You will note that the author has said nothing whatever about the site itself. However, it is 120 kms north of Tennant Creek so I assume we're talking about a bunch of desert.

Also please note that it will be built for the waste from the tiny Lucas Heights reactor, which is a dinky toy compared to the power reactors in Europe and North America. So we are not talking about much waste at all.. You will need some precautions, like locking the stuff up in concrete and sticking it on a concrete apron, then putting barbed wire around it to keep fools out..

Once you did that and stood in the centre of facility itself with a giger counter, would the counter show anything more than background radiation? Doubt it. Even the crews of nuclear submarines living cheek by jowl with whole working reactors don't get much more than background (unless its a russian sub, they've stuffed up the engineering badly and they have to fix it).

All that said I'm sure the traditional owners of the land have been terrified by wild tales into thinking that there must be some problem with the proposed facility. I don't think we should add to the misinformation.

The NT govt; can be bought off, and so can traditional owners.
Cancer and other ailment treatment needs a safe haven away from any risk of ground contamination what so ever, for their used products.
Mukaty is isolated and will remain so.
The site has been chosen for a good reason, and with lead lining, there should be no problem.

I question if it is true that the only waste Australia needs to make arraignments to store is medical waste from around the country and operational waste from the Lucas Heights reactor. Isn't there also an issue with some high level waste due to return to Australia from France as agreed when the uranium was originally sold to France? I think this waste is due to be returned in the next couple of years.
If we're selling uranium around the world then any moral high ground from which to insist that no waste will ever be stored on these shores has been seriously eroded. If we signed a contract, then we have contractual obligations.
I suggest Australia may be obliged to store nuclear waste, and if that is so, then why not use the old Maralinga testing site in South Australia? The Brits conducted nuclear tests there from 1955 to 1963. It is an area of extreme and remote desert, and it is already polluted. Some clean up has been done, but no one to my knowledge harbors any ideas of ever living there again.
If it is true that the Minister can now override any state or territory law that gets in the way, then any objections from Adelaide can be circumvented.
Wherever we store it, there will be Traditional Owners. Pay the rent.

halduell

Its true that the old Maralinga site would be good but there isn't much more radition there now than there is anywhere else in SA and NT..

Australia has lots of remote, desolate places where nobody goes. We should pick one and ignore the inevitable protests..

As for nuclear waste to be returned from overseas I don't recall such an arrangement, but if you have a reference I'm happy to be corrected.. If it is so then all the more reason to build the dump to take it..

There was a lot of sights checked out by drilling, and Mukaty had the best soil composition to be selected.
What ever happens, we had best get on with it. Every hospital is holding waste in lead lined cupboards, and could one day go missing.

Natalie, When "Labor promised to address radioactive waste management issues in a manner that would "ensure full community consultation in radioactive waste decision-making processes" was that before Rudd was elected?

It would only be fair to use Muckaty for medical waste from places like the Sydney's north shore, only if the medical services of Sydney's hospitals are available to the people in and around Muckaty.

If,as halduell states, there is a contractual reason for Australia to accept nuclear waste from the uranium that Australia sold - let those who profited most from the deal have it in their backyard