Senator McEWEN (South Australia—Government Whip in the Senate) (12:02): by leave—on behalf of the Chair of the Education, Employment and Workplace Relations Legislation Committee (Senator Marshall), I move:

That the Education, Employment and Workplace Relations Legislation Committee be authorised to hold a private meeting otherwise than in accordance with standing order 33(1) during the sitting of the Senate today, from 1.50 pm.

Question agreed to.

The TEMPORARY CHAIRMAN ( Senator Furner ) (12:02): The committee is considering the National Radioactive Waste Management Bill 2010. The question is that the bill stand as printed.

Senator CHRIS EVANS (Western Australia—Minister for Tertiary Education, Skills, Science and Research and Leader of the Government in the Senate) (12:03): by leave—I table some answers to questions asked of me during the committee stage of the debate on this bill the last time we were dealing with it, which was a couple of weeks ago. The questions were asked by Senator Rhiannon and Senator Ludlam. We have only just handed the answers to Senator Ludlam, but I will formally table them as answers to those questions that I took on notice during that debate. I seek leave to incorporate these answers.

Leave granted.

The document read as follows—

Questions asked during Committee stage of Senate Debate

National Radioactive Waste Management Bill 2010

Question: Transportation—Senator Rhiannon:

I ask the Minister to set out how [the transport route] has been handled and what the government's response is to the potential dangers of moving highly radioactive waste over such a long distance? Could you set out the form that the community consultation will take [on the transport route]? Or will the route be determined secretly? Will the consultation be on which route is to be used before it determined or is it to take place after the route has been determined?

Answer:

Community Consultation

As the regulator, ARPANSA is responsible for authorising the use of a site, for the construction and operation of a radioactive waste storage or disposal facility.

When applying for approval to use a site for a radioactive waste storage or disposal facility, the proponent will need to specify transport routes to the site.

In considering the siting approval, ARPANSA will undertake public consultation and may approve the application subject to various conditions.

The nature of AR P ANSA's public consultations was outlined in previous Senate Inquiries. As stated by then ARPANSA CEO Dr Loy:

"[The regulations require] I seek public submissions … My practice has been to supplement that process with a form of public hearing, which I call a public forum, whereby people who have made submissions can come forward, present their submissions and their views and have them questioned and challenged by a panel. All of that takes place in the open, in public, with a transcript published …"

On potential dangers of moving radioactive waste

Safe transport of a large quantity of radioactive waste was demonstrated in an Australian context in 1993-94, when 120 shipments of waste were moved from Lucas Heights (New South Wales) to Woomera (South Australia).

ARPANSA has previously public stated: "The transport of the material is an issue that the radiation protection community at least would regard as pretty much solved" (Dr John Loy, former CEO of ARPANSA in evidence to the 2005 Senate Inquiry into the Commonwealth Radioactive Waste Management Bill).

Internationally, there has never been an accident involving the transport of radioactive materials where there has been serious harm to people or the environment arising from the radioactive nature of the cargo.

There are fewer hazards associated with transporting radioactive waste than there are with flammable and corrosives substances such as fuel and acid, which are routinely transported in and between our cities.

Question:

Transportation—Senator Rhiannon—NSW Parliamentary Inquiry (2004)

Are you familiar with [the NSW transport of radioactive waste inquiry] and what is your response to those findings?

Answer:

The 2004 NSW Inquiry was undertaken at time when the Lucas Heights HIFAR research reactor was being replaced and a site at Woomera was being considered as the location of a radioactive waste management facility.

The findings of the Inquiry were internally inconsistent and not an accurate reflection of transportation practices for radioactive materials around Australia or the world.

For example, while the report stated transporting radioactive waste from NSW to a national facility should be avoided, it contradicted this finding by inferring that wastes from "dispersed sites" from all of Australia could be "collected on a regular basis" and transported to Lucas Heights for final storage.

Nonetheless, the report did highlight the safety record of the transport of radioactive materials.

The report made the following findings:

The transport proposals for low level waste can be safely managed, as evidenced by the Environmental Protection Agency and State Emergency Management Committee at the Inquiry;

In the event of a transport accident, the risk of waste transforming into a form in which it presented risk to human health was unlikely;

Every one of the 340 fire stations in NSW had a HAZMAT Plan, which is specifically designed to cater for emergencies which involve hazardous substances.

Question—Senator Rhiannon—Payne Report

The Payne Report highlights the lack of confidence when it comes to nuclear waste. What has been learnt from ANSTO's apparent failure to deal with security issues?

Answer:

The Payne Report was a 16-page report commissioned by the Sutherland Shire Council shortly after the events of September 11, 2001 as part of its campaign against the construction of the OPAL reactor in its municipality.

The report was solely reliant on information from public sources and Mr Payne's own observations. When writing the report, Mr Payne did not consult with ANSTO officers or national security authorities. Importantly, Mr Payne did not visit the site to ascertain the security arrangements. The Report was littered with factual errors.

At the time, the Australian Safeguards and Non-Proliferation Office (ASNO) — the regulator of security at ANSTO—dismissed the report and advised that security requirements at ANSTO were fully in line with International Atomic Energy Agency and national standards.

Security Requirements

Under the Nuclear Non-Proliferation (Safeguards) Act 1987 and the permits issued pursuant to that Act, ANSTO is required to ensure that adequate security measures are in place to protect their site at Lucas Heights.

ANSTO has comprehensive security protections in place, which are based on Australian and international best practice for the security of nuclear materials, radioactive sources and facilities.

ANSTO security is regularly reviewed by expert agencies to ensure security continues to meet the stringent national and international physical security protection standards. Those agencies include ASNO and ASIO.

A recent report from the Nuclear Threat Initiative, the Nuclear Materials Security Index, ranked Australia as number one of 32 countries including the United Kingdom, United States and Japan in terms of nuclear security. The Nuclear Threat Initiative is a United States NGO that works to improve global security and fulfilment of the goals of non-proliferation treaties.

Questions—Senator Ludlam—radioactive waste management facilities around Australia:

How many places are there around the country for storing radioactive waste of various categories that would notionally be carted across to a central facility?

How many of these sites is estimated will we be able to decommission or stand down if we get a "remote dump out in the bush"?

Answer:

There are estimated to be over one hundred locations around Australia that store low-and intermediate-level radioactive waste.

These storage facilities include government stores, industrial facilities, universities and other research establishments.

Additionally, every significant hospital and university in Australia has some radioactive waste in storage. The total inventory of radioactive waste in all these holdings is relatively small.

Further details are available in Australia's 4th National Report to the Joint Convention on the Safety of Spent Fuel Management and on the Safety of Radioactive Waste Management.

States and Territories are currently responsible for managing their own inventories of radioactive waste. Closure of non-Commonwealth storage sites will be a matter for State and Territory jurisdictions.

Some States have acted to establish their own centralised waste management facilities. For example, since 1991, Western Australia has disposed of its low level radioactive waste at the Mt Walton East Intractable Waste Disposal Facility.

It would be premature to comment on the number of sites that will close once a national facility as this can only be finalised once the location of the facility is known and States and Territories settle their intentions to use the national facility.

However, it is likely that legacy waste inventories will be relocated, allowing for store closures. Facilities where waste is continually generated, such as hospitals, will require ongoing operational stores. However the volume of radioactive waste in storage will decrease in light of the availability of disposal and centralised storage capabilities at a national facility.

It is recognised internationally that the risk of inadvertent loss, damage or theft of radioactive sources is minimised through waste management at centralised, purpose built facilities.

The Government's legislation is based on the principle of volunteerism and does not, of itself, assume that a site will be remotely located.

Question: Nominations—Senator Ludlam

"In broad as I can frame the question, are there any other sites under consideration and if so where are they?"

"Has anybody approached the Federal Government at any time — either the department or minister's office with an alternative proposal for a site?

Answer:

The Commonwealth Radioactive Waste Management Act 2005 currently allows the Chief Minister of the Northern Territory or a Land Council to volunteer sites for a facility.

The nomination of the site at Muckaty Station is the only nomination that has been made under that Act. No other nominations have been submitted to the Department or to the Minister.

The Department has not been involved in any desktop studies or further field work for potential sites since the site characterisation investigations undertaken by

Parsons Brinkerhoff.

As acknowledged in the Senate debate on the Bill (8 February 2012), from time to time the Government has received suggestions on locations for a radioactive waste management facility. None of these have been pursued.

Once the National Radioactive Waste Management Bill 2010 is passed, the Minister will only consider sites, volunteered by landowners, under the protections and legal framework afforded by the legislation.

Senator CHRIS EVANS: by leave—I table a supplementary exploratory memorandum relating to the government amendments to be moved to this bill. The memorandum was circulated in the chamber on 8 February 2012.

Senator LUDLAM (Western Australia) (12:04): I thank the minister for the material he has tabled. The minister is quite correct in that I was given about two minutes' notice by an advisor, who brought this material up to my office right before the bells rang, so I have barely had time to skim these. Would the minister mind speaking to what is in these notes? There is a fair bit of material here.

Senator CHRIS EVANS (Western Australia—Minister for Tertiary Education, Skills, Science and Research and Leader of the Government in the Senate) (12:04): I am happy to, or we can move on and come back to that if it would give the senator a chance to read it. I did not think the questions were particularly germane to your amendment, Senator, but I am happy to do that. I am sorry, I did not get them until I returned to my office a little while ago. I am happy to take you through them, or we can move on and come back when you are ready.

Senator LUDLAM (Western Australia) (12:05): Minister, we have not yet moved to specific amendments. I believe we are still on general questions, so I would appreciate it if the minister would talk us through these. I note Senator Rhiannon is not in the chamber at the moment, and about half of this material was in response to questions she put. If you are happy at this stage to address the material that I put to you I would appreciate it.

Senator CHRIS EVANS (Western Australia—Minister for Tertiary Education, Skills, Science and Research and Leader of the Government in the Senate) (12:05): I regard the responses to Senator Rhiannon's questions as just as important as the responses to yours, Senator Ludlam, but I am happy to focus on yours.

In the first question, you were seeking information about where radioactive waste was currently being stored, because of the government's argument that there are a number of depositories currently being used. The answer is that it is estimated that there are over 100 locations around Australia that store low- and intermediate-level radioactive waste. They include government stores, industrial facilities, universities and research establishments. Of course, every significant hospital and university in Australia has some radioactive waste in storage.

I gather that the best point of reference for this is Australia's fourth national report to the Joint Convention on the Safety of Spent Fuel Management and on the Safety of Radioactive Waste Management. As you know, states are currently responsible for managing their own inventories, and whether or not they choose to close sites when the national waste facility is established will be a decision for them. As you know, some have already established centralised waste management, like in Western Australia at the Mount Walton waste disposal facility. We think it is likely that many of those inventories will be relocated but, as I said, decisions about that will be up to those responsible for the facilities. I think that is the main question you were seeking an answer to. You also asked a question about alternative sites. The answer is that the Commonwealth Radioactive Waste Management Act 2005 currently allows the Chief Minister of the Northern Territory or a land council to volunteer sites. The nomination of the site at Muckaty Station is the only nomination that has been made under the act; no other nominations have been submitted to the department. None of the informal approaches have been pursued by the government. Once this bill is passed—if it is passed—the minister will only consider sites volunteered by landowners under the protections and legal framework afforded by the legislation. I think that covers the key questions you asked of us. Many of Senator Rhiannon's questions go to some of those issues to do with historical reports. I will also make sure that that is delivered to her office if she is going to join us later.

Senator LUDLAM (Western Australia) (12:08): I thank the minister. I will set aside your answer to the question about whether any other sites are under consideration as I think that has been addressed by some of your advisers at various estimates committee hearings as well. Your answer is consistent with what they have been telling us, which is that it appears that the process is on hold until such time as the issue of the Muckaty nomination has been resolved. Today of all days—when the entire country, from the most senior levels of government down, is consumed with other matters—I think it is cynical in the extreme to seek to pass a bill as contentious and controversial as this one. It is obviously a day when the press gallery have other issues in mind.

The first question that I put to you, minister, was around the number of sites that would close. I put that question to you for a reason. In some of your opening remarks, and certainly in the minister's remarks and in the debate in the other place, we frequently hear that there are hundreds of locations around the country at which materials are being stored. The implication is that they are being stored unsafely and that that is the reason we need a centralised remote radioactive waste dump. The question that I put to you is fairly simple: if we are doing that in aid of closing these sites, which number over 100—that is the response you have given—then how many of them will close?

The department, despite having a fortnight to provide us with an answer to that question, has not been able to give us a number at all. The minister you are representing in this place has handballed it back to the states and said, 'We don't know.' I put it to you, minister, that it is inappropriate to be using that line of argument if, when pressed on how many sites will close, you are unable to tell us. My suspicion is that none of the sites will close because there is no proposal to reduce the production of this material in any sense. There is no proposal, as far as I can tell, as a result of opening up a dump at Muckaty or anywhere else, to close any of the sites. So I think it is disingenuous in the extreme to run an argument that the dump is needed because of all these sites around the place which are unsafe. I would like the minister to provide us with a list of which sites are unsafe. What are the sites of concern? Where are we storing this material where it is not safe at the moment? Why are we allowing it to be stored at hospitals, university engineering departments or wherever? Why are we allowing that to occur? Why should it take the establishment of a remote waste dump to provide for secure storage of these materials at these sites that are dispersed around the country?

In the brief time I have had to consider the minister's response—and I think this might have been mentioned in passing in some of the responses to Senator Rhiannon's questions—I think some of the opposition to a remote waste dump is inconsistent. On the one hand, you say you do not want this material transported to a remote or centralised site; on the other hand, you contradict that by suggesting that waste from dispersed sites all over Australia should be collected on a regular basis and transported to Lucas Heights. I do not think there is any inherent contradiction there. That was in an answer I have just scanned to Senator Rhiannon around the New South Wales parliamentary inquiry in 2004, which was a very good report. You will not find many people who oppose the idea of concentrating and potentially centralising these wastes together in a single place, which will require transport of low-level radioactive waste of various categories. The big argument I have, and which many people have, is about whether it should be at a cattle station outside Tennant Creek or in the active care and maintenance of people who are well qualified to look after it.

The minister will be well aware that the proposal here is to transfer several hundred cubic metres, or in the low thousands of cubic metres, of this material from active care and maintenance at Lucas Heights, where it is surrounded by a security perimeter fence with Federal Police and in-house security and actively monitored and looked after by technicians and people very well qualified to look after it. I think that is appropriate. For as long as we are producing these categories of waste, it is appropriate. We do not think we should be producing this waste, but we will canvass that later in the debate. It is looked after by people who are qualified to do so, people who are trained in the dispersal patterns of this material and who know how it behaves over long periods of time with exposure to water and so on.

That kind of centralisation and looking after this material at a central site is completely different from loading it onto trucks and taking it to a cattle station where it will be looked after by six of the loneliest security guards on the planet. That is the proposal—two security guards on an eight-hour rotation for the next 300 years! That, I think, is what has got people upset, and at no time has the Commonwealth government made a case for why that is appropriate—for why this material would be somehow safer under the care and maintenance of two security guards than it is under the care and maintenance of the technicians and people who have been looking after it at Lucas Heights for 60 years. That is the essential case that the government has failed to make. I do not think there is anything inconsistent there. That is my very brief reading of the critique of the 2004 New South Wales parliamentary inquiry. I do not think there is any contradiction there at all. At the bottom of the minister's response to my answer on radioactive waste management facilities around Australia, there is a paragraph that reads, 'The government's legislation is based on the principle of volunteerism and does not of itself assume that a site will be remotely located.' My question to the minister goes to this principle of volunteerism. I do not have the quotations here in front of me on the Muckaty nomination but they are quite powerful. They are by the government's proponent, who put the proposal for a remote site to the Northern Land Council. They then forwarded it to the minister for his consideration. The proposal was that they need road upgrades and they are looking for some educational facilities. There has been this process in the NT and across remote Australia of withdrawing support for remote Aboriginal communities, for closing out stations and for concentrating people in particular sites. If I understand their submission correctly, these people are after basic upgrades to infrastructure that has been withdrawn and they are after educational opportunities.

Here is the problem with volunteerism. We can go to some of the most structurally disadvantaged communities in the country, people who are starving for resources and being forced off their land because we are not providing adequate resources, and say, 'Who's interested in a cheque for 12 million bucks?' in a school. That is what our principle of volunteerism amounts to. It takes politically vulnerable and extremely disadvantaged communities and says, 'In exchange for hosting this material that is perfectly safe—which is why we have to remove it from a metropolitan area. It is so safe that it cannot stay in Sydney any longer. We will provide you with basic infrastructure and services that the rest of the Australian population take for granted.'

Minister, I have a serious problem with what sounds innocently enough like the spirit or the principle of volunteerism, which I am presuming the government is setting in counterpoint to the spirit of coercion, whereby we simply roll into your community and tell you that you are going to get the dump. The principle of volunteerism means, in practice, that disadvantaged communities are being coerced into accepting this material. That is why this is not about Muckaty.

We have heard a huge amount of it about Muckaty because it is named and explicitly targeted in the legislation that we are debating today. But it is not about Muckaty. It is about the principle of why we always assume that it should be a remote Aboriginal community's job to host this toxic material until the end of time. That is the essential problem, here. There is every reason to believe that the Muckaty nomination will fall over. This is either because we will see sense in parliament and reject this bill or the Federal Court will find in favour of the applicants that the land was not properly nominated or that the community campaign that has sparked up around the country continues to do its work and rolls Minister Martin Ferguson right out of parliament in the next election, if not sooner.

If the Muckaty nomination falls over, we have every reason to believe that we will be visiting this disastrous and coercive project on some other community. Perhaps it will be in western Queensland. Perhaps it will be back in the north of New South Wales. Perhaps, Senator Evans, it will be in your state and mine,—through you, Temporary Chairman Furner—Western Australia, that already hosts a low-level state radioactive waste dump. That is the essential problem I have with this legislation. It has not been justified. The principle of remote storage has not been justified and it has been done to cover some pretty dodgy arguments.

The question that I put to you, Minister, is whether you disagree with my contention. What is noted here in the minister's answer to my question, as the principle of volunteerism, is simply economic and political coercion under another name.

Senator CHRIS EVANS (Western Australia—Minister for Tertiary Education, Skills, Science and Research and Leader of the Government in the Senate) (12:18): There were a fair number of issues raised by Senator Ludlam in that contribution. The first thing to say is that the accusation of us being cynical in the timing of us bringing on this debate is a bit of a low blow. The senator is well aware that we started this debate in the last parliamentary week and we were not able to complete it. It was always listed to come on today. Unfortunately it started a couple of hours later than I would have liked as the result of us delaying the start of parliament.

