I note that the intro above states that “The Citizens’ Jury found … the need for ALL South Australians to be informed enough …” (capitalisation added). Should we not therefore ALL have the chance to vote ‘yes’ or ‘no’ as to whether we import onto SA high level nuclear waste that will need to be managed for “at least 10 000 years and up to a million years” (p.85)?

I note that the intro above states that “The Citizens’ Jury found … the need for ALL South Australians to be informed enough …” (capitalisation added). Should we not therefore ALL have the chance to vote ‘yes’ or ‘no’ as to whether we import onto SA high level nuclear waste that will need to be managed for “at least 10 000 years and up to a million years” (p.85)?

I note that the intro above states that “The Citizens’ Jury found … the need for ALL South Australians to be informed enough …” (capitalisation added). Should we not therefore ALL have the chance to vote ‘yes’ or ‘no’ as to whether we import onto SA high level nuclear waste that will need to be managed for “at least 10 000 years and up to a million years” (p.85)?

Hi everyone, thank you for all your discussion on this board during the consultation program, we appreciate the time taken to provide your views and feedback. This board has now closed, all feedback submitted will be considered by the Citizens' Jury to help inform their recommendations and also assist the State Government in deciding the next steps.

How on earth can consent be given to the plan to import and store and dispose of nuclear wastes when nobody knows where they will be put? Do we have the majority of South Australians, and of course the majority of Australians, too.l consenting too have nuclear wastes dumped on the land where only a minority live?

The only way that I can imagine consent ever being given for this is if that happens - and the minority is outvoted. Or perhaps the Aboriginal people can be expected to accept massive financial bribes? We all know damn well that if it's to put not exactly on Aboriginal land, it will be put next door to Aboriginal land - with all the risks to land, groundwater, sacred sites involved in the transport of wastes etc. Well, bribing the Aborigines has been tried for over 20 years, for radioactive trash dumping on their land. It has never worked, and won't work this time.

Archie Roach:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AZ_pb_48KYU

Labor readies for tense nuclear showdown amid opposition at state meeting http://www.adelaidenow.com.au/news/south-australia/labor-readies-for-tense-nuclear-showdown-amid-opposition-at-state-meeting/news-story/94b465193620d74f489a1f0cd3fc6e40 Political Reporter Sheradyn Holderhead, The Advertiser October 27 2016

..."Three motions have been listed for a vote that essentially call on the Government to abandon the proposed nuclear waste dump while others call for further consultation or a referendum. A joint motion from the Maritime and Rail, Tram and Bus unions demands the State Government “immediately cease and desist any further action or consideration” of any type of nuclear dump.

Among its concerns are a weak economic case, high upfront cost, political damage to Labor, safety risks to workers and the public, and ignoring the rights of Aboriginal people"...

Please note that the four current discussion boards will close at 5pm on Sunday, 30 October 2016. All feedback submitted by Sunday, October 30 will be considered by the jury to help inform their recommendations and also assist the State Government in deciding the next steps.

Many thanks,
Brooke
Consultation Team

A Jury in a Court hears cross-examination of expert witnesses (from both ‘sides’) as well as impassioned, but argued, submissions from BOTH sides.
This has simply not been allowed to happen in the waste dump citizens’ jury process.

It is certainly against our NATIONAL INTERESTS. The proposal makes Australia a terror target and this threat will increase over time. Security costs will be forbidding.

On this argument alone our Governments, State and Federal, have a duty to put Australia first and deny the nuclear industry their long held plan for an international nuclear dump in our country.

Yes, Mary-Ann! The "Jury" has been invented to fake democracy, in order to fabricate public consent. This is a TREASON.
We DEMAND a vote!

