The Idiocy of Party Politics !

For forty years whatever Federal government in office at that time has wrangled with the question of selecting a site for a nuclear waste dump to secure the radioactive material constantly generated by our hospital systems.  The radioactive isotope is an integral part of todays nuclear medicine and the waste material is presently held in over a hundred unsecure sites scattered across the Australian states.

The main danger comes from terrorists.  It has long been the a prime aim of ISIS to create a " dirty bomb " and explode it in a public place.  That would generate radioactive contamination of people and buildings that would deliver harm for many years.   The outcome of such a bomb exploded in the centre of a major city is unimaginable.

We have failed to reach consensus on a suitable site for two main reasons.  The NINBY syndrome - and politics.  Any suggested site provokes a howl of opposition from local residents, and whichever political party is in opposition at that time also rejects the plan on principle.

So far this search for a site for nuclear waste has cost the people of Australia sixty million dollars and once again it looks like being voted down in the Australian parliament.  This time the search has selected a farm at Napandee, a remote part of the Eyre Peninsula in South Australia for a proposed low and medium level waste facility.

This week the political party in opposition is Labor and a decision made in caucus  rubber stamped opposition to that South Australian bid as official policy.  To get the numbers to pass the necessary legislation, the government will have to negotiate once again with its unruly crossbench., and this has provoked an angry outburst from Labor Senators Kim Carr and Alex Gallacher.

This coronavirus pandemic has forced extraordinary deficit spending to try and save the economy and get people back to work and political expediency is again blocking a very necessary outcome which both sides of politics hope to gain - when they are in office.  The sheer dogmatic weight of politics ensures they remain stubbornly opposed whenever they are occupying the opposition benches.

That is the stupidity of party politics.  The party out of office will automatically oppose anything that will give the party in office an achievable gain. The most likely outcome is that this nuclear waste dump will again fail.  That site in South Australia will be rejected and more money will be spent on a fruitless search to find somewhere else.

Two courageous Senators have called a halt to this idiocy.  We have an entire continent at our disposal and we are fruitlessly wrangling about an installation that will probably take up an area less than a mile square. Once passed in parliament, work can begin to create a secure area where the nation's nuclear waste can be safely stored with the approaches under the control of our military forces.

It is obvious that this site on the Eyre Peninsula is " as good as it gets ".  We have already rejected the Woomera rocket range and other remote parts of the inland and the issue needs a " circuit breaker " or this search will go on indefinitely.  The people of Australia have every reason to be angry at this timeless delay.