I have made it clear to Senator Ludlam—and the Greens, more generally—that the government's priority was to try to get this bill carried; it has been hanging around for a long time. The fact that it came on today at the same time as a leadership ballot inside the Labor Party is just coincidence. We always intended to bring this bill on long before I was aware there was going to be a leadership ballot in the Labor Party today. So that is an unfair accusation.

The assertion that we accept or have argued that the current waste has been stored unsafely is not right. That is not a claim we make. We do make the claim that we will need a proper waste management facility because of the current inventory around the country and the waste that will be returned in a couple of years time from France and the UK. We think there is a case for a proper waste management facility and we are also confident that the current waste is being managed in accordance with the existing safety regulations.

It is also the case that the inventory is growing. We have the prospects of more being returned to Australia in a proper, dedicated facility and it makes a huge amount of sense. It is also the case that there is a lot of activity at Lucas Heights, as I understand it. I have not been able to get down there since being made minister for science. I understand there is quite a strong building program going on at Lucas Heights and quite a bit of development. All of this supports the proposition that we ought to move to a dedicated facility.

I understand that it is international best practice that waste should be stored in centralised facilities and that best practice is for it be in one location. The more remote locations are regarded as being consistent with best practice. In terms of volunteerism, Senator Ludlam answered his own question. He said that you can do it voluntarily or you can do it compulsorily. The point is, we are trying to do it in a way that provides for people to volunteer a site. One can be critical about that and see it as coercive or one can go for the coercive option, which says that we are just doing it compulsorily. That criticism also is not fair.

Senator Ludlam, you do not like the proposition. I accept that. But some of the criticisms, quite frankly, are not well based and some of the arguments you are seeking to use are not fair. You do not like the central proposition—I accept that—but you cannot argue against volunteerism and also argue against compulsory acquisition. It has to be one or the other. Then you find fault in calling for people to volunteer. That proposition is not consistent.

We think the volunteerism approach is the better approach. It leaves us with more chance of success in getting this proposition up and running, given how long it has taken and how difficult the debate has been about establishing a proper radioactive waste management facility. As I said, there are a range of reasons we think establishing the facility is consistent with best practice for storage of radioactive waste. It allows us to deal with a growing problem. It is not a problem that currently sees us having unsafe practice but it is a growing inventory, with a prospect of more returning. We will have a better waste management regime in Australia by going down this path.

Senator DI NATALE (Victoria) (12:23): I have an interest in this bill for several reasons. I was lucky enough to spend several years in Tennant Creek. I mentioned it in my first speech, in fact. I worked there as a doctor in an Aboriginal health service. It is a place that is very dear to my heart.

If you have ever been to Tennant Creek—some of you may have—it is probably because you have driven up the highway from Alice Springs to Darwin. You might have stopped at Tennant Creek to get some petrol on the way. At first instance it looks like a fairly bleak place. Often the temperatures there are up into the forties. A lot of the shopfronts are boarded up and there are bars on some of the windows. So people can sometimes get the wrong impression—that it is a community that is in decline.

But once you move beyond that you find a very rich, very complex and deep culture, with a community that has a profound connection to the land on which the people live. We have had some of our fondest experiences in the region. In fact, some of the old women sang a song to me and my wife. They told us that as a result of the song we would get married and have babies. Sure enough, my wife—who happens to be here today, by coincidence—and I have two young kids. I often think back about the song in the back of the Land Cruiser on the way out to get bush tucker. Every now and then when the kids drive me mad I think of what might have happened if that song had not been sung that day!

Tennant Creek is a place that has its problems. There is no question that, like many areas of Indigenous disadvantage, there are people there who are struggling. I am not going to go into all the causes of Indigenous disadvantage; it is a long and complex story and I know that successive governments have done at least a little to try and address the problems. But if there is any support for this proposal—I have to say the support is quite scant—it comes from a place of desperation. It comes because successive governments have not done enough. We have Indigenous communities who are desperate. They are desperate because they cannot get their toilets or their plumbing fixed. In any other public housing situation anywhere in the country we would expect it to be fixed but if you live in a remote Indigenous community or in one of the town camps and your loo stops working or your taps stop running it can take weeks before someone will come and fix that really important piece of infrastructure that makes a big difference to people's health.

So there is a question of Indigenous disadvantage and the desperation that comes from that, that may have led some people—very few—in the region to have expressed at least some basic level of support for the proposal. But my understanding is that the level of support for this proposal is next to non-existent. In fact, one of the recommendations from the Senate Legal and Constitutional Affairs Committee was to hear from some of the traditional owners. In fact it said:

The committee recommends that as soon as possible the Minister for Resources Energy and Tourism undertake consultations with all parties with an interest in or who would be affected by a decision to select the Muckaty Station site as the location for the national radioactive waste facility.

My understanding is that the minister has ignored the recommendation from the Senate Legal and Constitutional Affairs Committee. I think that is disrespectful not just to this institution but to the many people of that community who have warmly invited the minister to visit them. I will quote from a letter sent to the minister as far back as 2009, from some of the traditional owners of the area. They said:

Try and make an effort to come down and talk to us. We want to invite you ... to come out here and come face to face with Traditional Owners.

… … …

We want to show you what we are talking about and why are we talking about it.

… … …

The old Warlmanpa people really want to see government people come out so we can talk face to face with them without writing letters, because we don't even know what Martin Ferguson looks like.

We want you to come face to face—you don't even know what we look like, we've only seen each other on TV or whatever, but we want to see each other face to fact where we can have a few questions to ask why you are not listening to the biggest forum of people.

… … …

As the Arlmanpa group, we want to tell you what the country means with the designs and with the paints we have on our body. We want to do the body painting to tell the story about the land ...

We want you to now that Traditional Owners are waiting to show you that the country means something to them.

In another letter to the minister, the traditional owners say:

We need our opposition to the nuclear waste dump to be understood and respected by Government and especially Minster Martin Ferguson.

All our tribes in Tennant Creek have been talking to each other and we will all get together to protest by doing traditional dance showing the design that represents the land Karakara in Muckaty Land Trust.

Our message is always: We don’t want the nuclear waste dump anywhere in the Muckaty Land Trust.

These are our concerns:

* We told the government that Karakara is sacred land.

* Only Men talk about the land. No women talk for Karakara in the Muckaty Land Trust.

* The site for the proposed nuclear waste dump is in an earthquake tremor zone. What if an earthquake opens the nuclear waste storage and radioactive waste falls into our groundwater basin? We don't get our water from the city, town or from the coast. It comes from right below us.

The Warlmanpa elders always said that the Karakara is not Milwayi country. Milwayi is a snake dreaming travelling through Karakara and Muckaty Land Trust to Helen Springs. Milwayi is the totem for the ancestors' ground. Is the government going to regret everything later when a disaster happens like what is happening in Japan right now?

The government should rethink about the whole nuclear cycle and leave our traditional cultural, spiritual homeland alone.

That is just one of the letters that has been received that the government, and the Minister for Resources and Energy in particular, needs to take heed of. The minister needs to have the courage to face these people and hear from them directly. My question is: has the minister visited the Muckaty site and spoken with the traditional owners of that area, as the committee recommended in 2010 and as he has been invited to do on numerous occasions?

Senator CROSSIN (Northern Territory) (12:30): I know Senator Di Natale has a question before the minister, which I am sure he will answer in a moment. I appreciate the fact, Senator, that you have lived and worked in Tennant Creek and I certainly welcome the fact that you do come into this chamber with knowledge of that community and of the Northern Territory. That is a very welcome contribution here.

I want people in this chamber to understand clearly that we have two things happening. The National Radioactive Waste Management Bill before us is a vast improvement on the legislation that was put through this parliament under the coalition government. That is because it will take off the list the three defence sites that had been previously nominated. I urge, and have urged, this parliament to consider this legislation. One of those sites in Katherine borders Barry Utley's pastoral property—his wife Val unfortunately passed away during the 2007 election campaign—and he needs that list amended. He needs to be assured that this site will not be built anywhere near the defence site at Fishers Ridge in Katherine. We must give this man some ability to move on with his life. That defence site was posted on a list somewhere years ago. I am urging the Senate to start looking at that.

In the legislation there is the capacity for the minister to do just what you want, Senator Di Natale—that is, to consult with the communities concerned. This legislation will enable the minister, the department and ANSTO to get out into the community to start talking and educating people about what this facility is about. They need this legislation in order give them the ability to speak authoritatively. Plenty of people have spoken to people in that community about what the waste dump or the facility means—whatever we want to call it these days—but we need this legislation to provide the officials from ANSTO and ARPANSA with some authority to go into those communities to talk about what exactly is going to be stored and how it is going to be stored.

Alongside this, we have a group of Indigenous people in the Northern Territory who, through the Northern Land Council, have volunteered to have this facility built on their land. Am I happy about that? As a Territorian, probably not. This facility must be built somewhere and we have had Indigenous people put their hands up to say, 'Well, we'll host it on our land.' Senator Di Natale is trying to say that this chamber should decide whether or not that was the right decision. It is not for this chamber to do that. I understand that the position of the Greens is probably that they do not want this facility built anywhere in this country and they would like to delay this legislation as long as possible. But this chamber has to respect the fact that we do have Indigenous people who have volunteered their land—Senator Di Natale talked about Milwayi, the Karakara people and the people of Tennant Creek—the community of Tennant Creek is not happy about this—and that this is now being tested in a court of law and the minister has said he will respect the outcomes of that court case. This legislation can still go through this parliament while that court case is proceeding. The outcome of the court case will depend on which section of this legislation is triggered and put into action first.

I think you are suggesting that we do not want to respect the right of Indigenous people to offer their land up. That is exactly what has happened here. Indigenous people volunteer their land all the time—to have railway tracks go through it, to have roads go through it, to have gas pipelines go through it, to have uranium or bauxite or iron ore mines on their land at each and every stage. Sometimes those decisions are not popular, but if it is a decision that those Indigenous people and those traditional owners have made, we have always in this country respected their right to do that. In fact, we have legislation in the Northern Territory—that is, the Northern Territory land rights act—whereby we fund and auspice the four Northern Territory land councils to facilitate that process. If that process is challenged, as it was in the case of the Kenbi land claim, it goes to court. There are winners and there are losers. The Greens have to accept that in this case there may well be an outcome for the Northern Land Council and the people who have volunteered their land in this court case.

It may well be the outcome that the challenge to their decision and their right to nominate this land is not successful. And then what do we do? Do we then consider legislation? The minister has set up this legislation so that at least three defence sites are taken off the list. There is a process here to determine how the site will be dealt with and managed. You talk about it being in an earthquake zone. I see no evidence of that. In fact, I see it is outside the sphere of tremor activity. Nevertheless, I am not an expert in that and I suspect that neither are you or anyone else in the Greens.

This site, if it proceeds, will be subject, I would imagine, to a very rigorous environmental protection assessment. I do not think for one minute that ANSTO or ARPANSA would agree to regulate a facility if they were not absolutely convinced that it would last for many hundreds of years. I have faith in those scientists and in those organisations.

I think what is happening here today is that people are frustrated that Indigenous people have actually nominated their land and their site, so those people are going to do everything they can to try and delay and frustrate the process. But at the same time we have legislation to move this debate forward. If the court case is not successful, this legislation at least provides this government with a range of other options and with a means of moving forward. It also provides this government and the officials concerned in ARPANSA, ANSTO and the department with legislative protection and the means to get into the community and consult.

I have been in the Territory as you have, and there are all sorts of stories about what may or may not happen as a result of this facility being built. Similarly, I heard all sorts of stories about what might or might not happen when bauxite was mined on the Gove Peninsula. We hear all those kinds of rumours. Sometimes they come to fruition; sometimes there is damage to the environment; and sometimes we have to wait and see and have faith in the processes that are in place.

I understand the frustration about what is happening, but there are two processes running side by side. Our job today is to make sure that we get through this parliament a good legislative base to move forward with where we are going to put the radioactive waste we have generated in this country. The preferred option is at Muckaty. Why is that? It is not because this government went into the Northern Territory and fingered the people at Muckaty. This government said that they would abide by the nomination of that land, which was given through the Northern Land Council many years ago—before we got into government. We have also now said on the public record that the nomination is being challenged and that as a government we will wait until the outcome of the court case. I think that is a very fair and reasonable position to take.

In the meantime, we need to get this legislation through. There is a person in Katherine who is waiting to deal with his property, and he is hamstrung because it is beside a defence site that has been named as a possible place for this facility. Under this legislation, the list is gone; that is a good thing. We know that under this legislation there is a judicial review of the minister's decision. We know that under this legislation the minister can send a team in to consult with and educate people about what waste would be stored and how it would be stored. I think they are three very good reasons to move the debate in this country forward and to start to deal with this.

Senator CHRIS EVANS (Western Australia—Minister for Tertiary Education, Skills, Science and Research and Leader of the Government in the Senate) (12:40): Senator Di Natale, I was a bit loath to respond, and I think Senator Crossin did a much better job than I would have. I suspect you got most of your answer from Senator Crossin.

I understand the question about Mr Martin Ferguson's meeting. I gather that he has met with some traditional owners—with the Northern Land Council. The position is that under this legislation the procedural fairness aspects will allow for all those things which you are interested in and which have been articulated by Senator Crossin. There is a great deal of security to ensure that procedural fairness. As Senator Crossin noted, the minister has made it very clear that he will accept the outcome of the court case before proceeding. I am told that the site is 120 kilometres from Tennant Creek. Is that right, Senator Crossin?

Senator CROSSIN (Northern Territory) (12:41): Probably a bit further than that.

Senator CHRIS EVANS (Western Australia—Minister for Tertiary Education, Skills, Science and Research and Leader of the Government in the Senate) (12:41): I want to put that on the record—it is a bit more than 120 kilometres. I think Senator Crossin has probably answered most of the other concerns you raised, Senator Di Natale, but I am happy to respond further.

Senator DI NATALE (Victoria) (12:42): I suppose that, in Territory terms, 120 kilometres is 'around the corner'. I appreciate Senator Crossin's comments and I appreciate the fact that she has acknowledged the widespread opposition to this site. My own view is that sometimes a small group of desperate people will do desperate things, but that in and of itself is not a justification to push ahead with this sort of proposal. The fact that one person is concerned about the prospect of a facility being built next to them is certainly not a justification for imposing this on the traditional owners.

I will correct one thing that Senator Crossin said. I do not think anyone mentioned volcanoes. I certainly did not put forward the proposition that the earthquake zone was a reason not to build at that site. That was the view of a traditional owner; it was not my view. I think it is incumbent on the minister to ensure that he is able to assuage the concerns of the traditional owners. It is important that he carry through with the recommendations from the Senate committee and that he talk to the traditional owners who have concerns.

The main thing I want to respond to in Senator Crossin's comments is the notion that this thing has to be built and that that is essentially the crux of the matter. Senator Crossin's words were, 'We have to build this thing.' One of the arguments put forward to ensure that we have this facility built is that somehow we need it because, without it, Australia's nuclear medicine industry is in some trouble. We heard from the minister that 500,000 patients annually benefit from radioisotopes. In the typical divide-and-conquer approach, he says that anybody who opposes it is seeking to deny people diagnoses and treatment. As somebody who spent a number of years working in the health profession, I have to say it is pretty offensive to hear from the minister that by opposing the site of this facility you are in fact denying people access to important diagnostic medicine. Nothing could be further from the truth, and I am not the only health professional to reject this idea. It serves nobody's interests to try to advance the proposition that you either support this facility or you reject the use of radioisotopes in medicine. It is not a simple and straightforward proposition; the truth is much more complex than that, and I am not the only doctor who rejects that simple dichotomy. In fact, it is incredibly misleading to claim that a large-scale nuclear waste repository such as this one is necessary to handle the minuscule amount of nuclear medicine generated in Australia. It is a tiny amount. It makes up a very small proportion of the waste that will be located in this facility. Of the 500,000 nuclear medicine cases performed every year in this country, most of the isotopes that are used degrade very quickly—within a few days. In fact they are degraded by the time they would be taken to the Northern Territory, and the waste is disposed of pretty safely. There are secure sites in hospitals right around the country, and those storage areas are going to continue regardless of whether this facility goes ahead. So this idea that somehow we need this site in order to continue to have a nuclear medicine industry in this country is just misleading. The fact is that ANSTO would continue to store the waste at Lucas Heights, where Australia's nuclear expertise already exists.

This is a position that is shared by a number of other health professionals. The Public Health Association of Australia, for example, shares this view, as does the Medical Association for Prevention of War and a number of eminent specialist members of that association. The AMA, which is hardly a bastion of bleeding-heart activism, has called for an inquiry into how we source our radioisotopes in the future. There are widespread questions around this notion that we need this to enable our nuclear medicines industry to continue.

Internationally, we know the experience is heading down a very different route to the one proposed here. Canada has made a decision recently to shift towards particle accelerator generation, for example, for all major medical radioisotopes. Right around the world this is happening. Belgium, Germany and other countries are all heading down a very different path to the one that we are pursuing.

I would be keen to know whether there has been any work done on quantifying the exact volume and nature of medical waste presently in storage—and of the expected volume in the future—as a justification for this proposed site.

Senator CHRIS EVANS (Western Australia—Minister for Tertiary Education, Skills, Science and Research and Leader of the Government in the Senate) (12:47): Again there is a lot in Senator Di Natale's contribution. Much of it goes to his arguments for why he opposes the bill. When I responded earlier I should have suggested that, in terms of protection for sustainable population, he should be careful in case his numbers are further affected. As I understand it, it is the waste from production of nuclear medicines that requires careful management. We have asserted that production of medical isotopes produces radioactive waste which requires suitable long-term management arrangements. We continue to assert that and we consider that the changes we are making are to implement best practice and to allow us to store the increasing amount of waste, including in our considerations the prospect of the waste being returned from France and the UK, which is a Commonwealth responsibility.

In an answer to an earlier question from Senator Ludlam—the answer was one of the written answers I gave him—I said that we cannot be definitive about which of the current sites will transfer their waste to the new facility. Obviously the Commonwealth will be looking to do that, but the states have responsibilities for their own waste and who takes advantage of it. From where and how much will be decisions for those responsible, but we do think that legacy waste inventories will be relocated.

I know that the Greens are opposed to this bill and are continuing to argue their case. That is fine, but fundamentally we disagree. We think the waste management facility is needed. We do think there are strong arguments for it to be established. The issue has remained unresolved for many years. I know that you argue that it is safer and better to continue to store the waste in a range of more than 100 facilities around Australia. That is your position; I fundamentally disagree. We think that the increasing inventory of waste to be returned from France and the UK builds the case for having a dedicated radioactive waste management facility built in and supervised in accordance with world's best practice. That is a fundamental disagreement we have, and I am not sure I can address that any further in the sense that you have your view about that and we have our view about that, and it seems we are not changing your opinion. I do not know whether the Greens' tactics are to continually delay the bill or not, but I think it would be useful if we moved on to debating the Greens amendments. That would give some structure to the debate. I am happy to answer any questions you have in the best way I can, but fundamentally my answer does not change in terms of our view about the need for that waste management facility.

