Liberal and Labour Increase Radiation Threat
Jim Green - Green Left Weekly - July 1998
The federal government has pushed an inadequate nuclear bill through the House of Representatives. The Labor "Opposition" offered no opposition whatsoever.
The bill will go before the Senate in mid August (unless an election is called meantime). It will create the Australian Radiation Protection and Nuclear Safety Agency (ARPANSA), which replaces the Nuclear Safety Bureau and the Australian Radiation Laboratory.
ARPANSA will have numerous functions, including :
ARPANSA will be responsible for regulating the Australian Nuclear Science and Technology Organisation (ANSTO), which operates a nuclear research reactor at Lucas Heights in southern Sydney. It may be responsible for regulating the radioactive waste dump planned for the Billa Kalina region in South Australia. ARPANSA will also have some responsibility in relation to the uranium industry, for example by setting radiation exposure limits.
The bill ought to resolve a number of long-standing problems in the nuclear industry: excessive self-regulation; fragmentation of regulatory bodies; inconsistencies between the states/territories; excessive staff cross-over between promotional and regulatory bodies; the lack of real powers for regulatory bodies; and the lack of transparency and genuine public accountability.
However ARPANSA will not significantly improve the current situation. Perhaps the only thing to applaud without qualification is that the legislation will bring a number of previously unregulated institutions, such as the CSIRO, within the regulatory sphere.
Trish Worth, Parliamentary Secretary to Minister for Health, said in parliament that "The whole framework for this legislation relies on a lot of detail in regulation ..." Yet the regulations - said to run to 100 pages - have not been publicly released. In fact changes are still being made to the regulations and a government spokesperson said there is no guarantee that they will be available before the government attempts to push the bill through the Senate.
The government claims to have consulted all "stakeholders", but in reality only commonwealth and state government departments were consulted. Environmental groups, and representatives of communities living around nuclear sites such as ANSTO and uranium mines, have had to muscle their way into the debate.
Critics have had some success in forcing improvements in the bill. The government was attempting to push the bill through parliament without any explicit provision for community representation on ARPANSA. However public scrutiny and criticism have turned this situation around somewhat and community representatives will be appointed to the council and working groups within ARPANSA. Of course the government's definition of a community representative may differ from yours or mine.
The regulatory body should be a statutory authority, completely independent of government. Instead we have a half-baked arrangement. The Chief Executive Officer of ARPANSA will be a statutory office-holder, but ARPANSA staff will be public servants employed by the Commonwealth Department of Health and Family Services. Hiring and firing of ARPANSA staff will ultimately be the responsibility of the Minister for Health.
According to legal advice presented to the Sutherland Shire Council, government control of ARPANSA staffing "is a sure giveaway of the Government's intention to create a regulator subservient to the bureaucracy." Even within the tame framework of Australia's environmental regulation, there are examples of regulatory agencies which control their own staff appointments; the NSW Environment Protection Agency is one example.
The proposed legislation will do little or nothing to fix the problem of revolving-door staffing, with staff transferring between the regulatory body, the federal bureaucracy, and nuclear companies and agencies (in particular ANSTO).
The ARPANSA bill permits wide-ranging exemptions for anything to do with national security or defence purposes. These exemptions are of particular concern to the people fighting the plan to build a new nuclear reactor at Lucas Heights, because one of the justifications for the new reactor concerns a set of convoluted national interest / security arguments.
According to the legal advice provided to the Sutherland Council, "... ANSTO can simply refuse to obey any directive of (ARPANSA) and any condition of a facility licence because it holds to the belief that to obey may be prejudicial to national security and defence."
Kevin Schreiber, a Liberal Party member and Mayor of the Sutherland Shire Council, wrote to the federal government's Nuclear Safety Bureau saying, "Council supports this Bill and hopes that it will enjoy the confidence of the Senate and will be passed as soon as possible." In fact, Council had not even debated the Bill. Councillor Genevieve Rankin, who is Convenor of the People Against a Nuclear Reactor campaign group, said, "We have an embarrassing situation where the Mayor has written to the federal government saying Council agrees with the ARPANSA bill, when the content of the legislation has not been debated by Council."
Rankin will put a motion at the August 10 Council meeting that the Mayor rescind the letter; the meeting will double as a community protest against the new reactor.