TO THE JURY and the Community:

I was made an Observer of the Jury 2 session in the afternoon of Oct 8. These are my observations.
1. Professional organizers, such as Gail Fairlamb, Director, Strategic Development in Dept of Premier & Cabinet, have the Jury on remote control of the gov.
2. Just like the Jury 1 (of 50), the Jury 2 (of 350) is being forced into chewing and re-chewing of the report by Kevin Scarce and his Royal Commission. The Jury is neither required nor expected to analyse public opinion.
3. Unlike the real jury this one is NOT a decision maker; the gov is.
4. The purpose of this staged pseudo-democracy, at $10 mil of taxpayers' money,
IS TO FABRICATE PUBLIC CONSENT, as it cannot be obtained by democratic means. The fabrication is carried out at the expense of time, good will and Sisyphean work of the Jury.
5. While the Holy Martyrs of the Jury were being used in the gov's treason, I was able to participate in the Adelaide Festival of Ideas (AFoI). I wish to report to the Jury what follows:

On Oct 22, 2016, American activist Erin Brockovich appealed to the full house at Bonython Hall to defeat the nuclear dump. At this point the head of the festival Greg Mackie addressed the audience: "Hands up if you want this project?" And he counted the hands: "Two...and a half". That was out of 1000.

I wish to extend my appreciation, gratitude and encouragement to the Jury. In order not to allow your sacrifice to be wasted by the gov:
Please MAKE SURE that YOUR FINAL REPORT SAYS NO, in the name of us all.
Thank you!

I decided to post my original feedback here because it boils down to a matter of CONSENT.

My Feedback on the Public Consultation
Regarding the Storage of Nuclear Waste in South Australia

1. My Position is as follows:

1.1 I strongly oppose the storage of High and Intermediate level nuclear waste from other countries.

1.2 I agree to storage of Australian Intermediate and Low Level wastes, but do not see why this waste cannot be stored in suitable deep repositories in the States that generate them.

2. My opinions are based upon the following considerations (not an exhaustive list) :

2.1 I would never have considered that the storage of nuclear waste from the world's nuclear power plants and industries would be a worthwhile activity for South Australia, and so have been caught by surprise that it is now even considered. I would hope that the Royal Commission's estimate of the financial rewards for the State, $120 Billion over 120 years, could be met by more productive means, including advanced manufacturing, generating advanced technologies, and investing heavily in renewable energy generation. We surely can - SA has some brilliant people in Defence, shipbuilding, agriculture, CSIRO, and formerly from the white goods, car and parts manufacture.

2.2 I remember Pangea Resources and its push for storage of international nuclear wastes in the Australian outback and the absolute rebuffing by legislation (c. 2000) of any attempt to store international wastes in South Australia and Western Australia. My opinion has not changed since then.
Is Pangea or the World Nuclear Association involved in any way with the renewed push for storage of nuclear waste here in Australia?
The most recent update of the website material of the World Nuclear Association quotes our Royal Commission very favourably, while expressing very clearly that the in-country disposal problems are not yet solved in the nuclear countries. The big appetite for sending any country's waste to South Australia seems worryingly clear.

2.3 Some Government Ministers have suggested that Australia has a moral responsibility to take back used fuel, since we have sold the uranium in the first place! (I recall J Frydenberg making such a suggestion).
I repudiate that most emphatically.
A corporation and its supporting government takes our uranium with eyes open to the full implications of the nuclear fuel cycle, and must handle the disposal accordingly.
On a related point, I find that the suggestion that we have a responsibility to take used fuel from countries that have no feasible disposal possibility is nonsensical. Those governments went down the nuclear path with eyes open, knowing that the populace would be burdened with the waste problem at some future time.
We are not morally bound in this regard.

2.4 Do not use arguments about reducing carbon footprints here. An existing nuclear power plant has been 10-20 years in the making, and embarked upon well before the current social realisation about global warming.

2.5 My alternative suggestion regarding nuclear waste disposal is that those countries who already have a big investment in nuclear reactors, and who have to dispose of their waste anyway, could be prevailed upon, for a price, to take and bury the waste of countries who do not have the possibility for deep geological disposal.
This would render South Australia's generosity unnecessary.

2.6 There are two scenarios regarding the financial incentives:
(a) The world's nuclear (power) countries have not solved the disposal problem and would like Australia to be generous and solve it for them, for a price,
or
(b) The major nuclear power countries would actually like to dispose of others' wastes, together with their own, for a price, to defray the establishment and maintenance costs. In this latter case South Australia might be bidding the lowest tender in a competitive market to dispose of High level radioactive waste.

