cross-posted from: https://lemmy.zip/post/12864190

‘Poison portal’: US and UK could send nuclear waste to Australia under Aukus, inquiry told

Labor describes claims as ‘fear-mongering’ and says government would not accept waste from other nations

Archived version: https://archive.ph/OKW8S

  • AutoTL;DRB
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    19 months ago

    This is the best summary I could come up with:


    Australia could become a “poison portal” for international radioactive waste under the Aukus deal, a parliamentary inquiry into nuclear safety legislation has heard.

    Dave Sweeney, the Australian Conservation Foundation’s nuclear free campaigner, said the issue of waste disposal was “highly disturbing” and that the Aukus partners could see Australia as a “a little bit of a radioactive terra nullius”.

    The defence minister, Richard Marles, has previously accused the Greens of “fearmongering” when they raised similar concerns, saying the government would not accept waste from the other nations.

    “You can go on Google Maps and look at them rusting away in real time, can’t you?” Shoebridge asked Australian Radiation Protection and Nuclear Safety Agency (Arpansa) chief regulatory officer, James Scott.

    Robin Townsend, an engineer and fellow at the UK-based Royal Institution of Naval Architects, told the inquiry that there was “a very big mountain to climb” to safely store nuclear waste, with the technology “still in its infancy”.

    The defence department said the bill would provide “a regulatory framework able to accommodate any future government decisions regarding the management of radioactive waste”.


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