Senator LUDLAM (Western Australia) (12:51): I will shortly move to the first amendment we propose—an amendment to the objects clause of the bill. But first I note that before we rose the last time we were debating this bill, that I put a number of questions to you, Minister, and that you have provided answers to nearly all of them. I put a question to you, which the advisers might be able to help you out with now, around the absolute quantitative volumes of material in different categories. I also put the question to officers at an estimates hearing the week before last and you said, 'I'm not going to let the officer answer that because you have taken it on notice in the chamber.' That does not appear to have come back in the documents you provided this afternoon. Can I get a reading, please, on whether that material will be provided?

Senator CHRIS EVANS (Western Australia—Minister for Tertiary Education, Skills, Science and Research and Leader of the Government in the Senate) (12:52): I do accept what Senator Ludlam said. I think it was partly covered off in the response. I will double check whether the Fourth National Report for the Joint Convention on the Safety of Spent Fuel Managementand on theSafety of Radioactive Waste Management—a sexy little title, I must admit—contains that information. I understand that report actually contains an inventory. I am advised that is correct. Apparently it is on the department's website. Senator Ludlam. I will see if I can get a copy for you. That would be the easiest thing. I am advised that the inventory is described in that report.

Senator MADIGAN (Victoria) (12:53): Whilst I agree in principle with having a central location, my concerns with the bill relate to ARPANSA. I have had many people from Victoria come to me in my office and I have had many calls from across Australia regarding ARPANSA's accountability for and policing of mobile phone towers, EMR and other issues. I would be very keen to hear where the checks and balances are, that the accountability, policing and security of the facility will be handled properly and that we in the parliament can be assured that people's health et cetera will be covered. Some people have expressed to me a concern that when they express their concern to ARPANSA they are somewhat flippant. As I said, as much as I am concerned, in principle I am in support of the bill but want to be sure that the safeguards are in place to protect people. One of the Greens senators mentioned that there are facilities. I do not want to see a situation where we have short-term gain and long-term pain or question marks through the community. If something does go wrong or if there are concerns, I would like to see that they are addressed with the full weight of government behind them.

Senator CHRIS EVANS (Western Australia—Minister for Tertiary Education, Skills, Science and Research and Leader of the Government in the Senate) (12:56): In response to Senator Madigan, the simple answer is that ARPANSA has statutory responsibilities under its act for these regulations and safety matters. It is for this parliament to give ARPANSA its function and role in the regulation of these issues. We also seek to have world's best practice in our regulatory framework. I cannot do much more than answer by saying that those statutory obligations are set by us the parliament for ARPANSA to follow.

If Senator Madigan has serious concerns about ARPANSA's operation, then I am happy for him to put those to the government and to follow those up. Opportunities at estimates could be pursued as well. But they have a statutory responsibility to regulate the issues that you raise. I have confidence that they continue to take that responsibility very seriously. But, as I say, if there are issues that the senator has with the way they are operating or how they are dealing with complaints, I am sure we would be happy to take those on board.

Senator LUDLAM (Western Australia) (12:57): The Minister for Tertiary Education, Skills, Science and Research mentioned on a number of occasions the concept of 'world's best practice', and I am going to take the bait because it is always interesting when that phrase gets flung around. I would like to follow up on a question I am not sure the minister gave an answer to put to him by Senator Di Natale. Since the Minister for Resources and Energy became the minister, has he at any time visited Tennant Creek to talk these issues through not just with the traditional owners who brought the action in the Federal Court or the larger circle of families around them but also with the Cattlemen's Association, local government or the rest of the residents of the town? Has he been there at all?

Senator CHRIS EVANS (Western Australia—Minister for Tertiary Education, Skills, Science and Research and Leader of the Government in the Senate) (12:58): I will take that on notice. I am not sure that the Minister for Resources and Energy has, his advisers tell me. He has met with some of the traditional owners identified by the land council. The whole bill is about setting up those procedures for consultation and engagement with those responsible for any volunteered site. I am sure he has been at Tennant Creek at some time in his career, but my advice at the moment is that he has not been in Tennant Creek engaging on this issue as part of this process. As I say, he has given the indication very strongly that once the bill is passed, if it is passed, those appropriate procedures that are contained in the act will be implemented.

Senator LUDLAM (Western Australia) (12:59): I suspect the minister will not need to rise to correct the record, because I believe he is quite correct—he has been advised correctly, despite the first recommendation of the Legal and Constitutional Affairs Committee's report which Senator Crossin, who made a contribution earlier, made, which was to go and talk to the people. It is good to know that he has met with the people in Darwin who agree with him. He has not met with anybody in Tennant Creek and he has never been there, to my knowledge, in his capacity as the minister and has not even had the spine to turn up and tell people what it is that he is proposing that they host. It is not much help to us or those people to say that once this bill is through he will then get up and consult.

What this bill does—and I will constrain my remarks now because we will go into this in a bit of detail when we are proposing amendments to fix these grievous flaws in the bill—is give him absolute, total, unfettered discretion to decide where the process will unfold. He is going to nail a pin in a map at Muckaty, once he has worked out exactly where on the map it is, and the bill that we are debating today gives him total and unfettered discretion to make that site the location. So much for consultation. People will be consulted—or insulted—once the decision on the location has been made. We will get into this in a bit of detail, but I did want to pull the minister up on his repeated use of the term 'world's best practice'.

I want to talk about recent experience in the United States, in particular the US blue ribbon panel. My question is whether or not the government has examined its findings. On 26 January, after working for two years, President Obama's Blue Ribbon Commission on America's Nuclear Future issued its report. Keep in mind that the United States government and Department of Energy are dealing with a vastly larger stockpile of high-level radioactive waste, categories of waste that we do not technically produce here in Australia. It is not just from research reactors, obviously, but from a fleet of nuclear power stations that are in the low hundreds. They have a very keen interest in resolving this issue and they have had the same disastrous experience but on a much larger scale as the Australian government has in attempting to coercively dump this material, in their instance on native American land.

The commission that I am referring to was established by President Obama to create safe and long-term solutions for managing and disposing of the United States' nuclear waste inventory. The panel was tasked with devising a new strategy for managing the growing inventory of nuclear waste and it made recommendations based on consulting with experts, stakeholders and visiting nuclear waste management facilities in the US and overseas. It was co-chaired by former congressman Lee Hamilton and a former national security adviser, Brent Scowcroft. The report noted that President Obama had halted the disastrous Yukka Mountain proposal, which was projected to cost US$90 billion—billion with a 'b'—and had already absorbed $12 billion just in studies and in engineering tests and so on by the time it was finally cancelled by President Obama.

Anybody watching that project would probably have seen that coming for a decade or so, because that project was plagued with problems and scandals from the very beginning. I think we can take that as something of an impasse about nuclear waste management in the United States. To break that impasse, the President proposed the blue ribbon commission. He said at the time that there was an urgent need for a new strategy, and he pointed out that ethical obligations do not burden future generations with a task—in other words, it is not good enough to just kick the can down the road, dump this material off on somebody's land and hope for the best.

The strategy that the commission outlined has three crucial elements. The first is vitally important and it is precisely the fatally flawed scheme that we are debating today and which Minister Martin Ferguson, the Prime Minister—I believe she still is—Julia Gillard and the Howard government cooked up, presumably with many of the same senior bureaucrats who still occupy these positions today. Firstly, the commission recommends a consent based approach to siting future nuclear waste storage and disposal facilities, noting that trying to force such facilities on unwilling states, tribes and communities has not worked. In the instance of the US, it was in Nevada. I will quote from the report briefly:

This Subcommittee recommendation flows directly from an examination of the history of waste-management efforts in the United States and other countries. We drew several lessons from the decades-long effort to site a repository at Yucca Mountain in Nevada and from the ultimately successful completion of the Waste Isolation Pilot Plant (WIPP) facility in New Mexico. One lesson is that support for a facility (or at least acceptance)—both in directly affected communities and on the part of the host state—is a critical element of success. A second is that transparency and accountability, along with the flexibility to adapt to new information and to the concerns of key constituencies, are essential to sustain public trust in decision-making processes and institutions. We believe that a good gauge of consent would be the willingness of the host state (and other affected units of government, as appropriate) to enter into legally binding agreements with the facility operator, where these agreements enable states, tribes, or communities to have confidence that they can protect the interests of their citizens.

The panel went on to say:

The approach to repository development laid out under the Nuclear Waste Policy Act Amendments of 1987 was highly prescriptive, subject to inflexible deadlines, and—as actually implemented—widely viewed as being driven too heavily by political considerations—

this all sounds terribly familiar, doesn't it?—

(as compared to independent technical and scientific judgments). By contrast, other countries—notably Canada, Finland, France, and Sweden—

Australia is missing from that list, Minister; that is interesting, isn't it?—

have adopted a phased, adaptive, and consent-based approach to facility siting and development. Finland and Sweden, in particular, have each successfully sited a deep geologic repository with the support of the host community.

Neither of those two facilities is currently operating on a large scale. All of this around the world is still operating on a trial scale, but at least what they attempted in those jurisdictions was an adaptive and consent based approach.

The panel went on to say:

The roles, responsibilities, and authorities of local, state, and tribal governments (with respect to facility siting and other aspects of nuclear waste disposal) must be an element of the negotiation between the federal government and the other affected units of government in establishing a disposal facility.

There is another question for us: we, for obvious reasons, have focused our efforts and energies on supporting the Aboriginal communities in the area who do not really have the resources to make their voices heard—although they have done an exceptional job of doing so—perhaps to the neglect of the local government authority in that area, which is implacably opposed, and, of course, the Territory government, which opposes this as well.

The panel went on to say:

… all affected levels of government (local, state, tribal, etc.) must have, at a minimum, a meaningful consultative role in all other important decisions.

That is totally absent here in Australia.

… additionally, states and tribes should retain—or where appropriate, be delegated—direct authority over aspects of regulation, permitting, and operations where oversight below the federal level can be exercised effectively and in a way that is helpful in protecting the interests and gaining the confidence of affected communities and citizens.

Senator Scullion has joined us this afternoon in the chamber, and he has been involved in this debate for at least as long as I have—probably longer. Senator Scullion, that was your job: to do what they are trying to do in the United States and to make sure that the Territory government and the local government authority has a voice. That has not been done, and so it has turned out to be up to people from Western Australia and all over the rest of the country to stand up and make the obvious point that the Territory government opposes this thing. The Territory Chief Minister, I think, has done a very effective job in advocating for the rights of Territorians where their advocates in here on both sides from the old parties have gone missing in action.

The blue ribbon panel in the United States goes on to say:

… to engage in meaningful consultation on matters related to nuclear waste storage, transport, and disposal, and to exercise their proper regulatory roles and responsibilities in this context, local, state, and tribal governments need access to sound, independent scientific and technical expertise.

We certainly have not seen anything remotely approaching that here in Australia. Perhaps the minister will stand up in a moment and tell us that, once this bill has been rammed through and the minister has total and unfettered power to put this thing wherever he likes, maybe the consultation will happen then. We recognise that once the minister has nailed a particular spot into the map—we know that at the moment it is Muckaty—a whole heap of processes unfold. I have spent a great deal of time quizzing ARPANSA in budget estimates hearings, and also the department of the environment, on exactly what their processes will look like under EPBC and under the ARPANS Act. So I am not suggesting that all due process has been blown away by this bill in terms of assessment, because that is not the case; this is the beginning of a very long road, not the end of it. But in terms of site location—the key decision about where this thing is going to go, where all this process will unfold, who will be consulted with and so on—that decision is made by the minister, if he chooses, alone in a room by himself, to just stick an X on a map. That is what is completely inappropriate, and that degree of discretion, in my view, is inordinately dangerous. You would not site a shopping centre car park using processes like this, yet we are proposing to site the nation's first high-level and intermediate-level radioactive waste dump using precisely that process. It is a disgrace.

The panel goes on to say:

The UK government reinitiated its waste management program relatively recently—in 2001.

Again, in the UK there is a large inventory of high-level radioactive waste from a nuclear program designed in the 1950s and 1960s with no clue about how to deal with the waste products generated. It sounds familiar because that is exactly what happened here in Australia. Isn't it extraordinary? In 2012 we are debating what on earth to do and where to put the waste materials from a reactor that was started up in the fifties under the Menzies government. They did not come up with a plan for the waste, just as they did not in the United States or the UK. The panel say:

Engagement and consultation with the public as well as commitment to an open and transparent approach since the very beginning of the process played a significant role and to date three communities in northwestern England (Cumbria CC, Copeland BC and Allerdale BC) have expressed their interest in being involved in the site selection process.

So they have expressed interest in being involved, not put their hands up and then had this predatory government adopt the same processes that had been adopted by the Howard government to nail them to the wall in exchange for a cheque for 12 million bucks and improvements to a road.

This is the blue ribbon panel again:

Perhaps even more important, states and affected communities—in order to gain trust and confidence in the decisions taken by the waste management organization—must be empowered to meaningfully participate in the decision-making process.

No sign of that here. The minister just told us the affected community has not even had the grace of a visit from the minister in the three or four years that he has had carriage of this bill.

This means being in a position to evaluate options and provide substantive input on technical and operational matters of direct relevance to their concerns and interests.

…   …   …

In sum, the Subcommittee believes that a new U.S. waste management organization should adopt the Swedish practice and set aside funding for participation by citizens, citizen groups, and other NGOs.

I will go into a little bit more detail about how we see that this could be applied in an Australian context when we get to those amendments a little way down the track, because we have had a go at it. I am very happy to hear from Senator Scullion, from the minister and from other crossbenchers about how to improve those amendments. We have at least made an attempt to come up with an alternative framework for dealing with waste of this kind, rather than the bipartisan ram-raid that we are witnessing this afternoon. The blue ribbon committee say:

The availability of funding should be widely announced and reasonable criteria should be established against which to evaluate applications for financial support.

So it is not a free-for-all.

Trust, in fact, is often the core issue whenever different parties are involved in a complex adjudicatory process—and it can be especially difficult to sustain when much of the power or control is viewed as being concentrated on one side.

Doesn't this sound familiar? They are grappling with exactly the same issues of administration, politics, power and dealing with a waste product that nobody wants.

I would call Senator Scullion on this one to join the crossbenchers and not simply suck it up. We can do a lot better than what we are getting. The Territory can do a lot better and it deserves better. It is interesting to speculate on whether this would be going on if the Territory were a state, because the constitutional vulnerability of the Northern Territory is one factor—I recognise that it is obviously not the only thing, because there are many, but that is one factor—guiding the government's hand in this. They got kicked out of South Australia and they saw how strongly Western Australians arced up when the Pangaea Consortium from Switzerland turned up in 1999, and so they have attacked a constitutionally vulnerable Territory. Bring on statehood.

The blue ribbon commission goes on:

Second, the commission recommends that the responsibility for the nation’s nuclear waste management program be transferred to a new organization—one that is independent of the Department of Energy and dedicated solely to ensuring the safe storage and ultimate disposal of spent nuclear waste fuel and high-level radioactive waste.

This is not about the gloves. This is not about the medical waste. This is not about the short-lived isotopes that will only be killing you in 200 years or so. This is about material that will still kill you after the next ice age.

Third, the commission recommends changing the manner in which fees being paid into the Nuclear Waste Fund—about $750 million a year—are treated in the federal budget to ensure they are being set aside and available for use as Congress initially intended.

My question to the minister is: has the government reviewed this material? Are you aware of this subcommittee of this blue ribbon commission and this in-depth advice from our closest ally and special partner, which I think, as I have pointed out in some detail, has striking and quite creepy parallels to the process that we are engaged in here in Australia? My question to the minister is: has any of this information any resonance at all within the Australian government?

Senator CHRIS EVANS (Western Australia—Minister for Tertiary Education, Skills, Science and Research and Leader of the Government in the Senate) (13:14): Thank you, Senator Ludlam; I will not have to spend my time reading the report now, given that you have read large chunks of it to me. But I am advised that, yes, we are very much aware of the blue ribbon commission process, and we understand that the United States is grappling with some similar issues to us. Equally, it is true to say that they are addressing the question of disposing of high-level waste in the United States and, of course, we are dealing with the management of low- and intermediate-level waste, so there are obvious differences in addition to the different legal and societal contexts. But I think it is fair to say that much of what you refer to reflects the same sort of approach we are taking here, which is a volunteerism approach. The report talked about encouraging communities to volunteer to be considered as part of its recommendations as well and, as I say, that is consistent with the sort of view we are taking here. I do not necessarily agree with the way you seek to use the commission report as though it somehow undermines the appropriateness of what we are seeking to do here. I think it is broadly consistent. As I say, that is to try to get communities to volunteer and to work with them to bring all that to a successful conclusion.

If this is a ram raid, it is the slowest ram raid in the history of the nation; the bill has been with us since February 2010. I know you are used to the deliberative processes of the Senate, but I would not describe this as a ram raid. If this were a ram raid, certainly the culprits would have been caught long before they left the scene of the crime. One might suggest that the Greens might be pursuing a policy of trying to prevent the bill coming to a head and that they might be contributing to this, given the leisurely way we are approaching this legislation today and the way we approached it earlier. It is very clear what the position of the Greens is, and that is a perfectly appropriate decision for them to take. I think there is support around the Senate for the approach contained in this bill, and we would do well to get on and use our time wisely to debate it.

I have obtained a copy of the UN Joint Convention on the Safety of Spent Fuel Management and on the Safety of Radioactive Waste Management, dated 14 October 2011, which contains an inventory of the waste currently held in Australia.

Although publicly available, I table the report as it has the most recent calculations.

Senator LUDLAM (Western Australia) (13:17): I appreciate the fact that the minister has sorted that out and I look forward to getting a copy of it. I ask you to take on notice and put to your advisers, since they are here, the question that I was seeking specifically, given that the figures are up to date as of last October: what is the proportion of long-lived, intermediate-level waste, the spent fuel that is residing at the moment at Lucas Heights, compared with the amount that is due to come back from Europe, from reprocessing? My under­standing is that the proportion is approximately 15 or 16 to one. I am seeking advice on that, because it is going to be difficult for me to establish that while we are in the middle of the debate, unless the minister would care to adjourn the debate. If the advisers can just tell us whether that apprehension is correct or not and, if not, give us the appropriate numbers, that would be useful. I am not interested in the low-level material in this context; I am interested in information relative to what is being brought back from Europe—how much we have had sitting out the back of Lucas Heights for the last however long, decades or so.