The World Nuclear Association's web site material (updated 2016 and after the Royal Commission's report) noted disquiet with Pangea's proposals on these points, but forged on with its espousal of international solutions" anyway.

2.7 I remember the major disasters like Chernobyl, Three Mile Island, Fukushima. There have also been many other worrying incidents, in Britain, and Japan, for example.
I do not have to remember and document all of these just to combat the Government's push to engage in the nuclear waste business - rather it is for the Government to list all of the cases that might give us pause for thought.
Professor Thomas (transcripts of proceedings) gave expert evidence that the health effects of radiation from Chernobyl and Fukushima were not as severe as expected. The implication is that in the event of an accident transporting waste, the health effects on the nearby population would not be unacceptably severe. However if that is the case then there is no case for South Australia taking waste at all - it is OK where it is.

2.8 We have a Federal Government funding NO and YES cases for a plebiscite on marriage, so I am dismayed that the State Government does not provide a NO case for the storage of international nuclear waste.

2.9 I cannot argue quantitatively against the analyses of the Royal Commission in matters of safety and reliability, and at my age I am not likely to try.
However I remind you of the very recent destruction of the State's electric power transmission infrastructure.
I remind you of the recent serious accidents between trucks, and trucks and cars.
Remember the serious rail accidents in the USA where fuels were being transported.
Think of all of the gas distribution breakdowns in the USA, not to mention all of the recent world aircraft tragedies. Chelyabinsk - stuff comes out of the sky and can lead to serious inconvenience. The sun emits high energy particles that can take out the North American grid - now fixed so that it can never happen again?
My point here is that human endeavours are subject to flaws, and sometimes a low probability event can lead to very high cost.
I am sure that the assumptions on which the Royal Commission's probability analyses were based seemed reasonable as far as known at the present time. But who can really tell how we are to be caught out by future events - cyclonic damage to power transmission lines being a recent example .
And the time scale over which we are to assume this validity is excruciatingly long.

2.10 Further, the Report assumes that future governments will honour commitments undertaken by this present Government even out to 120 years and more. It also glosses over, in my opinion, possible destructive geological or other environmental event which will disrupt the storage facility (above ground and buried).

2.11 We cannot plausibly foresee how the future will develop out to 120 years let alone 1000 years or 10000 years or more.
So, the point is this:
The proposal can only deal with a foreseeable future which is pretty short.
I feel that the possibility of accident transporting high level fuel rods is significant despite the Royal Commission's report. The probability of a single accident during the transport of fuel rods is very low, but the probability of accident increases as the number of transports increases - and the scale envisaged by the report is for a very large number of fuel rods to be transported.

2.12 I do have a problem with how the Royal Commission expressed the dangers of radiation.
The comforting values for exposure shown in Figure 7.1 for example do not tell us about the transient exposures encountered in Chernobyl or Fukushima, nor do they attempt to estimate the exposures should a truckload of fuel rods have a severe accident (nor is there any detail of a plan for recovery from an accident).

Figure 5.8 shows relative toxicity and looks comforting that the radioactivity is not much of a problem - for example after ONLY 1000 years the radiotoxicity is down to just 1.5% of the value just after removal from the reactor. However a 1.5% dose of 1000's of fuel rods having initial very high radiotoxicity is still very large - I think the Royal Commission should have tried to indicate the likely doses and corresponding additional half-life times for decay to some standard level of dose for the personnel burying the waste.

2.13 If the State proceeds with this, there is no possibility of a future generation undoing the deal. Client states will not take the waste back - the new generation is stuck with it.

2.14 I think that in a very few years the existing renewable technologies will be quite mature. Investment in more renewable energy and in solving the engineering problems associated with the generation and distribution will provide wealth and employment for many years. I prefer this to disposal of international high level nuclear waste.

2.15 I think also that in 100 years nuclear fusion will be a mature technology and we will no longer be burdened with the long lived heavy metal radioactive and toxic wastes.
If we persist with taking international nuclear waste our future generations will still be taking the used fuel rods from an old technology.

