NSW State Labor parliamentarians Walt Secord and Janelle Saffin have vowed to work together to fight One Nation senator Mark Latham’s legislation to set up a nuclear power industry in NSW.
The Uranium Mining and Nuclear Facilities (Prohibitions) Repeal Bill 2019 was the first bill introduced by Mark Latham into the new State Parliament on May 7.
It reads: ‘a bill for an Act to repeal the Uranium Mining and Nuclear Facilities (Prohibitions) Act 1986 and make consequential amendments to other legislation’.
In 2012, the then-O’Farrell government (Liberal/National) passed the Mining Legislation Amendment (Uranium Exploration Bill) 2012 to allow exploration for uranium in NSW. At the time, the Liberal-Nationals claimed that it would only allow exploration and not the creation of an industry.
Secord and Saffin say that Mark Latham’s bill follows a push last year by Nationals leader and Deputy Premier John Barilaro, to establish a nuclear power industry in NSW.
They also say that Mr Barilaro also completed a taxpayer-funded visit to the United States where he was drumming up interest in US investors to build nuclear reactors in NSW. At the time, 18 sites were identified as possible sites for nuclear power plants in NSW– including a 250km stretch of coast from Port Macquarie to north of Grafton.
Fight against nuclear power
Mr Secord, who is Shadow Minister for the North Coast and Upper House deputy Opposition leader and Ms Saffin, who is the Country Labor MP for Lismore said they would fight the bill.
‘This is the next step in the development of a nuclear power industry in NSW,’ said Mr Secord said. ‘It is no coincidence that the first piece of legislation to come from the new parliamentarians was a bill to set up a nuclear power industry.
‘The Berejiklian Government has always supported a nuclear power industry.’
Ms Saffin said that the North Coast community is clear and has spoken. ‘They do not want to see nuclear reactors in NSW. We fought them on CSG and unconventional gas and we will fight them on nuclear power.
‘North Coast primary producers pride themselves on the quality of their goods and their clean and green reputation,’ she said. ‘The National Party Leader’s obsession with building nuclear reactors would jeopardise this hard fought for advantage for local producers on the North Coast.’
Saffin says nuclear reactors would tarnish NSW’s clean and green image, and threaten the reputation and emerging markets of many north coast primary industries.
‘Nuclear power is a distraction from real long term energy solutions that provide the cheapest and most sustainable forms of electricity for the community and business – which is renewable energy,’ she said.
‘The NSW Coalition Government has always harboured dreams of nuclear power plants in NSW, having first proposed a site for Jervis Bay on the South Coast in the 1960s’.
What a lot of rot the labor party will cling to aany new straw to get publicity the fact is it cost 20 times more to build a nuclear power station then it is to build a coal fired power station so what do you think?
Two words: Chernobyl and Fukushima. Nuff said…
People who use Chernobyl & Fukashima as argument against nuclear power are scientifically illiterate.
A Russian nuclear plant designed in the 1950s is magnitudes away from a modem nuclear plant.
Fukashima was an old design (Westinghouse I think) & should never have been approved in a geologically active zone.
That said, not one person has died from nuclear products released during the event. That’s right, not one.
So the Berejiklian Government’s got a passion for
Nuke Power Plants & Uranium Exploration. Japan
knows better – & so does Russia. Maybe we should
hold ‘a Yellow Cake afternoon tea-party’ for the
believers. It’s not the 1960s [just in case you got
forgetful] & thought the stuff was safe. As for
Latham’s opinion… we don’t need it. The stuff is
‘old hat’ & lethal. Back off to this stupidity or it
will mean I’ll get to take a ride in a Paddy-Wagon
all over again.
A big congratulations to the voters of NSW who not only re-elected the Berejiklian/Barilaro dictatorship but who in their wisdom elected frothing-at- the-mouth, mad dog Latham of the Racist Scum party.
Well done, NSW, you can have it all (forced upon you). Idiots.