Before I move to the Greens first amendment, I will take the minister up on one last thing he said in his response to my comments before—that in the United States they are dealing with high-level waste, whereas here in Australia we do not produce such material. That is something of a trick of definition. Australia is the only jurisdiction that actually adopted a classification of long-lived, intermediate-level waste. That is a classification that exists only in Australia. The Australian government did not want to say that we produced high-level waste; we produced other stuff called long-lived, intermediate-level waste. We obviously do not have commercial power reactors 10 or 100 times the size of the research reactor pumping out spent fuel, so it is not a question of quantity; it is a question about what the stuff is. It is spent fuel. It is fuel that has been burned in a fission reactor and then set aside because it is full of contaminants and is too hot to continue to be fissioned. It is spent fuel, so let us not pretend that we are producing some kind of benign material whereas in other jurisdictions they are producing other stuff. I will leave it there. My understanding is that the difference between the two categorisations that were invented for the purpose of diplomacy or convenience here in Australia is that long-lived, intermediate level waste, after it has been set aside for a while, does not require thermal shielding. It is not necessarily going to boil its way out of whatever you put it in as a high-level spent fuel will, but nonetheless it still requires active shielding from the environment and from all living beings until effectively the end of time. That is the material we are dealing with. Obviously, they are vastly smaller quantities than that of countries which, to their profound and internal regret, have a nuclear power industry, and I do commend the government for maintaining its position that there is no point whatsoever in entertaining such an industry here.

I will probably come back and ask a couple of general questions about the bill, but I acknowledge the minister's point that it might provide more structure to the debate if we begin moving through the amendments. I move Greens amendment (1) on sheet 7037:

(1)   Clause 3, page 2 (lines 4 to 12), omit the clause, substitute:

3 Objects of Act

      The objects of this Act are:

   (a)   to provide for the selection of a site for a radioactive waste management facility on voluntarily nominated land in Australia; and

   (b)   to ensure that the site selected is the most suitable site on the Australian continent for radioactive waste storage and management taking into account environmental considerations, geology, geography, hydrology, seismology, infrastructure and cultural heritage values; and

   (c)   to provide for the establishment and operation of such a facility on the selected site; and

   (d)   to ensure that parties with waste management responsibility take appropriate steps to ensure that, at all stages of radioactive waste management, individuals, society and the environment are adequately protected against radiological and other hazards;

so that radioactive waste generated, possessed or controlled by the Commonwealth or a Commonwealth entity is safely and securely managed.

[objects clause]

This amendment goes to the objects clause of the bill. From the objects clause flow the intent and purposes of the bill. An objects clause is commonly included in legislation to guide decision makers in the event of statutory ambiguity and to assist courts and tribunals in the same situation if there is a problem of statutory ambiguity. That evidence was provided by ANU lecturer Dr James Prest.

The Greens welcome the report of the Senate Legal and Constitutional Affairs on this bill calling for an objects clause to be inserted. So we have created the first objects clauses to emphasise the need for responsibility and for action to be taken to ensure that individuals, society and the environment are adequately protected against radiological and other hazards. This would apply whether the dump turns out to be a shed out the back of Tennant Creek with two security guards looking after it or if it ends up remaining, at least for a period of time, where it is. So when the material returns from overseas it is my understanding—and this was confirmed for us the week before last in estimates—that that material will at least be temporarily stored at a location in Sydney. Nonetheless, wherever it is, whether it is the people of Tennant Creek or the Barkly region or residents in Sutherland Shire that we are protecting, this should apply, and I will explain why we believe that that is important.

Radiological hazards are real. Ionising radiation damages our DNA. It is not good for living creatures. It damages the genetic material in all living cells. The nuclear age has introduced materials that emit radiation in forms that become airborne and are breathed in or find their way into the water table and the gene pool, entirely unlike naturally occurring background radiation.

Nuclear reactors routinely release radiation as part of their normal operations. The facility in Sutherland Shire is no exception to that. For a long while—and perhaps the minister can tell us whether it is still in force—there was an exclusion zone around the reactor in which people were not permitted to produce food. I believe that was listed a while ago. I have had people ask me whether breastmilk qualifies as food. The reason for that is that all reactor facilities, no matter how large or small, as part of their normal operations emit very small but detectable trace amounts of various kinds of radioisotopes—iodine and tritium in particular.

Nuclear waste stockpiles, obviously, are growing daily, and the minister has given us some detail this afternoon about that in an Australian context. Elsewhere they include tonnes of plutonium which remain toxic for 250,000 years.

The International Physicians for the Prevention of Nuclear War know about radiation and the health effects of radiation. IPPNW won the Nobel Peace Prize in 1985 for their efforts to galvanise medical professions to cross the Cold War divide against the nuclear madness of that time. It is the legacy that we are still attempting to clean up today.

The 200,000 IPPNW medical professions in 60 countries have a clear position on both nuclear weapons and nuclear energy: they oppose both because there is no safe level of radiation. This thoroughly considered position arises from medical expertise, scientific facts, concern for future generations and simple common sense. Radiation is uniquely hazardous, persistent and indiscriminate, damaging our most precious legacy: the core human blueprint stored in our DNA and passed down through our children to future generations.

The scientific community today understands in 2012 what it did not fully comprehend in 1945: that there is no level of radiation exposure below which we are at zero risk. Widely accepted scientific evidence tells us that not only is the health risk from radiation proportional to the dose—that is, the bigger the dose, the greater the risk—but also there is no level without risk. Even very low-level medical exposure such as chest X-rays—0.4 microsieverts per test—carry a quantifiable risk of harm such as cancer. The International Commission on Radiological Protection recommends that all radiation exposure be kept as low as achievable in deference to this evidence. For the public, on top of background radiation and any additional medical procedures, exposure should not exceed one millisievert per year.

A US National Academy of Science Biological Effects of Ionising Radiation report, the so-called BEIR or BEIR VII report, estimates that one millisievert of additional radiation is associated with an increased risk of solid cancers—that is, cancers other than leukaemia—of about one in 10,000; an increased risk of leukaemia of about one in every 100,000; and a one in 17,500 increased risk overall of dying from cancer.

But a crucial factor is that not everyone faces the same level of risk: for infants under one year of age, the radiation related cancer risk is three to four times higher than for adults, and female infants are twice as susceptible as male infants; females' overall risk of cancer related to radiation exposure is 40 per cent greater than for males; and foetuses in the womb are the most radiation sensitive of all. It is relatively easy to understand why that is, because cell division proceeding rapidly in children or in the womb is enormously vulnerable to showers of radiation whether that be from any of the sources that the nuclear industry is producing or even from medical X-rays during pregnancy.

The pioneering Oxford survey of childhood cancer found that X-rays of mothers involving doses to the foetus of 10 to 20 millisieverts resulted in a 40 per cent increase in the cancer rate amongst children up to age 15. In Germany a recent study of 25 years of the national childhood cancer register showed that even the normal operation of nuclear power plants is associated with more than doubling of the risk of leukaemia for children under five years old living within five kilometres of a nuclear plant. Isn't that extraordinary—the normal operation? We are not talking a Fukushima-scale meltdown which requires the evacuation of hundreds or thousands of square kilometres of area. The normal operation of nuclear power plants in a country with the technical and engineering expertise of Germany has a doubling of the risk of childhood leukaemia of kids under five who will get cancer because they live close to a nuclear power plant operating as normal and spewing trace quantities of tritium, iodine and various other fission products into the environment.

Increased risk in those studies in Germany were seen up to 50 kilometres away from the plant, depending on wind direction, localised weather factors and so on. This was much higher than expected. It was certainly much higher than the nuclear industry was happy to acknowledge. It highlights the particular vulnerability to radiation of children in and outside the womb for reasons that I have spoken about. Nuclear research reactors such as the one in Sydney do not escape this. It is simply the engineering reality.

Uranium mining of course emits radon gas, so radiation workers in the uranium mines in Australia are among the highest exposed radiation workers in any sector of the nuclear industry around the world. Radioactive waste, the kind of material we are discussing today, emits radiation. Our amendment seeks acknowledgment of that and an object to protect health and the environment from that harm.

Radiation health authorities use scientific modelling to calculate and set permissible limits for ionising radiation exposure. As our understanding has increased, the recommended exposure doses for both the public and for workers in the nuclear industry have steadily been reduced. If you look at a graph over the last century or so—or at least half a century, 60 or 70 years—of permitted radiation exposure for radiation workers in the industry and for the public, they decline exponentially. Every couple of decades we cut the dose threshold by more than half or by a factor of up to 10. In other words, what we were being told was safe a couple of decades ago was not safe at all, and that is why people have very little confidence in what the industry tells us today. Radiation health authorities use scientific modelling to calculate and set so-called permissible limits for ionising radiation exposure and, as our understanding has increased, these levels have been reduced. These are permissible limits not for the prevention of disease but for allowing and enabling the industry to operate. Levels once regarded as safe are now known to be associated with those risks. It is now acknowledged in the medical literature that there is no safe level of radiation at all. No additional dose can be absorbed by a human being, or another living creature, without a measurable increase in risk of a cancer of some form.

The releases of radiation from the nuclear age have contributed to cancer plague of the 20th century. I do not ask the minister to stand up and tell us what that death toll is because it is simply not known; the studies have not been done, and it is formidably difficult to separate what causes are leading to what responses. But we know that genetic impacts are also discussed less frequently than cancer. Altering the collective gene pool of the biosphere of not just our species but also the species with whom we share the planet is not an experiment that is reversible. Once this damage is done you cannot take it back. We know that radio nuclides with long half-lives are cumulatively being loaded into the environment and may result in ongoing impacts on health, as well as long-term damage to the gene pool.

I have a number of other comments to make, but first I seek the support of the chamber for the Australian Greens' amendment to simply embed the principle that there is no safe dose of radiation. I thought this facility would be controversial, because I do not think anybody in this chamber comes in here thinking that radiation is good for us, despite what some of the lunatic fringe elements of the nuclear industry might like us to believe. I would imagine that all participants in this debate would support at least the basic principles behind the objects clause that we are proposing, which says that, though we might disagree on the means, the purpose of legislation like this is to prevent these exposures to surrounding communities, whether they be in Barkly, Sutherland or on the transport corridor—wherever it is that the government eventually decides to put this material onto trucks and take out to Tennant Creek, or wherever. I would expect that all of us in here should at least be united in seeking to reduce the risk and the exposure to the host communities.

I have a number of other comments, but I will let them go if there is support for the amendment. I commend this amendment to the chamber.

Senator CHRIS EVANS (Western Australia—Minister for Tertiary Education, Skills, Science and Research and Leader of the Government in the Senate) (13:32): I indicate on behalf of the government that there is not support from the government for the amendment. I am not sure that our attempt to deal with the amendments has led to that confining of debate, given Senator Ludlam's contribution, which was broad, but then I suppose his proposed amendments to the act are broad.

The Greens effectively claim that an object of this bill should be to select 'the most suitable site on the Australian continent'. My response to that is that this is not a best site argument; it is about a site based on volunteerism. Therefore, this amendment is opposite to the whole approach of the bill. The best site for a facility, if it exists, cannot be considered if it has not been volunteered. The establishment of a facility will take into account environmental considerations, geology, geography, hydrology, seismology, infrastructure and cultural heritage values, and these factors will be assessed under the Environmental Protection and Biodiversity Conservation Act and the Australian Radiation Protection and Nuclear Safety Act. All those safeguards are in place, but the whole structure of the act is to provide for a site being volunteered. The approach taken in the amendments proposed by Senator Ludlam on behalf of the Greens is contrary to the way the bill is structured.

It also implies that, currently, waste minimisation practices are not occurring. That is obviously not correct. Waste minimisation continues to be the objective of the Commonwealth regulator, ARPANSA, Commonwealth agencies such as ANSTO, and states and territories that produce radioactive waste as a result of their use of radioactive material. We think these amendments to the objects of the act ought not to be supported. We think the current objects of the bill makes it very clear what the act is about, that is:

the selection of a site for a radioactive waste management facility on voluntarily nominated land …

and—

the establishment and operation of such a facility on the selected site …

That is what the bill is about. That is what the act will be about. The current objects of the act are very clear, and this seems to be an attempt by the Greens to add in a range of things either that are already occurring or which would lead to a totally different approach to the selection of a site and, might I say, probably to ensure that no site was ever selected if the amendments were accepted.

Senator LUDLAM (Western Australia) (13:35): I was hoping that Senator Scullion might leap to his feet and offer last-minute, unexpected support of what, to me, reads like a plain English and very sensible amendment. For the Hansard record, Senator Scullion is shaking his head, which I think is an enormous shame.

Nothing that the minister has said has gone to the basic premise of why we think this amendment is a good idea. To contend with the concept that we should not be talking about waste minimisation because it is already happening, Minister, with the greatest respect, if that really were the approach of the Australian government we would not have built the second reactor; we would have phased out reactor based forms of producing medical radioisotopes and we would not be producing this material at all. That was the argument that many ran with in the debate at the time you were in opposition. In fact, the reactor that we have at the moment is a patched, leaking, poorly fabricated $600 million white elephant that we did not need. It has nothing to do with waste minimisation, because we are still producing more of it.

Ionising radiation causes damage to DNA. It causes damage to the genetic material in living cells. The amendments that we are proposing to this bill go directly to the idea that we should not be producing this material any more than we absolutely have to. It does not dodge the argument that we have 60 years worth of this material's legacy to deal with. Before I proceed, I thank the minister for the material he tabled a short while ago on the basis of the joint convention on the quantities of material. I will just test the minister to see whether the advisers who are with him today are able to provide me with a breakdown or tell me where I can find in this report the proportions of the material that we already host here, that is already banked at Lucas Heights, relative to the amount of long-lived intermediate material, or reprocessed material, that has been returned from Europe.

Senator CHRIS EVANS (Western Australia—Minister for Tertiary Education, Skills, Science and Research and Leader of the Government in the Senate) (13:37): I will not revisit the arguments that I put in opposing the amendment moved by Senator Ludlam in relation to the objectives of the act. I can take on notice the question he has asked regarding the proportion of waste being returned compared to that which is already stored at Lucas Heights. I am told that the answer may not be as simple as it sounds because there is an argument about the form in which the waste will be returned and the measurement of that. I am advised that the volume of long-lived intermediate level waste held at ANSTO is 427 cubic metres and that the volume of reprocessed waste to return from the UK and France in 2015-16 is 32 cubic metres. If that is not absolutely correct, I will correct the record. But that is the officers' best endeavours at the moment, on the run. I think we are reasonably confident in the advice but, if it is not correct, I will correct the record as soon as I can.

Senator LUDLAM (Western Australia) (13:39): I thank the advisers, who have obviously just been flicking through the report. That bears out the point I was making. The sense of urgency that the government has been proclaiming—not just this government, but also the previous one—the justification for needing to dump this stuff in a shed on a cattle station, is that we have got this vast amount of material coming back from overseas and we have nowhere to put it, that there is nowhere for it to go, and that that is the deadline. Successive ministers have been using the urgency of this material being returned from overseas as a pretext for the claim that we need to set up a shed in the outback at Muckaty or whatever given site has been targeted. I have not worked out exactly what the proportion is, but I will take the minister's advice that there is 427 cubic metres of this material already banked at Lucas Heights, already sitting there, and an additional 32 cubic metres of this very long-lived lethal material due to come back in reprocessed form from Europe. We already have well over 10 times that amount of stuff parked at Lucas Heights. So what is the urgency? Where on earth does that come from? Could ministers stop using that as a pretext.

We heard again from the advisers, and from the officers who appeared at budget estimates the week before last, that this material, when it does come back, will be parked at Lucas Heights. It has been in the budget for at least two budget cycles that I am aware of. Preliminary studies have been done. ARPANSA consider their guidelines to be appropriate whether it is a remote site or a site at Lucas Heights. So that justification has evaporated. And it was actually never there in the first place because the same people spinning us that line knew very well that the material that was coming back from Europe was not going to be an enormous burden that was going to overwhelm our abilities, our management structures or our capacity at Lucas Heights to look after it. That was simply not true. I thank the minister for providing that information and for the fact that it is reasonably up to date. I trust that, if there are any amendments or significant changes to that, you will let the chamber know. I was not after a specific quantity down to the last kilogram, but you have given us the order of magnitude and that is appreciated.

We live in a naturally radioactive environment. The sun, and uranium locked up in granites, produces background radiation. But human activities from 1945 onwards have increased our exposure to ionising radiation, and entirely different isotopes and transuranic materials have been created that are vastly different from background radiation. So you cannot say that people who have been exposed to plutonium downwind of weapons tests are suffering from something that is just like background radiation only more of it. Plutonium did not exist on planet Earth, apart from in absolutely trace quantities, until we began producing it in uranium reactors for weapons. These isotopes are different from background radiation. They come in various forms that can become airborne and be breathed in, or find their way into the water table and gene pool, which is entirely unlike background radiation.

For example, miners are exposed to radon in Australian uranium mines. They say that radon can come from very slow uranium decay in granites, which will sometimes build up in basements and so on, and therefore it is okay for workers to be exposed to elevated levels of radon because it is somehow natural. But if you grind up a uranium deposit, turn it into something as fine as talcum powder, disperse it across a mine site into a uranium mill, and the workforce breathe it in, they are getting quantitatively and qualitatively different levels of exposure. Because radon is an alpha emitter, it is going to be repelled or will not actually expose the worker to dangerous levels if it is coming from outside. Alpha radiation dissipates across a very short distance and can be stopped by skin or by the paper suits that people wear and so on. If you get that material inside you, if you pulverise that uranium deposit and convert it into a very fine powder, you have got a very serious problem because the material is resident in your lungs. Each link in the nuclear fuel chain releases radiation, beginning with drilling for uranium. To protect future generations from being damaged by it, we must stop creating more radiation and phase out the sources. We must also responsibly contain radiation from the environment.

Instead of truthful data about radiation, over the decades we have received government denial, self-serving control of information and refusal to redress the shameful wrongs. Governments have not made archives of information available about Hiroshima and Nagasaki, for example. The French government has been equally shameless in the instance of the health databases from France's weapons testing in the Pacific. And, even in the instance of Maralinga, we are still fighting to provide a gold card for veterans who were exposed to radiation from weapons tests conducted by our ally Great Britain during the Cold War. So resolving the effects of nuclear activity and the nuclear threat is now a matter of our survival. We cannot contain nuclear threats or environmental damage or support the sick and dying without truthful information. We have other suitable objects clauses for this bill to ensure that the most suitable site on the continent is based on environmental considerations, geography, hydrology and so on. But the object embeds in the legislation that we need to find the right place. It would not necessarily be an earthquake zone—and Muckaty is in a seismically active area—and the locals would have told the minister that if he had had the courtesy to go and meet them and look them in the eye.

You would not necessarily select a flood plain. I have obviously spent more time in Tennant Creek and the surrounds than the minister. I had the invitation from traditional owners, but when I tried to visit the site we could not get in because the area was flooded out. It does not sound like a particularly good idea for a shed.

