Fallout from

By Sarah Schwager
WESTERNPORT Bay has been identified as an ideal site for a nuclear power plant.
The statement by independent research centre the Australia Institute came after Prime Minister John Howard’s comments last week that Australia would develop a nuclear power industry in the coming decades.
Residents along the bay’s coastal villages were furious at the suggestion, and called on the Government to rule out Westernport Bay as a possible site.
Cannons Creek resident Bill D’Oliveira said if the nuclear power plant had to be on the coast, it should be placed in a less populated area.
“I don’t have a problem with nuclear power, provided it doesn’t pollute the bay and kill all the fish,” Mr D’Oliveira said. “This is a fauna-protected area.”
Another Cannons Creek resident, Dianne Milligan, said more thought was needed on alternatives to nuclear power.
She said if the Government put funding towards installing solar power panels on every home, it could make a huge difference.
The institute also cited Portland in the state’s west, Port Stephens, an area south of Wollongong in NSW, and Queensland’s Sunshine Coast as potential locations for nuclear power plants.
The Australia Institute executive director, Dr Clive Hamilton, said there were only a limited number of suitable sites.
He said the sites were identified because they are on the coast, providing access for the large volumes of cooling water that a nuclear power station would need.
Other criteria which Westernport Bay meets include its proximity to major transmission lines and a major load centre, Melbourne, and it has good rail and port access for transport of imported fuel rods.
“The Prime Minister has said he wants a national debate about nuclear power, but there is little point in debating it in the abstract,” Dr Hamilton said.
Local MPs and councillors have had mixed reactions, with Federal Parliamentary Secretary for Environment and Flinders MP Greg Hunt labelling the Australia Institute research a joke.
Mr Hunt said nuclear power would not be an issue for at least 20 or 30 years.
He also said it would not be appropriate to build a nuclear power plant on Westernport Bay, or the Mornington Peninsula, as it was not geologically stable.
“In principle, do I have a problem (with nuclear power in Australia)? No, actually, I don’t.
“But it would have to be economically viable and it would have to have community support,” Mr Hunt said in an interview with 3AW presenter Neil Mitchell last week.
He said if a site was to be located in the Flinders electorate, it would have to be away from highly populated areas.
Balla Balla Ward councillor Colin Butler said he did not support a nuclear power plant being built in Westernport Bay because of the danger to the ecology of the coast. But he said Australians had to think seriously about air pollution and global warming. “If global warming continues and the sea rises, half of Westernport Bay is going to go under water anyway,” he said.
Hastings MP Rosy Buchanan said it was not the first time Westernport has been identified as a potential home for a nuclear power plant, but should be the last.
In 1968, then premier Sir Henry Bolte identified French Island as the location for a future nuclear power plant before the local community rallied to force the government of the day to abandon its plans.