Submarine boasts, yet nuclear waste dumps submersed in secrecy
While the SA Prime Minister is basking in the campaign victory of a $3.9 billion down payment to the shipyard for nuclear submarines, the Federal Government is kicking the nuclear waste bin off the road. Rex Patrick reports.
Last week, with great fanfare, Peter Malinauskas and Anthony Albanese announced It is a down payment on the $30 billion shipyard being built for AUKUS nuclear submarines at the Port of Adelaide, which will start construction in 2040.
Meanwhile, two senior government officials told the Administrative Review Tribunal that the public they serve should be kept in the dark about plans to deal with civilian and AUKUS nuclear waste.
They argued that ‘narrative control’ was necessary.
For more than 40 years, Australian governments of various kinds have been trying and failing to figure out what to do with the country’s growing medical and industrial nuclear waste. This problem became even more difficult with the addition of AUKUS’s need to deal with high-level reactor waste.
Australia’s 3,700 m3 of low-level and 1,300 m3 of intermediate-level radioactive waste are stored in more than 100 locations across the country, including hospitals, science facilities and universities.
Since July 2023, when the Federal Court struck down the Morrison Government’s decision to establish a civilian National Radioactive Waste Management Facility at Kimba, Prime Minister Albanese’s Government has been radio silent on what the next steps will be.
There is similar silence about plans for AUKUS’s high-level waste, although the government already has a plan to select a landfill site.
Follow the money. A radioactive comedy of failed land purchases
Narrative control
Like MWM He attempted to use Freedom of Information (FOI) laws to leak some information from the government about what was going on, which instead turned out to be a deliberate plan to keep the public in the dark.
In an attempt to keep things under wraps, Mr Sam Usher, CEO of the Australian Radioactive Waste Agency (ARWA), presents evidence to the Tribunal explaining the dangers of letting what he calls the “nuclear illiterate” Australian public know what is going on. It seems that the Government’s solution to the people’s illiteracy is to ensure that the people are illiterate.
In an 18th-century approach to winning public support, he confirmed in an affidavit:
“The release of information (requested by MWM) in these circumstances is not consistent with the current message or (redacted) position, which relies heavily on public consent, and could adversely affect trust and the establishment and maintenance of the (redacted) social license that ARWA and the Australian Government are required to deliver.”
And indeed, CEO Usher asked the Court to keep this statement secret. MWM objected to confidentiality and the Court ordered the publication of the statement; trust and social license will all be achieved through narrative control from the public.
You will not argue!
Alex Kelton, Deputy Director General of Strategy at the Australian Submarine Agency, gave similar evidence. The public must not know; This is very dangerous for the government.
Kelton testified that “inviting” transparency would lead to the diversion of Government resources. [public] Discussion about early reflection on an issue on which Australia has no long-standing policy position”.
Transparency will ensure this, he said:
Signaling recommendations to the government that may lead to comment
“that puts pressure on the government to include or exclude certain options, ideas or strategies, or effectively inhibits approaches to problems, because of negative public sentiment that is not fully informed and is premature to engage publicly until the government has done more work to develop its view of the options and position.”
The Australian Government has never carried out a successful program to obtain a social license for a nuclear waste facility. The truth is that Executive Vice President Kelton also has no experience with such an effort. He was Chief of Staff to Defense Minister Linda Reynolds, so he has political experience.
Is it important or urgent?
The argument adopted by Usher and Kelton on behalf of the Government is that there will be a public consultation, but nothing should be made public until this happens.
The evidence at the Administrative Review Tribunal paints a disturbing picture.
In the middle of Usher’s statement was a sentence with unusual quotation marks around the words “important” and “urgent.”
Redacted evidence from Kelton was forced to explain the substance of the matter, which the government later objected to. MWMHe explained that the government did nothing and was left in a dilemma. In December 2023, Defense Minister Richard Marles was presented with a brief on how to select the site for AUKUS nuclear waste, and nothing happened.
On cross-examination, it was clear that Usher was frustrated by the Government’s failure to address an “important” issue with the necessary “urgency”.
no consultation
MWM He was at pains to point out to the Court that there was no legal requirement for the Government to consult. Section 10 of the Australian Naval Nuclear Power Security Act gives the Minister of Defense the power to issue a regulation declaring any site in Australia to be a nuclear installation for the purposes of AUKUS.
No consultation is required and any future Government facing delays due to the current Government’s failure to act could simply announce a site – and in these circumstances the Government would not want any information disclosed under FOI.
Anywhere in Australia is a possibility.
Kelton also submitted his affidavit stating that (this) Government had announced that the AUKUS nuclear waste site would be on existing or Defense land.
However, during cross-examination, Kelton accepted that any location in Australia could be chosen and then converted into Defense land by compulsory purchase. He confirmed that the Defense Secretary’s announcement meant that whatever land was used, it would be a “Commonwealth Facility”.
Apart from the announcement that any decision on a future nuclear submarine will not be made until the 2030s, it is clear from the Administrative Review Tribunal hearings that the Government is not interested in progressing work on the future high-level radioactive waste storage site, despite advice from ARWA. Again, starting from scratch, this project could take at least a decade, possibly longer, but Marles and Albanese seem to have no intention of kicking things off.
living in the moment
Marles will hop on a private jet and head to Washington to meet with Secretary of War Pete Hegseth. He shows off and talks tough about defense. Albanians, meanwhile, are clinging to AUKUS like a political lifeline, hoping to avoid President Trump’s hostile posts on social media and any suggestion that Labor is “soft on defence”.
But in an act of gross mismanagement, they are avoiding the tough political decisions now needed to properly handle AUKUS nuclear waste, and indeed all our other radioactive waste.
Albanese and Marles clearly don’t think they’ll be in politics when the radioactive mess stirs up trouble. For them, this is a problem that the future government must solve.
Government hides “transparent” Radioactive Waste Plan
Rex Patrick is a former South Australian Senator and formerly a submariner in the armed forces. Known as an anti-corruption and transparency warrior, Rex is also known as “Transparency Warrior“