It would not be adjacent to or on top of a sacred site, as Muckaty is. Muckaty is a men's site and the men have been telling the government that through the kinds of letters that Senator Di Natale read in before and that I have tabled as correspondence from these people. They have been saying, 'Don't put that stuff there. It is not appropriate that it goes there.'

When the government promised to establish a process for identifying suitable sites—that is: scientific, transparent, accountable, fair, allowing access for appeal mechanisms, ensuring full community consultation in radioactive waste decision-making processes, committing to international best-practice scientific processes and so on—that was what the government committed to. Instead, we are seeing quite the opposite. Best practice involves putting this material where it is most appropriate, where there are the right characteristics. While it might be a politically convenient characteristic for the minister to be able to say that some people have nominated it, it does not make it the best place. A process that involves landowners, whether Aboriginal or non-Aboriginal, nominating lands or parcels of land as possible sites for a dump is not a scientifically rigorous process. This gets back to the debate that we were having before about the principle of volunteerism. I happen to believe that calling for volunteers from some of the most disadvantaged and marginalised communities on the planet is not the only alternative to simply walking in and coercively dumping it on somebody. What we have here today is the worst of both worlds.

What we need in order to achieve 'international best practice'—since the minister has used that phrase a number of times—is a regulatory framework that strategically locates a site based on best science and risk management but also takes into account the impacts on economic and social issues. It should be one that applies strict criteria, standards and policies designed to deal with all environmental risks to the facility—very long-term environ­mental risks—and one which has input from and is acceptable to the community, not just something determined by Minister Martin Ferguson sitting in his electorate office in Batman while the clock on his turfing-out ticks down. The framework should provide constant vigilance, community oversight, risk removal, and prevention of pollution or contamination, rather than just project assessment, approval and condition, and it should provide a framework which deals with the residual risks, emergencies and contaminated lands if things go wrong. The objects clause would ensure that an overall object of the bill is to ensure that this material is not put where it is convenient but where it is appropriate, and that means for the stuff that is here and the material that is due to come back from overseas.

Unless Senator Scullion feels like making a contribution to explain why he does not think these very sound and sensible principles, which I am sure that he and his party agree with, should be embedded into the objects clause—principles that will guide the way that this bill is interpreted for the next several centuries—I will not detain this chamber any further. I hope we might at least hear something from Senator Scullion, or perhaps I have managed to change the minister's mind in the course of this short debate. Otherwise I commend this amendment to the Senate.

Senator CHRIS EVANS (Western Australia—Minister for Tertiary Education, Skills, Science and Research and Leader of the Government in the Senate) (13:48): Just briefly—and I will not rise to the bait of constantly referring to the nuclear waste repository as 'the shed'—I just make the overall point that we have been dealing with this since, I think, the 1980s to try to find a long-term storage facility. It is not Lucas Heights, which I think is actually proscribed from being a nuclear repository in the ANSTO Act, but we have made it very clear that there are a range of reasons why we think we need to have a repository that deals with both the waste coming back and the accumulated waste that has been generated in Australia.

I think that those arguments are fairly clear. We do not think that the amendment moved by Senator Ludlam should be supported. We do not think that it improves the situation; in fact we think that it fundamentally undermines the key purpose of the bill, which is the selection of a site for a facility on voluntarily nominated land.

Senator LUDLAM (Western Australia) (13:49): Minister, I was not going to rise to the bait, but could you just characterise for us in what way the facility or the dump or the repository that we are discussing today is not a shed? In what way could it be considered to be not a shed—since you started it?

Senator CHRIS EVANS (Western Australia—Minister for Tertiary Education, Skills, Science and Research and Leader of the Government in the Senate) (13:50): I am not going to play games about who started it, Senator, but you constantly refer to it as a shed. What it will be is a facility that complies with the EPBC Act, four ARPANSA licences, best practice for management of radioactive waste, and a great deal of regulation and oversight. If for political purposes you want to refer to it as a 'shed', that is fine. I am just making it clear that I do not accept the description. This is something that will be managed to the highest international best practice with the regulation and approvals that are required before the site can be used, and I think that the senator is well aware of that. All those approval processes through the Environ­mental Protection and Biodiversity Conser­vation Act, or through ARPANSA's licensing arrangements and through the transport arrangements, will ensure that we have something far more satisfactory than perhaps the description of a 'shed' might imply.

Senator LUDLAM (Western Australia) (13:51): Minister, from here on I will refer to it as a fully compliant shed-like facility. I commend these amendments to the Senate.

The TEMPORARY CHAIRMAN ( Senator Moore ): The question is that Australian Greens amendment (1) on sheet 7037 moved by Senator Ludlam be agreed to.

Progress reported.

Senator McEWEN (South Australia—Government Whip in the Senate) (15:36): by leave—at the request of Senator Furner, I move:

That the order of the Senate of 9 February 2012 authorising the Joint Standing Committee on Foreign Affairs, Defence and Trade to hold public meetings be varied by omitting paragraph (a)(ii), and substituting: (a)(ii) from 5 pm to 6.30 pm, to take evidence for the committee's inquiry into Australia's overseas representation.

Question agreed to.

Senator LUDLAM (Western Australia) (15:38): I move:

That the following bill be introduced: A Bill for an Act to Special Broadcasting Service Act 1991, and for related purposes.

Question agreed to.

Senator LUDLAM: I present the bill and move:

That this bill may proceed without formalities and be now read a first time.

Question agreed to.

Bill read a first time.

Senator LUDLAM (Western Australia) (15:39): I present the explanatory memorandum and move:

That this bill be now read a second time.

I seek leave to have the second reading speech incorporated in Hansard.

Leave granted.

The speech read as follows—

I am pleased to introduce this bill which seeks to reverse the commercialisation of SBS.

Established in the 1970s, our second national broadcaster was the first multicultural broadcaster in the world. Australia's relative success as a multicultural society is owed in part to institutions such as SBS which tell the stories of our cultural diversity and reflect a uniquely Australian experience back to those who have made a home here.

From the outset, SBS was a publicly funded broadcaster and advertising was not permitted. It wasn't until the Special Broadcasting Service Act of 1991 that advertising was permitted during periods before programs commence, after programs end or during natural program breaks for a maximum of five minutes.

Over 7 million viewers and listeners who enjoy SBS in 60 languages per week have consistently lamented that their news, drama, sport and content that portrays and appreciates our multicultural society is interrupted by advertising

In 2007, due to financial pressures the station moved – arguable in contradiction of its Act, in spirit if not in letter – to full in-program advertising. This has degraded the SBS viewing experience. As long as advertising revenues continue to rise, the danger is that successive Governments could get away with the structural under-funding of the station.

This Bill seeks to wind back this trend so that SBS enjoys adequate funding to take full advantage of the education, employment and creative opportunities provided by digital multi-channeling and the NBN.

Considering it operates on less than a quarter of the budget of the ABC, SBS provides an extraordinary service of which we can all be proud. However, the troubled history of its hybrid funding model has reached a dangerous new stage.

Senators will be aware that this is the second iteration of a bill to remove advertising during programs from SBS. In the first iteration, I did not deprive SBS from revenues from advertising per se, rather I simply proposed the abolition of advertising on SBS during 'natural program breaks', in other words, restricting advertising to before and after programs.

Schedule 1 of this new bill clarifies the definition of 'natural program break' to bring advertising practices at the station back into line with the Parliament's original intention when debating the Special Broadcasting Service Act (1991).

Schedule 2 of the bill proposes a staged approach in which a proportion of additional funding in the forthcoming triennium will be set aside to retire advertising. How much is retired is at the discretion of station management. The bill proposes to allow the Minister by regulation to set aside a proportion of SBS funding for this purpose. In this sense the bill does not appropriate funds, it merely sets up a scheme whereby the station can use a proportion of future funding increases to wind back advertising that runs during programs.

Schedule 3 of the bill holds that by the funding triennium after the one commencing in 2012, advertising within programs will have been phased out altogether.

SBS radio will not be affected by this Bill .

The Greens are on the record as supporting an increasing in base funding to support the health of the station and to reduce the amount of television advertising it carries. The 2012-15 triennial funding round provides an opportunity to reset the course of SBS and cement its position as one of Australia's most important cultural assets.

Competitive pressures have now sharpened with the introduction of digital multi-channels, cannibalising advertising revenues and bidding up the price of appealing content. Since FY 09-10, advertising revenue growth rates have stagnated and are predicted to fall steeply into decline as highly profitable commercial broadcasters with thousands of hours of airtime to fill hoover up all available content and heavily dilute the value of advertising.

Ironically, the arrival of the commercial multi-channels was smoothed with a surprisingly generous public subsidy to the tune of $250m in waived licence fees for two years.

The Australian Greens believe it is essential in the next funding triennium to reverse the tide of commercialisation, before declining advertising revenues and rising viewer discontent force a crisis on the broadcaster. In addition, to thrive in an increasingly crowded and converging media market, SBS requires an injection of funds above and beyond that sufficient to end in-program advertising.

Analysis of answers requested at successive budget estimates sessions reveal that additional public funding of $45 million per year would be required to achieve this (see answer to Question 60 from Budget Estimates Hearings May 2011). This estimate is difficult to verify and does not necessarily model the increased 'scarcity value' of more restricted advertising timeslots at the top and tail of programs.

Withdrawing advertising could be achieved in a phased manner across the triennium, allowing the station in the short term to use the funding increase to address urgent priorities including first-run Australian content, expanded online services and an expanded slate of Aboriginal content through a proposed tie-up with NITV.

In framing this Bill, great regard has been given to do so in a manner that does not harm SBS. The Bill does not direct SBS to stop placing advertisements in television programs. It merely provides station management with an option to do that in exchange for monies already appropriated by the Parliament for SBS. If SBS exercise that option, it would be akin to the government buying out all the breaks in a program, while still allowing the station to top and tail programs with advertisements.

The challenge in putting this Bill together, was to make it workable in a tight funding situation, without tying the hands either of Government or of station management. In the event that SBS receives a substantial increase in their funding, which we hope is the case, the station will be required to use a portion of this funding increase to retire advertising during in-program breaks .

The Bill has been constructed to avoid a heavy handed approach. It's an attempt to achieve an outcome that will meet community expectations while allowing maximum flexibility. I commend it to the chamber.

Debate adjourned.

Senator KROGER (Victoria—Chief Opposition Whip in the Senate) (15:40): I move:

That the time for the presentation of the report of the Education, Employment and Workplace Relations References Committee on higher education and skills training for agriculture and agribusiness be extended to 8 June 2012.

Question agreed to.

Senator FURNER (Queensland) (17:06): On behalf of the Chair of the Joint Standing Committee on Foreign Affairs, Defence and Trade, I present a report on the review of the Defence Annual Report 2009-10.

Ordered that the report be printed.

Senator FURNER: by leave—I move:

That the Senate take note of the report.

On behalf of the Joint Standing Committee on Foreign Affairs, Defence and Trade I have pleasure in presenting the committee's report entitled Review of the Defence annual report 2009-10. The review of the Defence annual report is an important task, and an opportunity for the Defence subcommittee of the Joint Standing Committee on Foreign Affairs, Defence and Trade to inquire into a broad range of Defence issues as part of the process of accountability of government agencies to parliament. The subcommittee takes this responsibility very seriously.

The subcommittee took evidence from senior Department of Defence officials at a public hearing held in Canberra on 25 March 2011. The subcommittee selected a broad range of issues for examination at the public hearing. In broad terms, the focus areas were: the Strategic Reform Program; person­nel including the People in Defence Strategy, ADF pay remediation and ADF mental health reforms; justice and security, includ­ing military justice, security of vital national assets in the North-West of Aust­ralia, Border Protection Command and ADF base security; and, the Defence Materiel Organisation, including reform and procure­ment, projects of concern and specific projects.

Due to the size and complexity of the defence department, the committee secretariat offered to assist Defence in its preparation for the public hearing on 25 March 2011. Unfortunately, other than the secretary, the Chief of the Defence Force and those officers representing DMO, Defence officials seemed somewhat poorly briefed. This lack of preparedness was compounded by the delay in the provision of answers to questions taken on notice.

Answers to questions on notice were provided some five months after the hearing. The committee therefore recommends that the Department of Defence review its practices and procedures to ensure that answers to the committee's questions on notice are provided in a more timely manner

Documentation and hard evidence of the outcomes of the Strategic Reform Program were hard for the committee to find. There is a difficulty, in an organisation as big as Defence of tracking savings. The committee, therefore, spent much of its questioning of Defence on the idea of a 'cost-conscious culture.'

The committee acknowledge the difficulty in any organisation creating cultural change; however, the committee is concerned that Defence will not be able to institute the cost-conscious culture necessary not only for the SRP but for the Defence organisation long past 2030; the SRP relies more on cultural change than rigorously costed savings plans.

The committee looked into base security and is concerned that, at the time of its public hearing, some 20 months after the threats to Holsworthy Barracks, the defence department is slowly moving towards decreasing the threat level of its bases.

In relation to the Defence Materiel Organisation, whilst heartened by the establishment of the Independent Project Performance Office the committee is concerned that this not become another level of bureaucracy that hinders rather than helps the performance of DMO.

Lastly, I wish to make a comment on the Joint Strike Fighter. At the time of writing the committee had three main concerns regarding the JSF: cost; schedule; and capability. This is an issue that the committee will be pursuing in its review of the Defence Annual Report 2010-11 at the inquiry next month that is currently underway. I commend the report to the Senate.

Question agreed to.

Senator CAROL BROWN (Tasmania—Deputy Government Whip in the Senate) (17:10): On behalf of the Parliamentary Standing Committee on Public Works, I present the 1st report of 2012: Referrals made September to October 2011.

Senator CAROL BROWN (Tasmania—Deputy Government Whip in the Senate) (17:10): On behalf of the Joint Committee of Public Accounts and Audit, I present executive minutes received by the committee and government responses to reports of the committee.

Senator LUDWIG (Queensland—Minister for Agriculture, Fisheries and Forestry and Minister Assisting on Queensland Floods Recovery) (17:13): I present the explanatory memoranda and I move:

That these bills be now read a second time.

I seek leave to have the second reading speeches incorporated in Hansard.

Leave granted.

The speeches read as follows—

ACCESS TO JUSTICE (FEDERAL JURISDICTION) AMENDMENT BILL 2011

Introduction

This Government has a proud history of reforms that facilitate access to justice. This Bill marks the latest tranche of those reforms.

Discovery

The Bill will implement legislative reforms regarding discovery during Federal Court litigation that were recommended in the Australian Law Reform Commission’s Managing Discovery report, tabled in Parliament in May 2011.

The Attorney-General initiated that Inquiry in May 2010, following the 2009 report by the Attorney-General’s Department’s Access to Justice Taskforce, A Strategic Framework for Access to Justice in the Federal Civil Justice System. The Taskforce identified the high and sometimes disproportionate costs of discovery as a specific barrier to justice.

The ALRC made practical recommendations aimed at the Federal Court taking greater control over the discovery process, many of which have already been implemented by the Court in its new Rules, or are under active consideration by the Court. I acknowledge the effort the Federal Court continues to put into refining its case management processes, including those relating to discovery.

The Government also welcomes current consideration by the Federal Court and National Judicial College of Australia of how judicial education and training can better equip judges to manage the discovery process.

The two recommendations to be implemented by this Bill will give the Federal Court stronger powers to deal with the costs of discovery, and clarify that oral examinations can be used to assist to identify which kinds of documents should be subject to discovery. This will support judges in their role as robust case managers.

I am confident that this package of reforms will give the Federal Court the tools it needs to control discovery more tightly, assisting in the delivery of a more accessible and effective system of civil justice.

Suppression and non-publication orders

The Bill will also implement – with some minor variations – the model legislation developed by the then Standing Committee of Attorneys-General on suppression and

non-publication orders in the High Court, Federal Court, Family Court and Federal Magistrates Court.

There has been criticism of the volume and breadth of suppression orders granted by some State courts. As a result of these concerns, after extensive consultation, in 2010, the Standing Committee of Attorneys-General developed model legislation on suppression orders.

This Bill will implement that model law in relation to the federal courts – in the interests of national consistency and to provide a more robust and comprehensive legislative framework.

The Bill has several advantages over the current arrangements for the making of suppression orders in the federal courts:

It provides a clearer legislative framework for the grounds on which suppression orders can be made, what information they can cover, how long they should last for, how broad they should be and what information such orders should contain, as well as clearer rules about standing.

It clearly preserves the importance of the principle of open justice, and provides that suppression orders can only be made where such orders are necessary, consistent with recent High Court jurisprudence.

The Bill does not include the provision in the SCAG model law that allows a court to grant a suppression order if it is necessary in the public interest for the order to be made. The Bill therefore does not broaden the grounds on which suppression orders can be made from those that currently apply.

This Bill will provide a more transparent and accountable legislative regime for courts to make suppression orders. By ensuring that courts can only make suppression orders when they are clearly justified – and in as narrow terms as necessary to achieve their purpose –the Bill appropriately recognises the fundamental importance that open justice plays in the administration of justice, and ultimately in upholding the rule of law.

Vexatious proceedings

Vexatious litigants have the capacity to absorb an enormous amount of judicial and registry staff’s time, to the detriment of other litigants waiting to have their cases dealt with.

It was for this reason the then Standing Committee of Attorneys-General developed a model law on vexatious proceedings. This law has already been implemented in Queensland, New South Wales and the Northern Territory. This Bill will implement the model law in the High Court, Federal Court, Family Court and Federal Magistrates Court.

It is important to bear in mind that a self-represented litigant, or a litigant who has challenging behaviour (perhaps caused by mental illness), is very different from a vexatious litigant. With advice and assistance, many self-represented litigants are often able to adequately formulate and articulate their claims, or to obtain legal representation to enable them to do so. Those with challenging behaviours may be able to obtain professional assistance of another kind. I want to emphasise that these are not the kinds of litigants intended to be addressed by this Bill.

Rather, vexatious litigants are those who frequently bring proceedings that are, for example, an abuse of process, designed to annoy others, or have no reasonable grounds.

Although the federal courts already have existing powers to deal with vexatious litigants, these powers are located across various legislation and court rules, and differ in detail. The Bill will establish a more comprehensive and consistent legislative regime across all four federal courts.

While an order preventing access to the courts should not be made lightly, where a person has frequently instituted or conducted vexatious proceedings in any Australian court or tribunal, a court will be able to make an order that a person not be able to commence any subsequent proceedings in that court without first obtaining the leave of the court.

The intention is that, once nationally consistent laws are passed, a vexatious litigant will no longer be able to repeatedly initiate proceedings in different courts with hopelessly doomed litigation.

It is essential that court resources are devoted to cases that have merit, and cases which cannot be resolved by other means. The courts need appropriate powers to be able to deal with clearly unmeritorious cases brought by vexatious litigants. This Bill will deliver that.

Family law jurisdiction

The Bill will also remove the current jurisdictional ceiling on Family Law Magistrates in Western Australia that applies in family law property matters.

