Caleb Bond: This is the nuclear-waste dump that more than 60 per cent of Kimba locals supported in a postal ballot

Rank populism has robbed a desperate SA community of a lifeline, pushing fear and conspiracism in exchange, writes Caleb Bond.

Senator Pauline Hanson has quashed the planned Kimba nuclear waste dump. Picture: Matt Taylor.

It’s a strange day when you find Pauline Hanson and the Greens on a unity ticket, but 2020 is a weird year.

In the name of rank populism – one of the worst displays I have seen – Ms Hanson has decided to sell South Australia up the creek by refusing to allow a nuclear-waste dump just outside of Kimba.

This is the nuclear-waste dump that more than 60 per cent of Kimba locals supported in a postal ballot.

It would have been a $200m project – welcome economic stimulus at a time when country towns have been battered by coronavirus and a lack of visitors that otherwise keep them ticking over.

Jeff Baldock with his family. He nominated his land just out of Kimba to be the site of a now-quashed nuclear waste dump. Picture: Bianca De Marchi

It was set to create 45 jobs in construction and then would’ve needed ongoing maintenance and management, which could have provided jobs for Kimba locals. Liberal MP Rowan Ramsey had promised there would be no fly-in-fly-out workers.

It was also set to come with $31m of federal funding for Kimba itself.

This is what Ms Hanson has denied the people of Kimba. Jobs and economic stimulus at a time when they need it more than ever, and funding to improve their town.

Good going, One Nation.

Hanson said she had issues with the selection process for the site, community support (of which we have established there is plenty), the fact it would be built on farmland and the storage of intermediate waste above ground.

Beyond the baseless reaction of many to the mere mention of nuclear waste in any form – as though it’s going to leak into your bedroom and ensure you have children with three heads – a large part of some people’s opposition to the Kimba plan has been the above-ground intermediate storage.

Forget the emotion and conspiracy theories. Let’s consider the facts.

Nearly all of Australia’s nuclear waste comes from the creation of nuclear medicine in Sydney. Nearly all of that is low-level waste which requires minimal screening in transport and storage and is harmless when stored properly.

We’re storing it all across the country now at more than 100 sites. It’s underneath hospitals everywhere. It’s a necessity of modern medicine.

I’ve yet to hear a complaint about the low-level waste we’re already storing causing an issue. The national waste dump that would have been built at Kimba would simply have consolidated that waste into one purpose-built facility.

Many of the places currently storing waste weren’t built to do so for long periods of time.

International safety standards dictate that long-term waste-management facilities should be in low population areas that are geologically stable and have minimal flood risk.

Surely moving that waste to a purpose-built facility would be safer?

Then you have the intermediate waste. In the ’90s, Australia entered into an agreement with France whereby they would take our intermediate nuclear waste and process it to remove plutonium and residual uranium.

That waste returned to Australia in 2015, immobilised in glass and held in stainless-steel containers. We were also sent various tools and equipment that were used in processing that waste, which were encased in concrete.

That waste is currently being stored at Lucas Heights – which, by the way, has operated as a nuclear reactor and factory in suburban Sydney for more than 60 years without issue.

I hate to break it to the greenies and professional worriers, but that waste is being stored above ground.

Above ground, in suburban Sydney, for five years. Won’t anyone think of the children?

When we finally get a national dump, it’ll be moved there. Kimba would have been the perfect place.

Pray tell, where were all the people who are now opposed to above-ground storage of intermediate nuclear waste for the past five years? Did they oppose the building at Lucas Heights? Has it been a problem? Or do they just have an irrational fear of it being anywhere near them?

Pauline Hanson has bought into this nonsense and it will cost our state dearly.

Follow @TheCalebBond