Rudd Government Moves to Stop Nuclear Waste Dump

If there is any place in the world that would be a good place to store nuclear waste you would think it would be the Australian Outback:

The Rudd government will stand by an election promise to scrap legislation that paved the way for a nuclear waste dump in the Northern Territory, Resources Minister Martin Ferguson says.

But the government will not be giving up the search for a suitable site somewhere in Australia.

Mr Ferguson refused to say when his government will scrap the legislation, or when cabinet will receive recommendations from a scientific report into the most suitable site.

“When I see that scientific report, which is being peer reviewed, then I will make recommendations to cabinet,” he told reporters in Darwin on Thursday.

“I am not going to make ad hoc decisions.”

There have been concerns the government would not repeal the Commonwealth Radioactive Waste Management Act (CRWMA) after it voted down a motion to scuttle the law earlier this year.

The Howard government passed it in 2006, giving the federal government the power to impose a nuclear waste dump on the Northern Territory.

Labor promised to repeal it during the last federal election campaign.

Mr Ferguson said the government would come good on its commitment, but Labor would not be abandoning the search for a site.

“There has been a sense of immaturity from the Australian community and the political processes (about this),” he said.

“If you want the benefit of nuclear medicine in Australia, and every family has benefited from it, you’ve also got to accept there is a hard decision about where we store the waste.”  [9 News]

Australia has the same problem in regards to nuclear technology that we have in the US, which is the “not in my backyard syndrome”.