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Australian Labor Party Criticizes Nuclear Waste Dump Decision

Posted on: Friday, 15 July 2005, 06:10 CDT

Text of report by Radio Australia on 15 July

[Newsreader] Australia's main opposition Labor Party has spoken out against the federal government's decision to build a nuclear waste dump at a defence site in the Northern Territory. The nuclear waste facility will be built on defence land and will store low and intermediate level nuclear waste. The science minister, Brendan Nelson, says one of three Northern Territory sites will be chosen to house low and intermediate level waste. Labor's deputy leader, Jenny Macklin, says the decision is appalling.

[Macklin] That's typical of Brendan Nelson and John Howard. They are just riding roughshod over the laws and the wishes of the Northern Territory community and completely breaking a promise that they made to the people of the Northern Territory before the last federal election.

[Newsreader] But the science minister, Dr Nelson, says the waste represents no threat to human health.

[Nelson] There needs also to be a reality check taken by those who will be opposed to this. The Northern Territory government has 16 cu.m. of waste at the Royal Darwin Hospital, slap bang in the middle of Darwin. It also has intermediate level waste very close to the facility in Katherine which we now propose to examine in detail.

Source: BBC Monitoring Asia Pacific

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