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Muckaty nuclear dump plan shelved by Northern Land Council Muckaty nuclear dump plan shelved by Northern Land Council
(about 2 hours later)
The Northern Land Council (NLC) has abandoned its push to locate a national nuclear waste dump on Muckaty Station in the Northern Territory. Australia’s first nuclear waste dump will not be at Muckaty Station after the Northern Land Council (NLC) withdrew its nomination of the site following a lengthy legal battle launched by four clans of traditional owners in the area.
A surprise settlement was offered by lawyers for opponents of the dump and was signed on Wednesday in Melbourne. The settlement was announced on Wednesday by lawyers acting for the four groups after the case reached the federal court earlier in the month.
It comes halfway through a series of federal court hearings to take evidence from a number of Aboriginal clans from the station, 120km north of Tennant Creek, who said their wishes were overruled by a fifth clan and the NLC, who worked together to nominate the site. Traditional owners said the proposed dump site – nominated to store Australia’s low and intermediate radioactive waste – would destroy surrounding land and that they had not been properly consulted about the plan. Legal proceedings against the commonwealth and the NLC were launched in 2010.
The groups have been battling the dump for seven years since Muckaty was formally nominated in 2007. The site, 110km north of the Northern Territory town of Tennant Creek, was nominated in 2007 after a proposal to dump the waste in South Australia folded in the face of local opposition.
The NLC says it settled out of concern for relations among the clans. Lawyer Lizzie O’Shea, representing the traditional owners in the case, told Guardian Australia the settlement was a sign that the NLC had “seen sense”. She maintained that if the court case had come to a verdict the complainants would have won.
"The NLC notes that its acceptance of the offer is done without any admission of liability – that is, without any admission that the nomination was made in error," the council’s chief executive, Joe Morrison, said on Thursday. “We are thrilled to share in the relief and excitement our clients are feeling, knowing that their country will not be the site of the country’s first nuclear waste dump,” O’Shea said.
O’Shea had been in touch with a number of the traditional owners who were “overjoyed” at the settlement.
One traditional owner, Lorna Fejo, said she was “ecstatic” about the decision.
“I feel free because it was a long struggle to protect my land. I feel really happy about this decision because my children, grandchildren and great grandchildren can go to Namerini safely. This is what Australia is: it is a free land and traditional owners must always be free to express what they want done on their land.”
Another traditional owner, Kylie Sambo, told ABC news there was “no way in the world that I would let a nuclear waste dump come to my grandfather's country, because I have fought very hard to get the country back and we're not just going to give it away just like that”.
But the chief executive of NLC, Joe Morrison, said in Alice Springs he remained confident the council had acted properly during the consultations and that the commonwealth would have won the legal action if it had come to verdict.
Morrison said the NLC had dropped the nomination in order to avoid further “division and argument” in the community.
“I believe we’re in a very polarising period,” he said. “Aboriginal people are not opposed to development, but they should be allowed to be left alone to make those decisions with the best available advice and decisions.
“The NLC stands by the process which led to the nomination of the site at Muckaty.”
Morrison said the settlement required both sides to cover their own legal costs.