2.16 I agree with Professor David Karoly (transcripts of proceedings) that replacing the carbon dioxide waste problem where with no action it may take up to 10,000 years to reduce the concentration in the atmosphere back to pre-industrial levels, with a 100,000 year nuclear waste disposal problem is perhaps not a good idea.

3. Clearly I am opposed to the proposal.

3.1 I think that the Royal Commission acted reasonably but that the process was set up to be encouraging. I do not believe that other countries have been unambiguously successful in disposing of their own used nuclear fuel. And, I do not want us to be part of the international nuclear waste disposal problem.
I believe that there should be a NO case with the same resources as devoted to the Royal Commission, and that there should be a referendum on the proposal.

3.2 The almost certainty of nuclear fusion as a power source at some time in the next 100 years was not treated by the Royal Commission, and it should have been.

3.3 While I cannot show evidence other than the World Nuclear Association's continued advocacy for an "International Cooperation" to deal with the nuclear waste disposal problem, I cannot help feeling that we are being coerced somehow.

3.4 I also think that the idea of Citizens' Jury is silly and too susceptible to being steered. If the Jury is carefully controlled it subverts a democratic vote. I read the proceedings of the first Citizens' Jury and feel that the material was very carefully steered and avoided issues that I have raised above.
If a Citizens Jury is to work at all it must have both NO and YES cases, or, be left entirely alone to generate its own cases.

Why not a referendum

In my first feedback effort which I sent in hard copy to the Nuclear Consultation Team I made some assumptions about the sincerity of the pursuit of social and community consent that have turned out to be incorrect - I terminated my feedback with the question "Why not a referendum?"

I have since found that the Royal Commission, referring to shifts in public opinion, has made the staggering statement that
"Because of these shifts, a public vote on a proposal is not a reliable indicator of ongoing social consent. A vote for or against a proposal one day may not result in the same level of social consent a month later."
Commission Report Chapter 6, Page 121
This apparently is the excuse for the government not having a referendum on such a serious matter as the importation and storage of international used nuclear fuel.

What then is a reliable indicator of ongoing social consent? The Royal Commission gives some emphasis to obtaining such ongoing consent.
Is a Citizens Jury supposed to replace the population as the valid source of ongoing (down through the generations) consent. Who ordained this could be so? What evidence is there for such reliability?

I think that while the Citizens' Jury might initially represent the community at large in a statistical sense, prior to being informed by the Jury process, afterwards, if the Jury has been denied a NO case having the same resources as the Royal Commission, I am sure the members will not represent the whole community.

On such a serious matter I will only accept a referendum with widely published YES and NO cases.

If it is CONSENT that is a key matter, then this becomes a subject of public trust, the national interest (not just the state interest), and the law. Here is what I discovered on my own journey of fact-finding.

