Angus Taylor and Matt Canavan recently claimed that 'our partners will simply look elsewhere' when supply of coal is reduced. However, this claim is contradicted by recent examples.
The annual Stanley Awards, Australia’s premier awards for cartoonists, has announced its shortlist for best climate cartoon honours.
The Wilderness Society has lodged a new complaint with the nation’s corporate watchdog, urging it to investigate how oil and gas companies report their clean-up costs.
It’s ten years since the SA Nuclear Royal Commission.
Ten years since the promises of big money, free electricity and an itsy-bitsy nuclear waste dump.
Ten years since a randomly selected ‘citizens jury’ of regular South Australians said no! They said that “under no circumstances should South Australia pursue any opportunity to store and dispose of nuclear waste from other countries”.
Ten years on, it’s worth reflecting on what was a major victory for South Australia’s Indigenous groups, unions, environment and community groups, and on the lasting impact of that win.
Make no mistake – this was a big win by community groups against a government and industry that had already decided what they wanted – a political and bureaucratic beachhead to set up nuclear shop in Australia.
There was nothing impartial or objective about the government’s position, the royal commission or the management of the citizens juries.
Premier Jay Weatherill went off to Finland in a hard hat and hi-vis to put “keep making positive noises”.
The royal commission managed to commission the president and vice president of a nuclear lobby group to write its economic assessment and safety analysis.
Perhaps unsurprisingly, the lobbyists’ economic analysis did not stand up to scrutiny, and when questioned about it, Commissioner Kevin Scarce told ABC radio that he would “take apart [The Australia Institute’s critical submission] piece by piece.”
The citizens juries were overseen by staff from the Premier’s office, at one point cancelling a debate between the Australia Institute and the authors of the economic assessment because the debate was clearly going to be embarrassing for the government, Royal Commission and its consultants.
Aside from the Premier, state government and Royal Commissioner, there were, of course, the usual gang of conservative politicians, industry and business groups, and nuclear fans doing what they do.
Despite all that, here is what the citizens’ jury decided:
Based on information provided to the Jury there is insufficient evidence to support [ongoing investigation of nuclear development].
There is a lack of aboriginal consent. We believe that the government should accept that the Elders have said NO and stop ignoring their opinions. The aboriginal people of South Australia (and Australia) continue to be neglected and ignored by all levels of government instead of respected and treated as equals.
It is impossible to provide an informed response to the issue of Economics because the findings in the [Royal Commission Report] are based on unsubstantiated assumptions. This has caused the forecast estimates to provide inaccurate, optimistic, unrealistic economic projections. We remain unconvinced that estimates relating to the cost of infrastructure.
South Australia has a reputation as a green state and has a commitment to pursue clean energy and participation any further in the nuclear cycle (specifically foreign High Level Nuclear Waste Storage Facility) be detrimental to our image.
To its credit, the South Australian government got the message and dropped the Royal Commission’s proposals like a hot potato. As far as I remember, the n-word never passed Premier Weatherill’s lips again.
Quality research, analysis, explainers and factchecks from experts you can trust.
That wasn’t what the nuclear industry had expected or wanted. It expected the citizens jury to conclude that there were big risks in nuclear, but also big money opportunities, so further consideration would be required.
That further consideration would initially take the form of industry-heavy summits and conferences. We know this, because I was invited to the first one that was organised before the citizens’ jury even reported. With flights and rooms already booked it went ahead, but the mood inside was funereal.
Imagine what could have been different. Imagine if all those talkfests went ahead and the SA government set up a permanent Nuclear Development Commission to investigate sites for dumps and other nuclear ‘opportunities’, along with a Nuclear Cooperative Research Centre (CRC), the kind of publicly-subsidised, industry-influenced research that keeps the worst boondoggles going like carbon capture and storage and “renewable gas”.
If such bodies had been set up, every major nuclear advocate in SA could have had a state-backed job and a media profile. A constant stream of media releases, opinion pieces and study tours to France, Japan, the USA and more. Influence in state and national media. And there’s every chance that perpetually nuclear-curious states like WA and the NT might have jumped on board too.
Malcolm Turnbull was in the lodge at the time, and energy policy wars were in full swing. (Remember the Weatherill-Frydenberg press conference?) Who knows what Turnbull himself might have done, but it’s likely that the Coalition would have gone full nuclear much earlier if SA had set up a nuclear bureaucracy after the Royal Commission and citizens juries.
Imagine what AUKUS would look like if SA had a credible political and bureaucratic pathway to a nuclear waste dump. The deal might have been very different and much harder for Australia to extract itself from if it involved something so valuable to the USA.
With a stronger AUKUS and pro-nuclear SA Labor government, the 2022 federal election might have looked very different.
Peter Dutton looked like a crackpot trying to sell nuclear reactors to Australians from a standing start. But if he’d had six years of SA nuclear advocacy behind him and a state Labor government working as a wedge on federal Labor, his nuclear policy could have been a much easier sell.
Fortunately, we’ll never know.
What we do know is that no shipment of high-level nuclear waste will arrive in South Australia this year. That’s what was assumed under the Royal Commission’s economic modelling. 3,000 tonnes this year and more every year out to the year 2101.
Hopefully none of that waste will come. And it’s thanks to the Indigenous, environment and union groups that fought so hard 10 years ago.
The Australia Institute will host an event to celebrate the 10th anniversary of the end of the SA Nuclear Royal Commission at the Rhino Room on Wednesday 21 October: Nukes vs People: 10 years after SA’s nuclear royal commission — what’s next with AUKUS?
Rod Campbell is the research director at the Australia Institute.