This will bring Western Australia’s Family Law Magistrates into line with the family law property jurisdiction which can be exercised by the Federal Magistrates Court in the rest of Australia, and give the Family Court of Western Australia more flexibility in the allocation of cases.

Ensuring that disputes are dealt with at the most appropriate level is an important aspect of access to justice.

Administrative Appeals Tribunal fees

The Bill also makes amendments relating to fees in the Administrative Appeals Tribunal. These amendments will serve two purposes.

Firstly, they will allow applicants to make a valid application for review where they do not have the money to pay immediately, but where there is a time limit for making the application.

Secondly, they will allow regulations to be made to prescribe fees to be paid by any party to proceedings. This will allow regulations to be made to give the Tribunal the discretion to impose fees on respondent government agencies which unsuccessfully defend Tribunal proceedings, unless there were compelling reasons for proceeding to a hearing.

This is intended to provide a financial incentive to promote better primary decision making and early resolution of disputes where possible.

These are both important access to justice measures, aimed at early dispute resolution and ensuring that applicants can access the review of government decisions.

Conclusion

This Bill will implement a number of important measures that will improve access to justice in a variety of ways.

The reforms to discovery, family law property jurisdiction and vexatious proceedings aim to ensure that valuable judicial resources are used appropriately, efficiently and effectively: for the benefit of all litigants.

Reforms to suppression orders create a framework that safeguards the public interest in open justice and accountability, reinforcing an important aspect of the administration of justice.

Finally, reforms to fees in the Administrative Appeals Tribunal will facilitate fairer access to the review of Government decisions – encouraging better decision making by Government agencies and earlier dispute resolution.

All these reforms are consistent with the Strategic Framework for Access to Justice¬ implemented by this Government – designed to facilitate accessible and equitable dispute resolution, at the most appropriate level, delivered through efficient and effective means.

I thank all involved for their work in developing this Bill, which is an important part of the Government’s ongoing access to justice initiatives.

NATIONAL HEALTH AMENDMENT (FIFTH COMMUNITY PHARMACY AGREEMENT INITIATIVES) BILL 2012

Senator LUDWIG (Queensland—Minister for Agriculture, Fisheries and Forestry and Minister Assisting on Queensland Floods Recovery) (17:14): I move:

That this bill may proceed without formalities and now read a first time.

Question agreed to.

Bill read a first time.

Senator LUDWIG (Queensland—Minister for Agriculture, Fisheries and Forestry and Minister Assisting on Queensland Floods Recovery) (17:14): I move:

That this bill be now read a second time.

I seek leave to have the second reading speech incorporated in Hansard.

Leave granted.

The speech read as follows—

NUCLEAR TERRORISM LEGISLATION AMENDMENT BILL 2011

Second Reading Speech

The Bill implements the International Convention for the Suppression of Acts of Nuclear Terrorism.

The Convention recognises that acts relating to nuclear material and other radiological material and devices can pose a serious threat to international peace and security.

The Convention is an important tool in the international fight against terrorism and the proliferation and use of weapons of mass destruction.

It fills a gap in existing international regimes by recognising the potential for nuclear weapons, facilities and radioactive material to be used to carry out acts of terrorism.

The Convention establishes frameworks for criminalising certain conduct relating to nuclear material and other radiological material and devices and international cooperation in the prevention, investigation, prosecution and extradition of persons who commit those offences.

Some of the obligations under the Convention are already satisfied.

For example, existing provisions in the Criminal Code Act 1995 and the Australian Nuclear Science and Technology Organisation Act 1987 implement some of the Nuclear Terrorism Convention's provisions.

While some aspects of the conduct prohibited by the Convention are consistent with measures Australia has already taken, some amendments to Commonwealth legislation are necessary to fully implement the Convention.

The Bill creates new offences for specific conduct that is prohibited by the Convention.

This includes:

possessing radioactive material or a device

using or damaging a radioactive material or device or nuclear facility

demanding the use of radioactive material or device or nuclear facility

threatening or attempting to use or damage a device, radioactive material or nuclear facility, and

using radioactive material, or a device, or using or damaging a nuclear facility.

The offences will not be limited to conduct by Australians and in Australia, but will apply in a broad range of situations where the Convention requires States Parties to assert jurisdiction.

For example, the offences will cover situations where the offender is a foreigner if the offence is committed on board an Australian ship or aircraft or against an Australian citizen.

The Bill also contains minor technical amendments to the Nuclear Non Proliferation (Safeguards) Act 1987 updating various provisions to take account of the Legislative Instruments Act 2003 and amending the definition of Australian Aircraft by replacing the reference to the Air Navigation Regulations (which is no longer correct) with a reference to the Civil Aviation Act 1988.

Australia is committed to ratifying all international counter-terrorism instruments as an integral part of strengthening its legal framework to fight terrorism.

Ratifying this Convention will send a strong message to the international community and demonstrate Australia's continued commitment to addressing the threat of terrorism.

It will represent an important contribution by Australia to the second Nuclear Security Summit, which will take place in the Republic of Korea in March 2012.

In addition, it will strengthen Australia's efforts to encourage other countries in our region to ratify the 16 international counter-terrorism instruments.

It is in this context that the Government today commends to the chamber the Nuclear Terrorism Legislation Amendment Bill 2011.

Debate adjourned.

Ordered that consideration of this bill be made an order of the day for a later hour.

Senator LUDWIG (Queensland—Minister for Agriculture, Fisheries and Forestry and Minister Assisting on Queensland Floods Recovery) (17:15): I move:

That these bills may proceed without formalities, may be taken together and be now read a first time.

Question agreed to.

Bills read a first time.

Senator LUDWIG (Queensland—Minister for Agriculture, Fisheries and Forestry and Minister Assisting on Queensland Floods Recovery) (17:16): I present the explanatory memoranda and I move:

That these bills be now read a second time.

I seek leave to have the second reading speeches incorporated in Hansard.

Leave granted.

The speeches read as follows—

FAIRER PRIVATE HEALTH INSURANCE INCENTIVES BILL 2011

The Fairer Private Health Insurance Incentives Bill 2011 will amend various acts to give effect to a 2009-10 Budget measure to introduce three new private health insurance incentives tiers.

The new arrangements will commence on the later of 1 July 2012 or the day on which the Fairer Private Health Insurance Incentives (Medicare Levy Surcharge) Bill 2011 receives royal assent or the day on which the Fairer Private Health Insurance Incentives (Medicare Levy Surcharge—Fringe Benefits) Bill 2011 receives royal assent. However, they will not commence at all unless both the Fairer Private Health Insurance Incentives (Medicare Levy Surcharge) Bill 2011 and the Fairer Private Health Insurance Incentives (Medicare Levy Surcharge— Fringe Benefits) Bill 2011 receive royal assent.

The Bill was introduced into the House of Representatives on 27 May 2009 and

19 November 2009, where it was passed on 2 June 2009 and 3 February 2010 respectively. This Bill was previously introduced into the Senate on 15 June 2009 and 4 February 2010 and on 9 September 2009 and 9 March 2010, respectively, a motion moved in the Senate that this Bill be read a second time was defeated.

The Government re-introduced this Bill because we want to make the private health insurance rebate fairer and more sustainable into the future.

The Government supports a mixed model of balanced private and public health services. We are committed to a sustainable private health system, and to ensure it remains sustainable the Government will rebalance support for private health insurance to provide a fairer distribution of benefits.

Let me emphasise one point that has been missing in much of the debate about these changes. The vast majority of taxpayers with private health insurance will not be affected by the means testing this legislation introduces. Singles earning $83,000 or less and couples and families earning $166,000 or less will receive the same rebate as they currently enjoy.

In fact, the Government’s changes will ensure that these taxpayers receive a greater share of the private health insurance rebate than they currently get.

Under the rebate model we inherited from the Howard Government, approximately 14 per cent of single taxpayers who have incomes above $83,000 receive about 28 per cent of the total private health insurance rebate paid to singles based on an average premium—or twice their population share.

And approximately 12 per cent of couple taxpayers who have incomes above $166,000 receive about 21 per cent of the total private health insurance rebate paid to couples based on an average premium—again, almost twice their population share.

So when the Opposition was in Government it designed a system that favoured wealthier income earners. That is people like myself and the Opposition Spokesperson on Health – not the cleaners and security guards who work in this building.

How does the Leader of the Opposition reconcile his track record on this issue when he was Health Minister with the crocodile tears he was crying for the ‘forgotten families’ in his Budget reply?

Under our reforms, the 14 percent of single taxpayers earning more than $83,000 with private health insurance will receive about 12 per cent of the total private health insurance rebate paid to singles based on an average premium.

Similarly, the 12 per cent of couple taxpayers earning more than $166,000 will receive around 9 per cent of the total private health insurance rebate paid to couples based on an average premium.

Far from being an attack on families as some have alleged, this Bill reinforces an important principle that has underpinned the Australian tax-transfer system for decades - that the greatest share of benefits are provided to those on lower incomes.

There is a second crucial principle at stake here – the need to ensure our health system is placed on a sustainable footing for the future.

Spending on the private health insurance rebate is growing rapidly and is expected to double as a proportion of health expenditure within the next 40 years.

Clearly this presents challenges in the current fiscal environment. It is estimated that these reforms will result in savings to Government expenditure of around $2.4 billion across the forward estimates. This will help ensure that the Government’s support for private health insurance remains fair and sustainable.

The Opposition’s previous refusal to support this legislation has already hit the 2010-11 Budget bottom-line by $890 million. If we don’t act now the fiscal consequences will only worsen. Treasury estimates that not passing this legislation will have a cumulative impact on health spending of around $100 billion over 40 years.

No-one professing an interest in good fiscal management can ignore these statistics.

The Opposition has also said on the record that if they oppose savings measures they will identify where these savings can be found in the Budget. On 22 June, Kevin Andrews said in the House of Representatives “if we are going to oppose measures which the Government puts forward and that opposition will lead to a cost to the budget, we will identify where the savings are going to be made in the budget in order to compensate for that loss to the budget.”

I challenge the Opposition to find an area in the Health portfolio where an equivalent saving of $2.4 billion can be found, that will not have a noticeable impact on health outcomes as is the case with means testing the private health insurance rebate.

So the Government will act.

From 1 July 2012, the Government proposes to introduce three new private health insurance incentive tiers. The tiers will mean high-income earners receive lower Government payments for private health insurance but will face an increase in costs if they opt out of private health cover.

The Government’s commitment to retaining the private health insurance rebate remains. Rebates for low and middle income earners will be unchanged, with the Government continuing to pay 30 per cent of the premium cost for a person earning $83,000 or less and couples and families earning $166,000 or less. The existing rebates for older Australians will remain in place for people earning below these thresholds—35 per cent for people aged 65 to 69 years and 40 per cent for people aged 70 years and over.

These people will continue to have no surcharge liability if they decide not to take out appropriate private health insurance.

The new tiered system will be introduced for higher income earners and will set three different rebate levels and surcharge levels based on income and age. The purpose of this is to reduce the carrot but increase the stick and ensure those who can afford to contribute more for their health insurance do so. The Government does not believe it is appropriate for low-income earners to subsidise the private health insurance costs of high-income earners.

Tier 1 will apply to singles with an income of more than $83,000 and couples and families with an income of more than $166,000. For these people the private health insurance rebate will be 20 per cent for those up to 65 years, 25 per cent for those aged 65 to 69, and 30 per cent for those aged 70 and over.

The Medicare levy surcharge for people in this tier who do not hold appropriate private health insurance will remain at one per cent.

Tier 2 applies to singles earning more than $96,000 a year and couples and families earning more than $192,000. The rebate will be 10 per cent for those up to 65 years, 15 per cent for those aged 65 to 69, and 20 per cent for those aged 70 and over. The surcharge for people in this tier who do not have appropriate private health insurance will be increased to 1.25 per cent of income.

Tier 3 affects singles earning more than $129,000 a year and couples and families earning more than $258,000 a year. No private health insurance rebate will be provided for people who fall within the third tier and the surcharge for avoiding private health insurance will be increased to 1.5 per cent of income for these people.

Annual indexation to average weekly earnings of the tiers income thresholds will ensure that these changes remain equitable and can be maintained into the future.

There has been some hysterical claims made in recent times about the effects of these changes.

None more so than the claim in a Private Healthcare Australia (then the Australian Health Insurance Association) Report that 1.6 million people would abandon private health cover if the Government introduced a means test for the rebate.

I won’t waste any time pointing out the flaws in this Report, but I would draw the attention of the Senate to the statement about the impact of the rebate changes issued to the Australian Stock Exchange by the private health insurer nib on 4 May 2011 which said, and I quote:

“our analysis indicates any impact would be moderate, which is in line with previous Treasury estimates which … rely upon the countervailing influence of the Medicare Levy Surcharge and proposed increases.”

As the nib statement points out, the Government is retaining a system of carrots and sticks that will minimise the impact of the proposed changes.

The increased Medicare levy surcharge for people on higher incomes will help ensure that about 99.7 per cent of insured people remain in private health insurance. This is because those high-income earners who receive a lower rebate will face a higher tax penalty for avoiding private health insurance.

It is estimated that approximately 27,000 people may no longer be covered by private health insurance hospital cover and this might result in 8,600 additional public hospital admissions over two years.

When considered against the fact that public hospitals have around 4.7 million admissions per year, the impact of this measure will be insignificant.

The Ipsos Syndicated Survey: Health Care & Insurance - Australia 2011 was released in November 2011. According to Ipsos approximately 40,000 would drop their private hospital insurance– provided that insurers inform their members about the impact of Lifetime Health Cover and the Medicare levy surcharge.

In summary, this measure will make private health fairer, more balanced and more sustainable in the long term. By maintaining a carefully designed system of carrots and sticks, it will have a negligible effect on both private health insurance premiums and the public hospital system.

At the same time, low and middle income earners who choose to have private health insurance will continue to enjoy the benefit of a significant Government rebate.

FAIRER PRIVATE HEALTH INSURANCE INCENTIVES (MEDICARE LEVY SURCHARGE) BILL 2011

The Fairer Private Health Insurance Incentives (Medicare Levy Surcharge) Bill 2011 will amend the Medicare Levy Act 1986 to give effect to the Budget measure to introduce three new private health insurance incentives tiers.

This Bill will commence concurrently with the Fairer Private Health Insurance Incentives Bill 2011.

This Bill was previously introduced into the House of Representatives on 27 May and 19 November 2009 where it was passed on 2 June 2009 and 3 February 2010, respectively. This Bill was previously introduced into the Senate on 15 June 2009 and 4 February 2010. On 9 September 2009 and 24 February 2010 a motion moved in the Senate that this Bill be read a second time was defeated.

This Bill is being introduced again to give effect to the Budget measure to introduce the private health insurance incentives tiers that will make the private health rebate fairer.

The Medicare Levy Act 1986 determines whether an individual is liable to pay the Medicare levy surcharge in respect of their taxable income or that of their spouse. The individual’s income for surcharge purposes determines whether a person must pay the surcharge. If the individual’s income exceeds prescribed income thresholds they will need to pay the appropriate level of surcharge.

This Bill inserts the new tier system in order to determine which level of surcharge a person must pay where they do not hold appropriate private health insurance.

FAIRER PRIVATE HEALTH INSURANCE INCENTIVES (MEDICARE LEVY SURCHARGE—FRINGE BENEFITS) BILL 2011

The Fairer Private Health Insurance Incentives (Medicare Levy Surcharge—Fringe Benefits) Bill 2011 will amend the A New Tax System (Medicare Levy Surcharge—Fringe Benefits) Act 1999 to give effect to the Budget measure to introduce three new private health insurance incentives tiers.

This Bill will commence concurrently with the Fairer Private Health Insurance Incentives Bill 2011.

This Bill was previously introduced into the House of Representatives on 27 May and 19 November 2009 where it was passed on 2 June 2009 and 3 February 2010, respectively. This Bill was previously introduced into the Senate on 15 June 2009 and 4 February 2010, and on 9 September 2009 and 24 February 2010 a motion moved in the Senate that this Bill be read a second time was defeated.

This Bill is being introduced again to give effect to the Budget measure to introduce the private health insurance incentives tiers that will make the private health rebate fairer.

The A New Tax System (Medicare Levy Surcharge—Fringe Benefits) Act 1999 determines whether an individual is liable to pay the Medicare levy surcharge in respect of a reportable fringe benefits total they or their spouse may have. The individual’s income for surcharge purposes determines whether a person must pay the surcharge. If the individual’s income exceeds prescribed income thresholds they will need to pay the appropriate level of surcharge.

This Bill inserts the new tier system in order to determine which level of surcharge a person must pay where they do not hold appropriate private health insurance.

Debate adjourned.

Senator BRANDIS (Queensland—Deputy Leader of the Opposition in the Senate) (18:02): The opposition is occasionally and foolishly accused of being too negative. Many of the legislative proposals of the Gillard government are catastrophic and against the national interest. An opposition should always oppose legislation which is against the national interest, and we always will. But an urban myth has developed, fostered and propagated by the Labor Party spin machine, that we oppose everything. As a matter of fact, the opposition has supported the vast majority of the bills brought before the parliament by this government. You do not hear about that in the public debate because ex hypothesi such bills, being uncontroversial, do not generate news. The Nuclear Terrorism Legislation Amendment Bill 2011 is such a bill. It is uncontroversial, like the vast majority of the legislation which the government brings before the chamber, and the opposition, agreeing with its effect, supports it.

The purpose of the bill is to add a new offence to the Nuclear Non-Proliferation (Safeguards) Act 1987 by implementing provisions of the International Convention for the Suppression of Acts of Nuclear Terrorism—known as the 'nuclear terrorism convention'. The nuclear terrorism convention arose from a global initiative established by the United States and the Russian Federation in 2006. One of the fruits of the West's victory in the Cold War is that the United States and the Russian Federation are able to agree and jointly sponsor such beneficial measures. Commonwealth legislation already implements most of the convention obligations. This legislation seeks to ensure that all criminal offences provided for in article 2 of the convention are covered by Commonwealth law.

The amendments in this bill would create new criminal offences for possessing radioactive material or a 'convention device'—a term defined by the convention as including a nuclear explosive device or a device to emit material with radiological properties which may cause death, serious bodily injury or substantial damage to property or the environment; making a convention device; using or damaging a convention device or nuclear facility, or threatening to do so; threatening to use radioactive material; demanding that another person create radioactive material, a convention device or a nuclear facility; and demanding that a third person access or control radioactive material, a convention device or a nuclear facility.

Members of the Australian Defence Force will not be liable to prosecution in respect of acts done in connection with the defence or security of Australia. The convention does not govern the actions of armed forces during an armed conflict. That exemption does not apply to serving personnel whose actions are not connected with the defence or security of Australia or who are otherwise acting unlawfully. The bill does not criminalise the lawful possession and use of radioactive material—for example, material with a medical application. There must be an intention to use or make available the material for a prohibited purpose, such as death or property damage. Whether or not the intended outcomes occurs is not relevant to a prosecution. A maximum penalty of 20 years imprisonment applies to the offences created by the bill.