1 The Royal Commission’s activity was unlawful under the Nuclear Waste Storage Facility (Prohibition) Act 2000.
2 The South Australian Parliament changed the Act to accommodate the cost of the “community consultation” phase of the findings in the Royal Commission’s Report; this action is an admission that the Royal Commission itself was unlawful.
3 There has been a breach of the public trust, but the public has yet to realise it. There has been negligible focus on public trust about the nuclear waste storage issue.
4 The concept of a high-level international nuclear waste operation in Australia has been on the agenda for many years, at least for the past 18 years.
5 Former Prime Minister Howard was hatching a plan with former President George Bush for Australia to receive US high-level nuclear waste in 2006, under the “Global Nuclear Energy Partnership”.
6 Many connected business leaders in SA have been pushing for importation of high-level nuclear waste for years, predominantly because of the so-called (and fallacious) economic benefits.
7 Nuclear “fuel leasing” has also been on the lips of politicians and business people for many years, and the people involved as “expert witnesses” to the Royal Commission are behind such businesses.
8 I learnt about World Nuclear Industry Status Reports, and discovered that the global nuclear electricity generation industry is in decline in terms of global energy production.
9 Nuclear power generation is too expensive and too risky and is unable to be constructed without huge government subsidies.
10 China and India, those two countries so often referred to during debates about coal, produce far greater amounts of wind energy than from nuclear.
11 Kazakhstan is by far the world’s dominant supplier of uranium, and has been since 2009. It dwarfs SA's uranium oxide production by a factor of more than 7.
12 The federal government is complicit in expanding the nuclear industry.
13 Uranium oxide mining in Australia, and indeed in South Australia, has declined by 34% since 2007. During the past 10 years SA has received an average of just $12.8 million per year from uranium oxide royalties.
14 The Royal Commission’s consultant Jacobs MCM report on the economic feasibility has been denounced by other economists, none more so than Emeritus Professor of economics, Professor Richard Blandy.
15 South Australia has sponsored by way of it’s own taxpayers, a federal government responsibility in the form of the Royal Commission, and the subsequent “community consultation” phase. The cost at the time of writing has exceeded $10 million, and is rising.
16 The issue of national interest has not been considered by the Royal Commission, nor during the “consultation” phase, and likely not by the Citizens’ Juries.
17 The state government has not sought the views of the rest of the nation and of other states in the Federation, particularly as the concept is about importing extremely dangerous nuclear waste into the country via national maritime boundaries, and subsequently to leave it on the Australian continent forever.
18 It is the federal government that has sole power to approve any nuclear activity in Australia, and yet it has allowed a state of the Federation to assume federal responsibilities as a proxy.
19 The federal government has displayed no appetite to become involved in the process of the Royal Commission and the subsequent “community consultation”, except in presenting a weak submission. It has sidestepped its national responsibility, but of much greater concern it has ignored its responsibility to the general public.
20 Confined to just 7% of the Australian population (i.e. SA’s population), the “community consultation” and Citizens’ Juries only provide a snapshot of public opinion about high-level nuclear waste importation and storage in Australia; the true public interest can only be revealed by national referendum. This has not been countenanced by the state or federal government.
21 The Commission Report has largely avoided the issue of nuclear fuel reprocessing and recycling, and the present-day research that exists.
Nuclear spent fuel reprocessing has the potential to limit high-level nuclear waste to one-fifth current levels, results in a much reduced attenuation period, and would almost eliminate uranium mining.
22 The state government has many acute environmental issues and documented risks - such as climate change, biodiversity loss and decline, water security, energy security, rural and regional decline, natural resources decline - from which there is a deliberate absence of action. Why should another high risk nuclear waste storage venture be accommodated when existing problems continue to increase?
23 South Australia’s Environment Protection Act 1993 states that committing environmental harm contravenes the Act and is prosecutable. “Environmental harm is any harm, or potential harm, to the environment (of whatever degree or duration)”, and “potential harm includes risk of harm and future harm”. The Act then states that …
“environmental harm is to be treated as serious environmental harm if it involves actual or potential harm to the health or safety of human beings that is of a high impact or on a wide scale, or other actual or potential environmental harm (not being merely an environmental nuisance) that is of a high impact or on a wide scale”
A careful reading and interpretation of the Act implies that a nuclear waste storage operation could never comply with the law.
No pollutant - and in our case, imported nuclear waste - can be brought into the state. The Environment Protection Act 1993 again … Section 9 states;
 “Where a person causes a pollutant to come within the State or causes environmental harm within the State, by conduct engaged in outside the State; and the conduct would, if engaged in within the State, 
constitute a contravention of this Act, the person is liable to a penalty in respect of the contravention 
as if the conduct were engaged in by the person within the State.”
24 The whole concept about importing nuclear waste from overseas is totally contrary to the most important object of the Environment Protection Act 1993 … ecologically sustainable development (ESD).
25 A nuclear waste storage operation would result in an abrogation of long-standing agreements about ecologically sustainable development with the international community.

These are just some of the conclusions I made; others I have placed on separate discussion boards.
I have examined the law and there is no way that the state government could proceed with a high-level nuclear waste storage operation. There can not be CONSENT. The people and organisations advocating for a nuclear waste storage industry in this state have ignored the law. If the law is to be broken, as it already has by use of the instrument of a Royal Commission, or if laws are to be changed just to accommodate a single highly dangerous industry, then that is the end of democracy as we know it.

"Weatherill, aware of most people's instinctive and rightful mistrust of anything nuclear, has launched a meticulous, expensive PR campaign."

