  NEVER TO RETURN: Minchin's no-dump guarantee By PAUL STARICK and LEANNE CRAIG 15jul04 SOUTH Australians have been issued "an absolute, unqualified, rolled-gold guarantee" that interstate nuclear waste never will be dumped in the state. Finance Minister Nick Minchin, who spearheaded the Federal Government's plans for a national dump near Woomera, yesterday guaranteed those plans were abandoned – for all time. Senator Minchin told The Advertiser he absolutely rejected Labor accusations that the Government would change its mind after this year's election. Asked if he could give a guarantee this would not happen, Senator Minchin said: "An absolute, unqualified, rolled-gold guarantee. " He said the Government would pursue the states to ensure they created dumps for their own waste. The move marks a dramatic shift from statements Senator Minchin made as science minister in October 2000 that having nine separate repositories "defies logic".
"The idea we should now build not one, but nine low-level waste repositories is absurd," he said in the October 2000 press release. Yesterday, he repeated Prime Minister John Howard's promise that a co-located dump for federal low and intermediate-level waste would not be built in SA. "There are no circumstances under which we will be putting this in SA," he said. Senator Minchin said even if other states eventually demanded a national repository in SA, against the wishes of Premier Mike Rann, the Government now would not agree. "If the other state premiers have a problem, they should speak to Mr Rann," he said. "We tried and failed to acquire land in SA (for a national repository). We now expect Mr Rann to be building a state repository and we will be riding it hard. " Mr Rann said "in this mighty David and Goliath battle – David has won".
"But, you don't win if you don't try and persistence and commitment always pay off, particularly if you are united behind a cause that is a good cause," he said. " "I did not want to see South Australia with the tag `the nuclear waste dump state'. " Both major parties guaranteed they would remove 10,000 drums of radioactive waste stored at Woomera for almost a decade. Opposition Leader Mark Latham overruled his environment spokesman, Kelvin Thomson, who said the low-level waste would stay at Woomera. A spokesman for Mr Latham and Labor industry and science spokesman Kim Carr said Labor would establish a national repository outside SA, then take the Woomera waste there. Speaking before Senator Minchin, Mr Latham said the Government was "likely to reverse their decision once the election is out of the way".
"For eight years they have been trying to get the dump into SA and the only reason they are saying this today is because there is an election coming up," he said. "People in SA would know that they will be back to their old form as quick as a flash. " Mr Howard said the Government's decision to abandon the dump plans had been forced by "the worst aspects of unco-operative federalism". "This has come about because of the `not in my back yard (syndrome)'," Mr Howard said. He said the prospects were "at best, 50-50" of a successful High Court appeal to a Federal Court ruling that the Government's land acquisition process for the dump had been flawed.
"Given the court decision, there was nothing to be achieved by going on," he said. "If the states are refusing in practice to cooperate, if they're adopting this destructive attitude, then I will flush back on them the responsibility of looking after their own waste. "If they want to play sovereign state politics, not-in-my-state politics, okay, they can do that. "But they will have to look after their own waste. " Australian Conservation Foundation executive director Don Henry said the scrapping of dump plans was "a welcome victory for the SA community".
He said South Australians had realised the potency of "people power" and urged them to apply this with renewed energy to saving the River Murray. No, let's not dump nuclear waste in Woomera. (My birthplace by the way). But let's continue to incarcerate regugees there in concentration camps. Refugee women and children...because we're just so convinced that these people are all terrorists..pfffftttt....This sure is not the lucky or the free country for some. 
