. I am satisfied, on the basis of my assessment of the present waste management plan, including the license and conditions applying to the waste operations on site, that it can be." (John Loy, April 2002, "Decision by the CEO of ARPANSA on Application to construct the Replacement Research Reactor at Lucas Heights. Reasons for Decision", p.30.)
    * The Department of Education, Science and Training also acknowledges that ANSTO can store its own waste : "A significant factor is that ANSTO has the capacity to safely store considerable volumes of waste at Lucas Heights and is unlikely to seek ... frequent campaigns to dispose of waste holdings generated after the initial campaign." (DEST, Application, Vol.iii Ch.9 Waste – Transfer and Documentation p.5.)
    * Dr Clarence Hardy, representing the Australian Nuclear Association at the ARPANSA forum in Adelaide on February 26, 2004: "It would be entirely feasible to keep storing it [radioactive waste] at Lucas Heights ..."

So key government and nuclear agencies acknowledge that the waste can continue to be stored at Lucas Heights. In fact ANSTO is increasing its storage capacity as ARPANSA's Nuclear Safety Committee recently noted: "There have also been considerable effort and resources expended on ensuring that waste arising from production can be stored on-site for many years to allow for the contingency that the LLW repository and Commonwealth Store as discussed in the Feb 2002 report are not available in the near future. ... ANSTO advised that there was currently 30 years capacity in the intermediate level waste store for OPAL operating waste. ... In view of the delay in access to offsite radioactive waste management facilities resulting from the NRWR [repository] decision, ANSTO has developed options to increase on-site storage capacity for low-level radioactive wastes. Through reducing the volume of waste by super-compaction and rationalising and extending existing storage capacity ANSTO expects to have the capacity to store its solid low level radioactive waste arisings for the next 40 years." (ARPANSA's Nuclear Safety Committee, September 2005, "Report on the ANSTO application for a licence to operate a replacement research reactor".)

In relation to spent fuel reprocessing wastes, ANSTO is legally prohibited from disposing of such waste at Lucas Heights, but there is no legal obstacle to long-term storage of reprocessing waste at Lucas Heights.

GOVERNMENT NUCLEAR AGENCIES CANNOT BE TRUSTED

The track record of government departments and agencies in relation to nuclear issues over the past decade has been extremely poor. Yet the same organisations are involved in the current proposal to establish a nuclear waste facility in the NT.

The problems include inadequate project management; inadequate and non-independent regulation; repeatedly making false and misleading comments; and a pervasive secrecy.

The following summary is drawn from detailed research papers which are available on request.

The Department of Education, Science and Training (DEST) is the government department leading the push to establish a nuclear waste facility in the NT, just as it was from 1998-2004 with the push to build a repository in SA. DEST was also responsible for the botched 'clean-up' of the Maralinga nuclear site in SA.

DEST's ability to manage the proposed SA nuclear dump project was seriously challenged by nuclear scientists who had first-hand experience of DEST during the Maralinga 'clean-up' - Professor Peter Johnston and Alan Parkinson - and by other scientists including ARPANSA panelists Professor Ian Lowe and Mr. George Jack. A paper detailing their many criticisms of DEST is available on request.

DEST was notorious for misleading the South Australian public about its nuclear dump plans. For example, its claims that SA was the "best and safest" site for a dump, that most of the waste was of medical origin, and that the dump would accept only low-level waste, were all demonstrably false yet they were repeated ad nauseum. Some of this false information is being repeated in relation to the current plan for a waste facility in the NT - though DEST knows that the statements are false and misleading.

At Maralinga, the government claimed that cost-cutting did not motivate its decision to dump plutonium-contaminated debris in shallow, unlined pits. Yet internal project documents released by scientific whistle-blower Alan Parkinson proved that cost-cutting was a major factor. Will safety also be compromised to cut costs at the proposed NT nuclear waste facility? The governments answer would of course be 'no' - but its record suggests otherwise.

ANSTO's credibility has also been strongly challenged by nuclear scientists. For example, Tony Wood, former head of the Divisions of Reactors and Engineering at ANSTO's reactor plant in Sydney, has criticised ANSTO for its "misleading public statements" and for "sugar-coating" its information. Mr. Wood said in evidence to the Senate Select Committee Reactor Inquiry in 2000: "If I had to sum up my concerns in one sentence, it would be that for the first time in my long association with ... ANSTO I do not feel comfortable with what the organisation is telling the public and its own staff."

The government's intention is that ANSTO will have responsibility for operating the nuclear waste facility. A culture of secrecy undermines community confidence in ANSTO. This culture has been the subject of frequent criticism, e.g. from the Senate Committee Inquiry into the New Reactor at Lucas Heights in 2001, by the President of the Australian Nuclear Association, and even by the federal government itself.

NUCLEAR MEDICINE

The government’s claim that most of the waste to be sent to the NT is a by-product of nuclear medicine is yet another lie. Only 10-20% of the waste the government wants to send to the NT could be attributed to medical isotope production. In any event, if nuclear medicine was the criterion for siting the dump (which it isn’t) and if there was a need for a national facility (which is debatable, given the option of long-term storage at Lucas Heights) then the NT would be the last place chosen because it has far fewer nuclear medicine procedures than any other state or territory (the NT accounts for just 1% of nuclear medicine procedures) and also far fewer on a per capita basis.

Beware the federal government’s scare-mongering and guilt-tripping - Australia doesn’t even need a reactor for medical isotope supply let alone a waste storage facility let alone a waste storage facility in the NT. As an example of this scare-mongering, a joint media release by Mr. Scullion and Mr. Tollner said: "A delay [in building the waste facility] would severely limit the availability of life-saving radiopharmaceuticals used in the treatment of cardiovascular disease and early intervention against cancer, particularly breast cancer." That one paragraph contains layers of confusion and misinformation. As the Medical Association for the Prevention of War noted, Scullion and Tollner were "peddling a lie" (ABC, 17/10/05).