(1) What is the name of the company that has been awarded the contract to construct a new nuclear reactor at Lucas Heights in NSW.

(2) What are the related corporate entities to the company.

(3) Is he able to say whether the company or any related corporate entity has been the subject of complaint in respect of a nuclear reactor constructed in Egypt; if so, what has been the (a) nature and (b) outcome of those complaints.

(4) Was a contractual condition to the company being awarded the contract an agreement that waste could be returned to Argentina.

(5) Are there any legislative restrictions on the receipt or handling of waste by the Argentinean Government or any corporations or instrumentalities entrusted with that function.

(6) What will be the system of supervision of the construction of the nuclear reactor and will that supervision involve any acknowledged international expertise other than from the company or related bodies corporate.

(7) What supervision if any will be in place upon the commissioning of the new nuclear reactor to ensure that safety mechanisms are not overridden in order to hasten the time in which the reactor becomes operational.

(8) Is he able to say whether the International Atomic Energy Agency of the UN in Vienna was checking the problems of the Egypt reactor; if so, what was the result of the inquiry and what conclusions were drawn.

(1) As announced by the then Minister for Industry, Science and Resources in July 2000, a contract was signed at that time between ANSTO and INVAP S.E.

(2) INVAP is owned by the Argentine province of Rio Negro. It also has links to the Argentine National Commission for Atomic Energy (CNEA). INVAP has two (2) Subsidiary Companies, Black River Technology, Inc. (USA) and INVAP DO BRASIL LTDA (Brazil).

(3) This issue was extensively addressed during the work of the Senate Select Committee for an Inquiry into the Contract for a New Reactor at Lucas Heights (“the Senate Committee”). Both INVAP and ARPANSA gave extensive evidence to that Committee about the issues raised with respect to the ETRR-2 reactor (Committee Hansard, pp 210-11, 235). It should be noted that following construction of the ETRR-2 reactor, the Egyptian Government, after an international tendering process, awarded INVAP a contract in 1999 to provide a radioisotope production plant.

(4) No. As noted in the Senate Committee Report, as a contingency arrangement to current reprocessing contracts with COGEMA (France), INVAP is contractually committed to arrange, on request, the processing of spent fuel from the replacement research reactor. There is no contractual requirement that this take place in Argentina. Should the arrangement come into effect, all wastes arising from that processing must be returned to Australia.

(5) Article 41 of the Argentine Constitution prohibits the importation of hazardous and radioactive wastes. As noted in the Senate Committee Report, the Argentine regulator (ARN) and the Argentine Government have advised the Australian Government and ANSTO that under the Argentine constitution and Argentine legislation, spent fuel is not considered to be `waste'. The office of the Argentine Federal Government Attorney, in its capacity as the highest legal advisory agency in the Argentine Federal Government, advised in June 2001 that the temporary entry of irradiated fuel elements for treatment purposes would not breach the Argentine Constitution. The Senate Committee found that:

“since the ARN is the highest regulatory authority on nuclear issues in Argentina, neither INVAP nor ANSTO could have sought, at this stage, any greater assurance as to the validity of their contractual arrangements than they have been given (paragraph 9.52).”

(6) ANSTO is accountable for management of the project and the project team includes staff with recognised international expertise. ANSTO will also need to satisfy requirements as set out by ARPANSA and the Australian Safeguards and Non-proliferation Office (ASNO). During the assessment of ANSTO's application for a construction licence and in assessing the significance of faulting on the site, ARPANSA drew extensively upon overseas expertise.

(7) ANSTO is proud of its ongoing safety record. A major consideration at all times and in all operations at ANSTO is the well being of the 800-plus people who work at ANSTO, and the wider community. Accordingly, ANSTO would never contemplate the sort of actions suggested in the question.

As is clear from the decision of the CEO of ARPANSA to issue a construction licence, the safety mechanisms in the reactor are intrinsic to its design, and cannot be “overridden” by the operators.

Commissioning of the reactor will not be possible without the grant by ARPANSA of an operating licence. Grant of such a licence will be dependent on ARPANSA's satisfaction that the reactor has been constructed in accordance with the conditions set out in the Construction Licence and the engineering specifications set out in the Safety Analysis Report. ANSTO will also have in place a Reactor Facility Quality Management System. ARPANSA will review all stages of the Commissioning Plan, which will include detailed operating limits and conditions.

Both ANSTO and INVAP are accredited to ISO-9001 quality assurance standards. Adherence to those standards (which is subject to regular external audit) would make a step such as that proposed in the question impossible.

(8) See paragraph 6.140 of the report of the Senate Committee.