Defence Minister Richard Marles.

Defence Minister Richard Marles.Credit:Getty

Their early resistance suggests it may not be a simple task for the federal government to find storage for used high-level fuel rods from Australia’s future AUKUS submarines. The waste is expected to be created in the 2050s,but Defence Minister Richard Marles has said the government would begin a process to pick a site within the next year.

An Andrews government spokeswoman,referencingWestern Australia’s outsized share of the GST,said:“Given all the GST is heading to WA,perhaps they can take the nuclear waste too.”

The Queensland government said it could not set up the site in Queensland because its Nuclear Facilities Prohibition Act made doing so illegal.

“Under no circumstances will Queensland be the dumping ground for nuclear waste,” a spokeswoman for Premier Annastacia Palaszczuk said.

South Australian Premier Peter Malinauskas,whose state will financially benefit from building new submarines in the 2040s,declined to endorse opening a waste site in the state.

“Ultimately,it should be somewhere safe. That doesn’t necessarily mean it’s in South Australia,” he said on ABC Radio National.

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“I think the work that we’re doing in South Australia isn’t a labour demand creation exercise for our state. It’s about which state is best equipped to meet the security needs of our nation and this is the heart of naval shipbuilding in Australia – fact.”

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“Now,where the nuclear waste goes,a similar case should be applied and that is – not what is in the best interests of a parochial argument – rather,what is in the best interest of the nation’s security and that should inform the federal government’s judgment.”

Marles said the future site would be on land that is either owned by the Defence Force or land that might be acquired in future. Five successive federal governments have been involved in a long process to store low-level nuclear waste. Work has started to store the material at a site near Kimba in South Australia.

A WA state government spokesperson suggested the Woomera Prohibited Area in South Australia “would be one obvious location within the Defence estate,however,we will await the outcomes of the federal review”.

The NSW government did not respond in time for publication.

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Former Labor prime minister Paul Keating,whocriticised the AUKUS pact on Wednesday,said he was not concerned about Australia’s ability to store waste. In countries such as France and Canada,these types of facilities are built 500 metres underground. The submarine fuel takes around 120,000 years to decay back to the radioactivity of un-enriched uranium.

“I don’t think that burying spent fuel rods is proliferation,” the former Labor leader said at the National Press Club on Wednesday. “And Australia is big enough for that. It’s a minor issue.”

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