Cont.......I appeal to the reader, this issue will be with Australia for millennia. How can good intentions reach that far into the future? All sorts of rosy pictures will be painted, thousands of mellifluous words will be uttered to radio and TV interviewers, conferences will be organised to dispense factual information and do nothing but promote the concept. Entire forests will be razed to provide the books, pamphlets, journal articles etc. National Geographic and Discovery channels might be persuaded to present spectacular documentaries. A revered figure might be similarly persuaded to lend his or her imprimatur. But keep in mind, world leaders are never averse to publishing lies that cannot be proven to be lies at the time, such as WMDs and the subsequent war on Iraq. The public should be rightly very concerned about storing nuclear waste for others, even at a price. They should be concerned not only at what the experts tell them but what the experts, politicians, advisers and lobbyists DON'T TELL THEM. These people now that there are questions the public must not ask

Of course the other alternative, which has been followed for the past 70 years, is to just talk & do nothing about the situation.

"Let's have another cuppa Tea & all said Right-O."

Jayb, Monday, 29 August 2016 4:18:37 PM writes: "Of course the other alternative, which has been followed for the past 70 years, is to just talk & do nothing about the situation."

As opposed to doing something, anything, no matter how ill-conceived or fraught with faults or sold as a pig in a poke?
The quantity of verbal diarrhea and prognosticative piffle that has been presented here in the guise of informed debate is astonishing. One could easily be forgiven for being suspicious of the agenda espoused by the pro-nuclear debate. Their enthusiasm is of the kind one encounters in episodes of Bananas in Pyjamas, where actors with a desperately feigned eagerness try to gain the attention of a bunch of suspicious and cynical 5-year-olds. That is the pervading impression one gains from the pro-nuclear opinions here so far.

The Nuclear Waste Disposal Site [NWDS] is a scenario that could remain an intractable problem for a very long time. Human beings, no matter the initial strictest of disciplinary routine, slowly succumb to the latent contempt they have for repetetive acts. It is as certain as night follows day that procedures become streamlined, detailed observations and measurements become cursory procedures, the more difficult or complicated the procedure then gradually the less strictness is applied to its conduct. Human nature will ensure this happens.

National, state or provincial governments have no right to legislate such an imposition on its people, where a world-wide problem becomes the problem of one government only and for centuries into the future. Altruism has an awfully short shelf-life and is unsuited for application to dangers that linger for 100,000 years or longer. Cont..........

From Noel Wauchope
Thank you, Pogi. I think that Jayb has missed the point of my article. I was purposely leaving aside any questions of ethics, environment safety etc.

That's because the Royal Commission itself, and the Weatherill government, and the media - all have focussed not on ethics etc, but on the plan to make South Australia rich. I was querying the motives of the nuclear lobby in this, as it's clear that financial gain is the purported motive.

Australia has of course, no obligation to import foreign nuclear wastes. The accepted obligation in this is for countries where the waste is generated to take responsibility for its disposal.

Jayd's idea is that South Australia should act in an altruistic way, becoming a sacrifice zone for the world's nuclear industry.

A noble idea indeed, but it has not been pitched to the public in that way. Surely the public should be informed about this altruistic idea, and then perhaps, a referendum would be in order.

Cont.............Anyone who believes a politician's assurances about duly signed and solemnised agreements being water-tight and absolutely binding should consult a history of international agreements throughout the ages. Contracts to regulate conduct in a field so fraught with possibilities of subsequent disagreement and disruption are less than worthless, they can be dangerous. The extremes Japan has gone to to legitimise its whaling in the Southern Ocean is a case in point. China's grab for the West Philippines Sea is another. Nations will act lawlessly when they feel their interests are threatened or even out of pure cussedness and bloody-mindedness if they think they can get away with it. Adolph Hitler's Third Reich shines as an example here.

If a nation defaults on its payments for secure storage.........what then? What avenues does Australia have for recovery? Return the waste to its former owner? Declare war? Have a firm word with their ambassador over lunch? Ensure each contracting party has two guarantors, one or both of whom will assume responsibility? And who guarantees them? Would the UN assume a guarantor role?

Then there's nations like the USA whose philosophy of capitalism is to gradually reduce costs, reduce costs, reduce costs until a disaster and lives are lost. The number of lives lost is factored into an equation with the cost of the entire program and provides the benchmark where a decision is taken to suffer infrequent disasters as the cost of doing business or return to an earlier program before the disaster. The space shuttle Challenger catastrophe in 1986 exemplifies this scenario. Numerous examples are found throughout the industrial history of the USA. Who is expecting to be our biggest and "best" customer? Who is constantly lobbying us to refrain from subsidising the full market price to our infirm and chronically ill citizens for life-preserving pharmaceuticals? Reflect on how Donald Trump might do a deal with Australia on NWD. Do you think we could get him to build a wall between NSW and Queensland?

ChristinaMac1: South Australia should act in an altruistic way, becoming a sacrifice zone for the world's nuclear industry.

No-one mentioned South Australia becoming a "Sacrificial Ground." More meaningless scare words from the Anti-Nuclear Lobby.