Fact is that humanity is producing highly dangerous radioactive materials and waste which in some cases has a half life of half a million years. This will need to be held and maintained in a safe way for that time and yet we humans as a race have only been around as civilisations for around 7,000 years.
It is hard to believe that people think a nuclear industry is okay
The anti nuclear mob are living in the T model ford days when comes to nuclear. These days it is clean green cheap an safe.
Australia needs nuclear power & nuclear submarines.
Nuclear power is not nuclear weapons They are very different things.
The technological benefit to Australia is worth every cent of building a nuclear plant so once cold fusion is mastered Australia will be ready to build a cold fusion reactor.
The nuclear is bad dogma in Australia is clearly indicative of a poorly educated population.
Zero understanding of the science of nuclear power generation is the problem in Australia.
Just look it up…
Nuclear energy sources emit Radiation –
Nuke energy is very expensive & dangerous
& is Not Clean –
Nukes run on Uranium & create greenhouse
gas pollution –
I assume this is all satire?
Just look it up…
Bananas emit Radiation –
Renewable energy is very expensive & dangerous
& is Not Clean –
Nukes run on Uranium & do not create many greenhouse
gas pollution, whereas renewables require huge amounts of steel and rare earth minerals and actually emit more greenhouse gases than nuclear per KwH
These sorts of technologies ought to be in the curriculum, ignorant people read the news headlines, that’s why we can’t have a sensible debate.
“Nuclear power is cheap, green and safe” – seriously?
Check out the CSIRO/AEMO GenCost 2018 report, detailing current and future capital and operating costs for electricity generation technologies, including nuclear and renewables, in Australia.
https://publications.csiro.au/rpr/download?pid=csiro:EP189502&dsid=DS1
The short answer within the next decade is that nothing else will come close to renewables for low capital and operating costs. Nuclear isn’t remotely competitive, and could only be built with very substantial public subsidies to build and operate.
Australia could generate 100% of the world’s electricity consumption from just 3% of our land area, using a relatively safe and very large fusion reactor parked about 150 million kilometres away, with increasingly efficient and very cheap solar energy conversion technology.
Moreover, solar and wind power have essentially ZERO water consumption, whereas a single large nuclear power station would require an annual water allocation of 25-35 gigalitres.
Nuclear power is a dying 20th century technology that has never operated competitively in an open market.
NOT HAPPENING!
“Australia needs nuclear submarines”? Definitely not happening.
Apart from the complete lack of a domestic nuclear power industry (which will never happen), the rapid development of advanced battery technology will create a new class of “gigabattery” submarine by the mid-21st century.
Gigabattery submarines will not require any on-board charging (eg diesel generators), and will have the same ability as nuclear submarines to undertake a complete 90 day mission submerged with zero indiscretion.
They will also be able to match the high underwater speeds of nuclear submarines for significant periods, although not long range transit at high speed.
They will be much stealthier than either modern conventional or nuclear submarines, with very low acoustic and thermal signatures.
Nuclear submarines are a big headache, even for countries that have a mature nuclear power industry. Britain now has 20 decommissioned end-of-life nuclear submarines, and has not been able to dispose of any of them since 1980.
It’s very hard to see why an Australian government would ever decide to go down this path.
We have a nuclear industry. It produces parts for wind power generation and if anyone is unfortunate enough to get the ‘Bib C’ the question is do I need Ray treatment with that!
A Nuclear Industry has to my mind the potential to make Australia rich. We can store overseas waste (which they store in their suburbs), reprocess it and use it for free in modern nuclear reactors.
In this country we have only 3to4 weeks of fuel, our navy should be nuclear and EV charging stations everywhere would serve to secure our energy future with clean green power. In the words of Sam Kekovitch, “You know it makes sense”!
Here’s a fact laden article about where nuclear is a the moment. https://www.energymagazine.com.au/nuclear-can-solve-the-energy-trilemma/