The Bill does nothing to redress the situation of ANSTO being immune from state environmental, health and safety laws.
The overall objective of the Bill is said to be the protection of people and the environment from the harmful effects of radiation. This is a red herring since there is no safe dose for radiation exposure; even the nuclear industry acknowledges this.
There is growing evidence linking radiation to genetic defects, as discussed in a New Scientist article titled "Radiation Roulette" (October 11, 1997). Apart from the possibility of inducing cancer in future generations, radiobiologists are concerned on the strength of recent research that radiation-induced genetic instability may cause a "scattergun effect" - small increases in a wide range of disorders including defective foetal development, and brain disorders such as Alzheimer's, Parkinson's and motor neuron diseases.
The 1997 U.S. Santa Susana Epidemiological Study - conducted by scientists from universities and government departments - indicates that the health impact of radiation has been underestimated by as much as a factor of ten.
None of this research is reflected in the ARPANSA legislation. Nor is there anything in the proposed legislation to suggest that there will be ongoing monitoring of the health impacts of radiation in and around nuclear facilities.
The bill will give a legislative basis to Australia's inadequate radiation exposure limits. According to Genevieve Rankin, allowable radiation doses will be ten times the amount recommended by the Sutherland Shire Council.
The radiation doses permitted under the ARPANSA bill are of particular relevance to the Jabiluka uranium mine in the Northern Territory. According to nuclear campaigner Jean McSorley, if the lowest estimates of radiation exposure from the Jabiluka mine are accurate, people living in the vicinity of the mine will still receive radiation doses equivalent to the maximum recommended levels in the USA.
If the highest estimates are accurate, members of the public may receive doses higher than one milliSievert (mSv) per annum, which is the maximum exposure limit recommended by the International Commission on Radiological Protection (ICRP) for members of the public.
A number of countries - including Germany, the UK and the USA - have erred on the side of caution by setting lower limits than those recommended by the ICRP. In contrast, Australia will not only adopt the maximum limits recommended by the ICRP, but also allow increased doses in "exceptional" circumstances.
Workers at the Jabiluka mine - if it goes ahead - may also be subjected to radiation doses in excess of internationally allowed limits. Jabiluka will be an underground mine, and thus there are increased risks associated with radon inhalation. In addition, Jabiluka is one of the most radioactive ore bodies in the world, and protection from highly-penetrating external gamma radiation will be difficult to protect against.
Energy Resources of Australia estimates that worker exposure will be less than 20 mSv per annum at the Jabiluka mine, but concedes the potential for higher exposures. The Australian regulations could allow for annual radiation doses of 50 mSv for five consecutive years - a total exposure of 250 mSv or just over one quarter of the recommended life-time dose limit.
The ARPANSA bill has far-reaching implications for the entire nuclear industry in Australia. Despite this, it passed through the House of Representatives with hardly any debate and no opposition from the Labor Opposition.
Why would the Labor Party fail to take the opportunity to score some political points against the Coalition government for pushing through such objectionable legislation? One possible answer is the power of the nuclear industry. Michael Priceman, from the Sutherland Shire Environment Centre, says "the industry has such sway that our members forget their differences and the confrontational way they usually carry out their business."
Another difficulty for the Labor Party is that if it takes the high moral ground on this issue, it is certain to face claims of hypocrisy by the Coalition. A similar exchange took place in parliament earlier this year in relation to Jabiluka. Federal environment minister Robert Hill mentioned the infamous ALP back-flip of 1983, when a no-mines policy in opposition became a three-mines policy after the ALP won Government.
Hill also noted that more uranium was exported during the ALP's 13 years in government than during the Coalition's previous 27 years in government, and he reminded ALP "left winger" John Faulkner of the latter's decision to approve a major expansion at Roxby Downs before the 1996 election without even requiring an additional environmental impact statement.
The Green senators, Dee Margetts and Bob Brown, will oppose the bill when it is put before the Senate. There were indications that the Democrats were prepared to support the bill, but their position may change before the next sitting of the Senate.
The People Against a Nuclear Reactor campaign group is fighting to prevent passage of the bill through the Senate in its present form. For copies of a critical letter to send to the government, ring (02) 9545 3077.