The bill is directed toward the conduct that all members of the Senate would devoutly hope will never come to pass. Should such threats ever be contemplated, we must ensure that we have the legislative armoury to enable our security and law reform agencies to nip them in the bud. Accordingly, the coalition support the bill—as we do all sensible bills brought to the chamber by this government.

Senator LUDLAM (Western Australia) (18:07): I rise to add the comments of the Australian Greens to the debate on the Nuclear Terrorism Legislation Amendment Bill 2011 and to add my support to that of the coalition for this bill. This bill is Australia's instrument to ratify the 2005 International Convention for the Suppression of Acts of Nuclear Terrorism. This is a threat that has been considered internationally for decades. Indeed, the fears of individuals or state networks illicitly acquiring nuclear materials and using them for deadly ends have been felt for as long as nuclear technology has existed. The very existence of nuclear materials invites these fears and makes them rational to have because this technology is truly terrifying in the scale of its consequences.

In 1979 the Convention on the Physical Protection of Nuclear Material was adopted in Vienna. This treaty aimed to avert the potential dangers posed by the unlawful taking and use of nuclear material and to protect nuclear material in use, storage and transfer. The events in New York on 11 September 2001, Bali in October 2002, Madrid in 2004 and London in July 2005 prompted that negotiation of the treaty we are discussing today. The International Convention for the Suppression of Acts of Nuclear Terrorism is the 13th antiterrorism convention of the United Nations and the first international accord aimed at fighting against acts of nuclear terrorism. The document, for the first time, defines nuclear terrorist crimes. It fills the gaps in the existing antiterrorism treaty system, it helps improve the international legal framework on antiterrorism and it provides the legal guarantee to prevent and punish acts of nuclear terrorism.

The sentiments that led to the negotiations are summed up very well in a 2005 speech given by the former United Nations Secretary-General Kofi Annan. He said:

I firmly believe that our generation can build a world of ever-expanding development, security and human rights—a world "in larger freedom". But I am equally aware that such a world could be put irrevocably beyond our reach by a nuclear catastrophe in one of our great cities.

In the chaos and confusion of the immediate aftermath, there might be many questions. Was this an act of terrorism? Was it an act of aggression by a state? Was it an accident? These may not be equally probable, but all are possible. Imagine, just for a minute, what the consequences would be. Tens, if not hundreds, of thousands of people would perish in an instant, and many more would die from exposure to radiation.

The global impact would also be grave. The attention of world leaders would be riveted on this existential threat. Carefully nurtured collective security mechanisms could be discredited. Hard-won freedoms and human rights could be compromised. The sharing of nuclear technology for peaceful uses could halt. Resources for development would likely dwindle. And world financial markets, trade and transportation could be hard hit, with major economic consequences. This could drive millions of people in poor countries into deeper deprivation and suffering. As shock gave way to anger and despair, the leaders of every nation represented here at this conference—as well as those who are not here—we would have to ask: How did it come to this? Is my conscience clear? Could I have done more to reduce the risk by strengthening the regime designed to do so?

The Greens support the intention of this legislation and treaty, but we remind the Senate this is really only a bandaid measure—it is a valuable one, but that is all it is when it comes to identifying the root cause of nuclear terrorism, which is of course the existence of nuclear materials, fissile materials and nuclear weapons.

As senators would know, the four forms of nuclear terrorism canvassed by this bill include theft or purchase by terrorists of a nuclear weapon from the arsenals of the states that possess nuclear weapons and those states include the United States, Russia, France, the UK, China, India, Israel, Pakistan and the DPRK. The second category is acquisition by terrorists of highly enriched uranium, HEU, or plutonium for use in an improvised nuclear device. The third category is terrorist attacks on or sabotage of vehicles transporting nuclear materials or weapons or on nuclear reactors themselves, which you often hear described as pre-deployed radiological weapons waiting to be detonated by an enemy. Around the world there are also numerous research reactors at universities which have virtually no security at all. Finally, the building and use of radiological dispersal devices, or 'dirty bombs'. This does not involve fissile material but simply dispersing material, whether it be from radioactive sources or material from uranium mines or indeed the dispersal of depleted uranium emissions.

The Weapons of Mass Destruction Commission rightly called their report Weapons of terror because the weapons they had spent some years analysing were designed to terrify as well as destroy. The title was somewhat controversial at the time. They used this terminology because these weapons are in the stockpiles and hands of states. Critics of the treaty in the bill that we are discussing today have noted that it excludes activities of armed forces during an armed conflict and that it does not address the issue of the legality of the use or threat of use of nuclear weapons by states. So, of course, what it effectively does is entrenches the legitimisation of nuclear weapons and fissile materials in the hands of a very small number of states while further criminalising—as is entirely appropriate—the possession or theft of these weapons or materials by nonstate actors or terrorist networks.

The WMD Commission dealt with the threat of nuclear terrorism in lengthy detail in their report but they were also unequivocal on a crucial point. The commission:

… rejects the suggestion that nuclear weapons in the hands of some pose no threat, while in the hands of others they place the world in mortal jeopardy. Governments possessing nuclear weapons can act responsibly or recklessly. Governments may also change over time. Twenty-seven—

or now 22—

thousand nuclear weapons are not an abstract theory. They exist in today's world.

Explanations by the nuclear haves that the weapons are indispensable to defend their sovereignty are not the best way to convince other sovereign states to renounce the option. This is a debate that is occurring in the Australian defence community at the moment with the reconsideration of the defence white paper. Where do US nuclear weapons fit within Australia's security doctrine? We exist, as we did right through the years of the Cold War until now, under what is called the United States nuclear weapons umbrella—that is, we are not pursuing actively the development of Australian nuclear weapons because we understand that the United States government would use them on our behalf if they had to. Let us think about that for a moment. That entirely legitimises the use of these weapons of genocide in the cause of the defence of Australia. That is completely unnecessary. We need to get out from under the US nuclear umbrella as a way of encouraging our nuclear ally to disarm. Although it is often forgotten and not much remarked upon these days, President Obama came to office with such an extraordinary promise in his speech in Prague shortly after his election about renunciation of these weapons—that is, not simply a non-proliferation agenda: a disarmament agenda. In this respect, the commission was echoing the Canberra commission final document, which says:

… immediate and determined efforts need to be made to rid the world of nuclear weapons and the threat they pose to it. The destructiveness of nuclear weapons is immense. Any use would be catastrophic.

The proposition that nuclear weapons can be retained in perpetuity—

lacks credibility. It continues:

The only complete defence is the elimination of nuclear weapons and assurance that they will never be produced again.

That was an extraordinarily valuable effort on behalf of the Australian government and, I think, quite a creative example of middle power diplomacy in order to get our allies to shift their thinking and to shift doctrine.

Nuclear weapons and nuclear reactors are themselves the root cause of the problem of nuclear terrorism that is being addressed by this bill and by this treaty that it enshrines. The fact today that the theft of fissile material somewhere can jeopardise security everywhere is not controversial, as Dr Mohamed ElBaradei, the former head of the IAEA, explained when discussing the AQ Khan network, which illicitly sold weapons technology to Libya, North Korea and Iran. He said:

The relative ease with which a multinational illicit network could be set up and operated demonstrates the inadequacy of the present export control system. The fact that so many companies and individuals could be involved (more than two dozen, by last count)—and that, in most cases, this could occur apparently without the knowledge of their own governments—points to the shortcomings of national systems for oversight of sensitive equipment and technology. It also points to the limitations of existing international cooperation on export controls, which relies on informal arrangements, does not include many countries with growing industrial capacity, and does not include sufficient sharing of export information with the IAEA.

… In a modern society characterized by electronic information exchange, interlinked financial systems, and global trade, the control of access to nuclear weapons technology has grown increasingly difficult. The technical barriers to mastering the essential steps of uranium enrichment—and to designing weapons—have eroded over time. Much of the hardware in question is "dual use", and the sheer diversity of technology has made it much more difficult to control or even track procurement and sales.

This reflects some of the comments that I made subsequent to question time here in the Senate this afternoon in the instance of Iran. The technology that you use to enrich nuclear materials for fuel is the same plant, the same factory and the same technologists and engineers that you employ to enrich that same uranium all the way up to weapons grade.

Dr ElBaradei's words are those of a man who deeply believes in nuclear energy, unlike myself, and who headed up an agency with a mandate of promoting nuclear energy. Nonetheless, we are still making a long-term radioactive mess that will be dangerous and usable by terrorists—however you define that term; the international community has still not arrived at a mutually shared definition—for centuries. Solutions to the threat posed by nuclear terrorism obviously involve international cooperation such as the means advanced through the treaty that we ratify through this bill. Obviously eliminating nuclear materials would seriously impede terrorist networks' ability to acquire such materials. Immediately securing all nuclear weapons and weapons-usable material is also obvious. Locking down and eliminating existing fissile material and nuclear weapons and facilities is really the only way to address the danger of nuclear terrorism.

Of course, terrorist networks are very unlikely to blow up a wind farm or make a dirty bomb from a solar panel, but these weapons will continue to exist as long as we give our collective consent to that existence. So, inasmuch as we support the aims of this bill and the work that has gone into it—the international collaboration and the international work that has gone into bringing this bill into this parliament and other parliaments and assemblies around the world—we know that it is only part of the question. This does not deal with the source of the materials. It does not deal with the source of the expertise or any of the rationales why various networks or other states around the world might seek to acquire these weapons. This debate must go further. We pass this bill today but we must proceed further to the debate about how to eliminate these weapons from the arsenals of all nations, including our ally the United States.

Senator SINGH (Tasmania) (18:19): I also rise to speak to the Nuclear Terrorism Legislation Amendment Bill 2011, and I acknowledge the contribution by Senator Ludlam. This bill implements the International Convention for the Suppression of Acts of Nuclear Terrorism, a treaty that was signed by Australia in September 2005 and which entered into force generally in 2007. Certainly the passage of this bill is well overdue. Despite many of its provisions already being covered under Australian law, it is important to strengthen our existing legislation and to better complement international regimes to prevent terrorism wherever possible.

Consideration of this bill by the Senate today is in fact timely, as Australia's ratification of the convention will be an important contribution to the second nuclear security summit, to be held in the Republic of Korea next month. The international convention was conceived and created as part of the redoubling of global efforts against terrorism and the changes in the way in which terrorism is and potentially could manifest. Taken together with the International Convention for the Suppression of Terrorist Bombings, the International Convention for the Suppression of Financing Terrorism and the Convention on the Physical Protection of Nuclear Material, this treaty and the legislative change introduced by this bill contribute to a framework for international cooperation on terrorist offences, including investigation and extradition.

It goes without saying that over the last decade, especially since the tragic events of September 11, 2001 and the attacks on Kuta, Bali, in October 2002, the nature and challenges of asymmetric warfare have become clear. Global terrorist cells have become more widespread, just as they have become more sophisticated. Changes in warfare have necessitated a new legislative response. While the conduct of state actors in conflict has long been dealt with through international humanitarian law—that is, of course, the laws of war—the way in which non-state actors wield the same instruments of destruction requires a specific criminal response. In an age in which nuclear proliferation has been far too widespread and where too often the security around state-held nuclear devices has been vulnerable to degradation and exploitation by organised crime, there exists this terrible prospect that radical organisations willing to resort to political violence rather than peaceful expression may be able to acquire nuclear material.

This legislation, of course, responds to that awful possibility, reinforces Australia's criminal law against political violence in these especially extreme circumstances and sends a message to the international community that Australia stands committed to addressing the threats of global and domestic terrorism. The bill creates new criminal offences of making or possessing radioactive material or a convention device, damaging a nuclear device or a nuclear facility, threatening to use or damage radioactive material, and demanding that another person create radioactive material, a nuclear device or a nuclear facility. Whilst these offences are new under this bill, some other crimes captured under the international convention already exist under Australian law. Each of these offences carries a maximum penalty of 20 years imprisonment, reflecting the gravity of the offence conduct.

The bill inserts a number of new definitions for expressions relevant to the new offences. To ensure consistency with the convention which the bill will implement and in accordance with current drafting practices, the bill adopts the definitions set out in the convention. In recognition of the need to work in concert with our allies and partners overseas, these offences are not limited to conduct by Australians and in Australia but will apply in a broad range of situations where the convention requires state parties to assert jurisdiction.

Importantly, the bill makes a consequential amendment to the Extradition Act 1988 to prevent a person avoiding extradition from Australia for a convention offence by arguing that they had committed a political offence. Understanding the time, I will make the rest of my contribution short, but I would like to add that I strongly believe that the types of offences considered under this legislation are far, far from being considered statements of political expression. We must emphasise, however and wherever we are able, that recourse to violence, especially the types with devastating, enduring effects covered by this bill, can never be excused by any legitimate cause.

Senator McLUCAS (Queensland—Parliamentary Secretary for Disabilities and Carers) (18:24): I would like to thank senators for their contribution to the debate on the bill. Australia takes the proliferation and use of nuclear weapons and related materials seriously and actively participates in a range of international activities and forums designed to reduce proliferation and improve nuclear safety arrangements. Australia is a longtime supporter of the international legal framework for the nonproliferation of nuclear weapons, including as a state party to the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons and the South Pacific Nuclear-Free Zone Treaty. Australia also participates in the Proliferation Security Initiative. The purpose of the initiative is to prevent illicit trafficking in weapons of mass destruction, their delivery systems and related materials.

The Nuclear Terrorism Legislation Amendment Bill 2011 will make a contribution to Australia's fight against terrorism and misuse of weapons of mass destruction. Importantly, it will also demonstrate to the international community that Australia is serious about cooperating with other nations to defeat threats to international peace and security. Nuclear terrorism is a horrifying thought. A nuclear terrorist attack could kill millions, lay waste to cities and the environment for decades, and cause grave social and economic dislocation. We hope that the world never sees this day. While our hope is that the probability of this happening is low, we should never discount that possibility. The bill will put in place offences that will allow Australia to more easily prosecute nuclear terrorists. It would also facilitate cooperation with other nations in the fight against nuclear terrorism. The bill forms part of a broad effort by the international community to fight nuclear terrorism. It will allow Australia to ratify the International Convention for the Suppression of Acts of Nuclear Terrorism. It is a significant piece of legislation which sends a strong message to the international community and would-be nuclear terrorists. I commend the bill to the Senate.

Question agreed to.

Bill read a second time.

The ACTING DEPUTY PRESIDENT ( Senator Crossin ) (18:27): As no amendments to the bill have been circulated, I call Senator McLucas to move the third reading unless any senator requires that the bill be considered in Committee of the Whole.

Senator McLUCAS (Queensland—Parliamentary Secretary for Disabilities and Carers) (18:27): I move:

That this bill be now read a third time.

Question agreed to.

Bill read a third time.

Sitting suspended from 18:28 to 19:30

Senator RYAN (Victoria) (19:30): This bill is mainly technical in nature in that it completes the process commenced with the Remuneration and Other Legislation Amendment Bill, passed in this place last year in order to grant complete independence to the Remuneration Tribunal. It implements the recommendations of the Remuneration Tribunal, released in December last year, which in simple terms are to close the Life Gold Pass scheme to new entrants to this place from the commencement of the bill, including those who have not qualified but re-enter. It also reduces the cap upon the number of domestic return trips eligible for current holders of the Life Gold Pass. It also gives the Remuneration Tribunal the power to determine portions of additional office holder and ministerial salary that may be excluded from the benefits payable to members of the now closed 1948 parliamentary superannuation scheme.

In relation to the second matter, this bill merely ensures that members of the former and current superannuation schemes do not receive different treatment due to the Remuneration Tribunal's announcement or future determinations. The opposition supports this bill.

Senator RHIANNON (New South Wales) (19:31): The Greens have long opposed the Life Gold Pass. In July 2009, Senator Bob Brown called for the Life Gold Pass to be reviewed by an independent arbiter. The bill abolishes the Life Gold Pass entitlement prospectively so that it is not available to those who enter the parliament at or after the commencement of the bill. The bill also severs the link between the additional pensions paid under the 1948 superannuation scheme and additional salaries paid to office holders and ministers.

The Life Gold Pass scheme, which in 2010 to 2011 cost taxpayers—cost the public, therefore—$1.3 million, will be closed for new members, and the entitlement of existing members will be reduced from 25 to 10 business class flights a year. While we commend the closure of the scheme, it should be noted that the reason for the rush to pass this bill is to facilitate the Remuneration Tribunal in gifting parliamentarians a pay rise. It has been made clear by the Remuneration Tribunal and the minister that this rise in base salaries from $140,910 to $185,000 per year is contingent on the passage of this bill. The reason for the government and opposition support for the hurried debate of the bill is certainly clear.

The Greens do not support the corres­ponding restoration of the Remuneration Tribunal's power to determine parliamentary base salaries without the power of parliament to disallow the determinations. Surely that should be in place. Transparency and accountability demand that the parliament maintain oversight over such matters. The major parties removed the embarrassment of accepting the pay offer and shed respon­sibility for a pay grab. They are some of the comments that were made when this announcement was made. It is the responsibility of each parliamentarian to justify to the electorate, to the taxpayers, to the public, the remuneration for MPs. Politicians' salaries should be compared with those of ordinary Australians like police, nurses and teachers, not corporate executives who earn millions of dollars. We support the bill but it is important that we note what is behind it.

Senator XENOPHON (South Australia) (19:34): My contribution will be short, perhaps not quite as short as Senator Ryan's or Senator Rhiannon's, but I think it is important that we put a few things in context, and I have an amendment that I will move in the committee stage of this bill. I understood, when I spoke to the Special Minister of State's office, that the government was not inclined to support the amendment, but I believe in miracles. Who knows? Senator Feeney may have some different news for me, although I doubt it.

We need to put this in context. This bill relates to consequential amendment. It relates to recommendations made arising out of the Belcher review, and that was a very useful process. I would like to commend the work done by former Special Ministers of State Faulkner and Ludwig, and I would particularly like to thank the current Special Minister of State, the Hon. Gary Gray, for the work his office has done to bring about some reforms to the system.

When we dealt with the issue of the independence of the Remuneration Tribunal, I raised some concerns about issues of transparency and openness, and I will discuss that further in the context of the amendment I will be moving. I think it is very important when we consider legislation such as this that it should not be not about us; it should be about the people who voted for us. The people of Australia are our employers. Their taxes pay our salaries, their votes give us our jobs and their confidence or otherwise, and they determine our futures. Like any employer, the Australian people deserve to have some say in what they pay their employees. There has been a long-time argument that politicians deserve to be paid on an equal footing with other industries—wages relativity, if you like. I think that what the Remuneration Tribunal has done by speaking to a number of MPs—and I was one of those—was a very useful and good exercise. I was impressed with the forensic nature of what they did, and I think that the secretariat of the Remuneration Tribunal should also be commended for their professionalism and the way they tackled the task in their discussions with MPs and senators. I think that was a very good exercise.

