MEDIA RELEASE 23/8/07 A Reactor or a Referendum?

Independent candidate for the Federal seat of Gilmore, Mr. Of None, has challenged the Prime Minister to hold referenda concurrent with the coming Federal election on the vexed questions of a nuclear power industry and the locations of the Government’s proposed twenty five nuclear reactors.

This follows the PM’s announcement that any area where a reactor is proposed would have a binding, publicly funded plebiscite to determine the area’s acceptance of the idea.

"The PM has said that citizens of each area will have a plebiscite to determine whether they have a nuclear reactor built in their area but he didn’t say at what stage in the planning process such a vote would be taken and what constitutes an ‘area’. Is it just the surrounding streets, a suburb or is it a whole Federal electorate?" Mr. None asked.

"It’s obvious that this is just an attempt to defuse the issue of the locations of Mr. Howard’s twenty five nuclear reactors until after the election by lulling electors into a false sense of security that they will be in control of the process," he said.

"Also the concept of plebiscites on locations would seem to assume that Australians have accepted as fact the construction of reactors somewhere in Australia. This proposition has also never been tested," he remarked.

Mr. None believes that such referenda should ask two simple questions-
1. Do you agree to the building of nuclear reactors for power generation in Australia?
2. Do you agree that a nuclear reactor should be built within this Federal electorate?

Mr. None said referenda held with the Federal election will save an enormous amount of money in otherwise staging multiple plebiscites, trying to find an area that actually wants a reactor and in addition, companies wishing to construct reactors will have certainty as to which electorates would welcome them from as early as late this year.

Mr. None proposed that the results should be irrevocably binding for 25 years- ie approximately one generation- from the date of the election.

"Conducting referenda at the time of the next Federal election is the only way the electorate can know the Prime Minister is fair dinkum on the issue," he concluded.