Jack Crawford, https://redflag.org.au/node/5521

It is difficult to believe that a citizens jury will be presented with anything other than a highly controlled version of the arguments for and against these proposals. This is truly a cynically manufactured form of consent of the most Orwellian nature. Citizens are also more likely to respond favourably to the government's proposals when they are given special treatment in this way. I doubt that the citizens jury have heard presentations from the Australia Institute, Mark Parnell (Greens MLC) or Ian Lowe, or images and stories of accidents happenning monthly around the world. The cooperation of the Murdoch press in this one-newspaper town makes it also very difficult for citizens to remain untouched by a sense of momentum and support that doesn't actually exist. Governments are becoming masters of "consultation", which are basically exercises to keep the masses busy while they get on with the planning and the deals in the background.

Msg received at the Anti-Nuclear Rally at Parliament House, Oct 15
From: Adnyamathanha Traditional Land Association RNTBC Aboriginal Regional Authority
“I am sorry I cannot be with you all today but I would like to thank you all for being here on behalf of the Adnyamathanha people.
The Adnyamathanha Traditional Lands Association (ATLA) is totally opposed to the nuclear waste dump at Wallaberdina in the Flinders Ranges – in our yarta!
But this is bigger than just the Adnyamathanha people this will affect us all! Radiation is NOT racist.
We do not have the right to leave poisoned land for our future generations.
I don’t want to leave toxic land for my great grandchildren or yours. Thank you for standing with us today to stop this dump in Adnyamathanha Yarta.”
Vince Coulthard ATLA CEO
ceo@atla.com.au Ph 0429900222; PO Box 4014 Port Augusta 5700

This weekend I have been an observer to Jay Weatherill's 'Citizens Jury) considering the question: 'Under what Circumstances, if any, could South Australia pursue the opportunity to store and dispose of nuclear waste from other countries?'

With his wily analogy of a traffic light, Mr Weatherill has ensured he will get what he wants. He would know very well a group of this size (334 people) will not reach a unanimous recommendation. Thus no red light (stop the process immediately) no green light (go ahead without delay) but by default a yellow light (proceed with caution).
This will be enough for Mr. Weatherill to go ahead and spend more taxpayers' money on his quest to turn SA into the world's nuclear waste dump.
What a legacy to leave our children!

We don't have a say. We elect people to make decisions and trust that they go through a rigorous consultative process. A thorough process will tell us precisely which stakeholders are affected. My vote, even though I don't get one, is with whatever position the local Aboriginal people hold.

No Mr. Weatherill, going to regional centre with your 'road show' does not equate with obtaining consent. Your organised expensive visits are achieving very little and most certainly not consent by anyone.

On QndA Premier Jay Weatherill has all but admitted he will try to bribe Aboriginal landholders to get consent.
Why he should be so desperate to go into the history books as the Premier who wrecked South Australia's reputation, economy and future I cannot fathom.
Our Premier is way out of line with his unconscionable push for this dangerous proposal. He is way out of line spending Millions of taxpayer's money to advance the interests of the nuclear industry over the longterm welfare of his people>

That is a ridiculous idea. The Citizens' Lury is no jury at all. A true jury would have no more than 10 -20 members. The witnesses would really be experts. For example there's be no chance of having a businessman pontificate about radiation and health. There would be rigourous cross-examining of witnesses. The Jury's brief would be to arrive a t a verdict - yes or no. There would be the opportunity for alegal appeal. Instead, this wrongly named group is really a forum, given the brief to merely "summarise" the report of the Nuclear Fuel Chain Royal Commission.

Leave the citizens jury as a permanent body to have power to override or veto the decisions made by parliament. Then the public have control, not the political party in power....

The government has the last say on the decision so as most people before me have said, no matter how many people are against it, the whole nuclear consultation process is a farce. The Know Nuclear displays tell half truths and make nuclear storage sound incredibly safe without adding any of the negatives. For a state which is struggling economically there seems to have been a helluva lot of money already spent in the name of nuclear. I don't trust the government. We only need to look at the bungled RAH project and our useless desalination project to realize how inept the state government is. If SA becomes the world nuclear dumping ground, it will be the WORST decision an Australian government has ever made.