While I accept that if you pay peanuts you are most likely to get monkeys, we cannot forget that our sole purpose in being here is to represent our constituents. Schemes like the Life Gold Pass might not raise an eyebrow in another industry but they erode the faith that Australians have in their representatives. People believe fairly enough that, after we retire, we are not here to enjoy business class flights and comfy pension packages. I can understand why there is significant public opprobrium in relation to the gold pass scheme. I think there is one exception: we need to make sure that our former prime ministers are treated differently. My understanding is that they are, and I do not think we will ever go to the stage—nor should we—of the way they treat former presidents of the United States. It is fair to say that if you have been a Prime Minister of this nation then you have something to offer. You are in demand from the community from all over to discuss and be requested to open an art exhibition or speak on issues of public policy. It is quite reasonable that those gold pass entitlements ought to continue for former prime ministers if they are travelling for the purpose of public duties arising from the fact that they are a former Prime Minister.

I support the government's intentions in this bill and, even though they have been a long time coming, there have been some welcome reforms. I think we need to go further. I propose some amendments to this bill that will require the Remuneration Tribunal to hold public consultations before making a determination into politicians' pay or entitlements, and I will expand on this during the committee stage. I note that the government has previously made changes to the Remuneration Tribunal's operations and their powers. Having true independence is a good thing but it ought to be coupled with greater transparency. I believe those changes need to go further. One of the Australian Labor Party's founding principles is 'a fair day's work for a fair day's wage', and there are not too many who would disagree with that. It should apply to those who make the rules as much as to those who are required to obey them. There needs to be a transparent process for evaluating politicians' pay and entitlements, a process that takes into account the positions of the general public, of interest groups and of politicians themselves. In the real world there are not many people who would get to decide whether they should get a pay rise, and I think that is why it is good that there is now independence on the part of the tribunal.

It is important to strengthen confidence in the process of politicians' pay and their entitlements and to have a process that is much more transparent, where there is a public hearing process and where public submissions are called for. I note that the Remuneration Tribunal did that in previous years, but mandating that the tribunal do this does not fetter their independence; it is a question of ensuring some essential processes to ensure that occurs. Whether we like it or not there is a higher standard on politicians to be transparent, particularly in respect of the processes that relate to their pay and conditions being altered. It is an honour to serve Australia in this place but it does not make me or anyone here deserving of special treatment, and that is why it is important that this legislation ought to be strengthened.

I will have some questions at the committee stage about the issue of the decoupling of politicians' superannuation, those who were elected prior to the changes in 2004 and these changes. They will be genuine questions as to how this will work and what formula will apply to ensure that there is not an unnecessary windfall, which is the intention of this bill. I want to ask some technical questions in relation to how this will actually work. I would like to hear from my colleagues on all sides as to whether or not they support some greater transparency and why the Remuneration Tribunal, which I think is made up of honourable and capable people, along with its secretariat, would not be able to accommodate these amendments to have a much better system of determining politicians' pay and entitlements.

Senator FEENEY (Victoria—Parliamentary Secretary for Defence) (19:41): I thank senators for their contributions to this debate on the Members of Parliament (Life Gold Pass) and Other Legislation Amendment Bill 2012. This bill is a further demonstration of the government's commitment to reform the parliamentary entitlements framework. In 2009 the government commissioned an independent committee chaired by Ms Barbara Belcher AO to review parliamentary entitlements. On 24 March 2011, the Special Minister of State tabled the committee's report and introduced the Remuneration and Other Legislation Amendment Bill 2011, which restored the power of the independent Remuneration Tribunal to determine the parliamentary base salary of parliamen­tarians. On that day the Special Minister of State also agreed to the tribunal's request that it consider the other recommendations of the committee's report and to make recom­mendations on parliamentarians' tools of trade and other entitlements issues.

The tribunal released its initial report into the review of the remuneration of members of parliament on 15 December 2011 and the government has moved immediately to accept key recommendations of this report, including that the Life Gold Pass scheme be closed prospectively; that the travel entitlement of Life Gold Pass holders be reduced; and that the link between additional pensions under the Parliamentary Contri­butory Superannuation Scheme, the 1948 scheme, and additional salaries for serving parliamentary office holders and ministers be severed. This bill implements those recommendations of the independent tribunal.

Once this bill takes effect, the Life Gold Pass scheme will be closed to those who enter or re-enter the parliament. The travel entitlement of existing Life Gold Pass holders who have never held office as Prime Minister and their spouses or de facto partners will be reduced from 25 to 10 domestic return trips per financial year from the 2012-13 financial year. Sitting senators and members will remain eligible to accrue an entitlement to a Life Gold Pass where they serve the remainder of their relevant qualifying period prior to leaving the parliament. Further, a sitting senator or member who ceases to be a member of their house and who becomes a member of the other chamber within three months will be regarded as having had continuous service in the parliament and will continue to be eligible for a Life Gold Pass. In accordance with the tribunal's recommendation that the travel entitlement of Life Gold Pass holders be reduced immediately, the bill introduces a transitional provision which limits the number of domestic return trips for the remainder of 2011-12 to a maximum of two. This provision will apply from the later of the day on which the bill receives the royal assent or 1 April 2012.

As senators may be aware, serving ministers of state and parliamentary office holders receive additional salaries as a percentage of parliamentary base salary. Any increase in the parliamentary base salary determined by the tribunal would then flow to the additional salaries of ministers of state and parliamentary office holders. The measures in this bill will allow the Remuneration Tribunal to limit any windfall gains from increases in the additional salaries of office holders and ministers of state flowing to the superannuation benefits for current and former parliamentarians. These measures complement similar arrangements approved by the parliament last year, in the Remuneration and Other Legislation Amendment Act 2011, in relation to increases in the parliamentary base salary for members of parliament.

The reforms to the parliamentary entitlements framework set out in this bill will contribute to an effective, efficient and transparent system of remuneration and entitlements, and will help to build the Australian public's confidence in the parliamentary entitlements system. I commend the bill to the Senate.

Question agreed to.

Bill read a second time.

Senator XENOPHON (South Australia) (19:45): I have some questions about the bill with respect to the decoupling of superannuation arrangements. It is understood that, in order for the pay rise recommended by the tribunal to come into effect, there must be some decoupling of the superannuation arrangements for those who were elected prior to 2004. That is the general consensus of the intent of the bill.

Senator Feeney: Yes.

Senator XENOPHON: The parliamentary secretary Senator Feeney said that is the case. It was a good, direct answer, which is what I expect from Senator Feeney. My question is this: how will the formula be derived at? Has the tribunal indicated to the government the sorts of things that it will be looking at? I understand the independence of the tribunal—I get that—but how will the tribunal look at those issues to ensure that there will not be an undue benefit or, arguably, an undue detriment to those members of parliament elected prior to 2004? The other issue, which would also apply to the issue of the gold pass, is whether consideration has been given as to whether there is any potential for legal action by any aggrieved members of parliament—presumably former members of parliament—in terms of the gold pass being reduced. Would they argue that it is taking away a property right? Similarly, has advice been obtained in relation to the issue of superannuation benefits for those elected prior to 2004, particularly those who may have retired?

Senator FEENEY (Victoria—Parliamentary Secretary for Defence) (19:48): Thank you, Senator Xenophon. I begin by outlining, in general, the government's position with respect to your amendments, before turning to some of the particular points you made in those remarks.

Firstly, as you foreshadowed, Senator Xenophon, the government does not support your proposed amendments—that is, to add a schedule to the bill prescribing a process for the way the independent Remuneration Tribunal goes about making a determination or a report about members of parliament. It is the government's view that it is a matter for the independent Remuneration Tribunal to determine how best to undertake the task of determining remuneration levels within its jurisdiction. It is already open to the tribunal to take submissions and conduct hearings, and the tribunal can also publish submissions received and the transcripts of hearings.

The easiest way I could sum this up is to say that the public hearings you are seeking may be entirely possible. It is, of course, within the remit of the tribunal to conduct its affairs in that way if it so chooses, but the legislation does not mandate it. Rather, the legislation seeks to emphasise the independence of the tribunal to conduct its affairs as it sees fit. The government submits that the proposed amendments submitted by Senator Xenophon would constrain the independent tribunal's discretion in this matter.

It is worth noting that the tribunal undertook a wide range of public consultations in the lead-up to its most recent reports regarding members of parliament, departmental secretaries and specified statutory office holders. The Remuneration Tribunal already has transparency measures in place. The tribunal is already required by section 7A of the Remuneration Tribunal Act 1973 to publish full details of its reports. In relation to its most recent report into the remuneration of parliamentarians, the tribunal published a detailed report of 67 pages, with 227 pages of appendices for those who have the stomach for it, as well as a related consultant report and an accompanying statement. The tribunal is also subject to the Freedom of Information Act 1982 and, as such, any submissions to the tribunal may be accessed under the act, subject to any necessary exemptions. For these reasons, the government does not support the amendments proposed by Senator Xenophon.

Firstly, with respect to the question, 'Does the tribunal need the power to determine a portion of additional office holder salaries that will not flow to members of the 1948 scheme?' the answer is yes. In its report of 15 December 2011, the Remuneration Tribunal indicated that the link in the 1948 scheme between the additional salary of a current office holder in parliament or a minister of state and the additional pension of a retired parliamentarian be severed. The bill achieves this outcome by extending the tribunal's existing power in the Remuneration Tribunal Act 1973 to determine a portion of parliamentary base salary not to be taken as parliamentary allowance for the purpose of the 1948 scheme. These new powers will allow the tribunal to similarly determine a portion of additional salary that is not to be taken into account for superannuation purposes. The tribunal indicated in its statement that it does not intend to make a determination on the remuneration of parliamentarians until this issue has been resolved.

Secondly, the government does not consider that the closure of the Life Gold Pass scheme, and the reduction in the number of domestic return trips available under entitlement, is an acquisition of property within the meaning of paragraph 51(xxxi) of the Constitution. This issue was considered in 2002, when limits were first introduced on the number of return domestic trips provided by the Life Gold Pass scheme, and resulted in a constitutional safety net provision being included in the Members of Parliament (Life Gold Pass) Act 2002. This bill includes an equivalent provision to provide a reasonable amount of compensation in circumstances where any provisions in the bill are found to result in an acquisition of property under section 51(xxxi) of the Constitution.

Senator XENOPHON (South Australia) (19:52): Thank you to Senator Feeney for his answers. I do not have the report in front of me—a comprehensive report with 220-odd pages of appendices—but, as I understand it, the tribunal did not actually advertise for public submissions.

Senator FEENEY (Victoria—Parliamentary Secretary for Defence) (19:53): Only insofar as they advertised on their own website.

Senator XENOPHON (South Australia) (19:53): So they requested submissions but did not put it out there publicly?

Senator FEENEY (Victoria—Parliamentary Secretary for Defence) (19:53): I contend that putting it on their website is a public communication.

Senator XENOPHON (South Australia) (19:53): How many hits has that website had since these submissions? I do not know if it has had as many hits as the 'Happy little vegemite' YouTube posting!

Senator FEENEY (Victoria—Parliamentary Secretary for Defence) (19:54): Excluding the—

The CHAIRMAN: Senators, do not jump the gun too quickly; otherwise, the recording people will not be able to change the microphones over. Senator Xenophon.

Senator XENOPHON (South Australia) (19:54): Unfortunately I did not get to hear Senator Feeney's words of wisdom there. Is he able to indicate how many hits there have been on the website since the call for submissions went up? It was not an actual call for submissions. I asked whether it had had as many hits as, for instance, the 'Happy little vegemite' YouTube posting.

Senator FEENEY (Victoria—Parliamentary Secretary for Defence) (19:54): Your witticisms, as always, are extraordinarily welcome, senator. I will take that on notice. I am not in a position to give you a comprehensive answer. I am advised that there may have been some further advertising, but I undertake to get back to you on that.

Senator XENOPHON (South Australia) (19:55): In terms of the whole issue of property rights—and I appreciate Senator Feeney's answer in relation to that, which deals with section 51(xxxi) of the Constitution in terms of the acquisition of property—is it the case that those things that were considered in respect of the gold pass would not apply in terms of altering the issue of parliamentary pensions?

Senator FEENEY (Victoria—Parliamentary Secretary for Defence) (19:55): I understand that the issue will be treated in the same manner, and the legal advice of government would cover both eventualities.

Senator RHIANNON (New South Wales) (19:55): I want to go back to some of the comments Senator Feeney made earlier. He made out that the problem with Senator Xenophon's amendments is that they will constrain the independence of the tribunal. But he really has not established that case at all. I think this is an important point for our consideration. I congratulate Senator Xenophon. I am sure he will not mind me saying that what he has put forward here is very minimal. It is certainly not a constraint; it is just setting out some very minor issues of process. That is all we have here. Let us remind ourselves what the essence of that is: there should be a call for public submissions; there should be a website where those submissions can be received and there should be a public hearing conducted—and there are a few other process issues. So Senator Feeney's statement that the independence of the tribunal will be restrained—which obviously nobody would want to do—has not been established. I would ask that the senator set out his arguments for making that statement, which, from what I heard, was the whole basis of his argument for dismissing Senator Xenophon's amendments. I would be interested in his arguments.

The CHAIRMAN: Before I call Senator Feeney, I indicate to the committee that we are not actually debating the amendments per se as they have not been moved. Even though we are aware of the amendments, we are in general discussion. Senator Feeney.

Senator FEENEY (Victoria—Parliamentary Secretary for Defence) (19:57): I am happy to expand on my answer. It really goes to the point of the independence of the tribunal. It is the view of the government, as set out in the legislation, that the tribunal itself ultimately determines how best to undertake the important task of determining the remuneration levels within its jurisdiction. It is obviously given an independence—

Senator Xenophon: You're shifting the argument now.

Senator FEENEY: I am just responding to the question. As I said earlier in response to Senator Xenophon, the public hearings, which he in particular is seeking, would not be precluded by the tribunal; rather, it is our view that the tribunal, in determining how best to go about its business, will have discretion as to whether that is or is not appropriate. That is a matter for the tribunal. I understand that in your view, Senator Rhiannon, we should mandate or require that. I would simply say that that is a difference of opinion between you and the government. Our view is that the legislation means the tribunal is able to contemplate what you are seeking but is not required to do so.

Senator XENOPHON (South Australia) (19:58): Mr Chairman, I am grateful for your guidance. I think it is appropriate that I move those amendments now, but I may have some further questions in the committee stage about how widely disseminated the call for submissions was and what sorts of submissions the tribunal got in respect of their quite comprehensive report of December last year. I seek leave to move the amendments as a whole.

Leave granted.

Senator XENOPHON (South Australia) (19:59): I move:

(1) Clause 2, page 2   (at the end of the table), add:

   7. Schedule 3 Immediately after the commencement of the provisions covered by table item 6.

(2) Page 9   (after line 15), at the end of the bill, add:

   Schedule 3—Determinations and reports about politicians' pay and entitlements

Remuneration Tribunal Act 1973

1 After section 7

Insert:

7AA Process for making determination or report about members of Parliament

   (1) Before making a determination or report under this Act relating to a member of the Parliament (including a Minister of State), the Tribunal must:

      (a) make a call to the public for submissions; and

      (b) publish on its website each submission received (but only with the consent of the person making the submission); and

      (c) conduct a public hearing in relation to the matters that are the subject of the proposed determination or report.

   (2) The Tribunal must publish on its website a transcript of public hearings conducted under paragraph (1)(c).

2 Section 7A

Before "The Tribunal", insert "(1)".

3 At the end of section 7A

Add:

   (2) The Tribunal's reasons for a determination or report under this Act relating to a member of the Parliament (including a Minister of State) must address:

      (a) any submissions received under subsection 7AA(1); and

      (b) any evidence given in a public hearing conducted under that subsection.

4 At the end of section 11

Add:

   (3) This section applies subject to section 7AA (process for making determination or report about members of Parliament).

These amendments introduce an additional process for the Remuneration Tribunal to follow when considering politicians' pay and entitlements. Item 1 states that these amendments will come into effect immediately after the provisions covered by schedule 2 of the bill. Item 2 inserts a new schedule into the bill. This schedule states that before making a determination or report about politicians' pay and entitlements the Remuneration Tribunal must take the following steps: firstly, make a call to the public for submissions; secondly, publish all submissions on its website, subject to the consent of the person or organisation making the submission; thirdly, conduct a public hearing in relation to the proposed determination or report; fourthly, publish a transcript of the hearings on its website; and, fifthly, refer to the submissions and evidence provided in the public hearing when providing reasons for the decisions reached by the tribunal in relation to the proposed determination or report.

Senator Rhiannon is right. These are minimalist amendments and there is nothing wrong with minimalism, Senator Rhiannon. Sometimes less is more. It is a case of these amendments being quite straightforward. These amendments do not constrain—in any way, whatsoever—the independence of the tribunal in making a determination about the salary, conditions and entitlements of members of parliament. But it sets up a process that guarantees a certain benchmark of transparency. To require that certain benchmark of transparency is not onerous and is essential for public confidence in the whole issue of politicians' pay and entitlements. It would help demystify the process; it would help strengthen public confidence in the process by which politicians are remunerated and how their pay and conditions are set. That would unambiguously be a good thing. At the moment there seems to be too much mystery. There is something to be said for having this benchmark of transparency.

These amendments would also allow members of parliament, unions, industry groups and other interested parties to provide information to the tribunal in relation to determinations or reports. Politicians are employed to serve the Australian public. I think it only fair that the Australian public be involved in that process in a transparent fashion. This bill makes amendments to the definition of salary and allows the tribunal to make determinations of what constitutes salary for the purpose of assessing superannuation. Therefore, there is a direct relevance to these amendments, because they relate to the heart of what is being proposed. These amendments would not have been necessary, in a sense, had it not been for the subject matter of the bill and what is being proposed.

I note that Senator Feeney has indicated the government's opposition to this. I ask Senator Feeney if he would concede that the independence of the tribunal to make determinations as to the pay and conditions and entitlements of members of parliament is not in any way constrained by this bill. There is simply a requirement to have advertisements for public hearings, to conduct a public hearing, to have submissions that can be published on the website subject to the consent of those making the submissions and to at least make reference to the submissions that have been made and to the evidence heard in the course of a public hearing. I say to Senator Feeney, with his eminent legal background—I say that without any irony whatsoever: how does that impinge on the independence of the tribunal? The tribunal could hear all this evidence and go through the process that is suggested or mandated in this amendment. It can still decide what it wants to decide, but at least the Australian people will know that there has been a benchmark of accountability and transparency in the process.