Abolish ANSTO, says Friends of the Earth
The environment group Friends of the Earth has written to the prime minister and minister for science and small business Chris Schacht, calling for the abolition of the Australian Nuclear Science and Technology Organisation.
According to FOE, ANSTO's reactor operations should be terminated, and those programs that are left should be incorporated into CSIRO.
According to FOE spokesperson John Hallam, "While CSIRO has established a reputation as a top of the line research and development body, this is not true of ANSTO. ANSTO was conceived during the Cold War and still thinks in those terms. Its mission has moved from defence to the unsuccessful development of power reactors to a point where it is really left without a legitimate mission.
"ANSTO now seeks to justify its existence by pointing to medical radioisotope production and neutron scattering as the keys to the future. It wants a new research reactor at Lucas Heights at a cost to the taxpayer of $300-400 million. This is a gross waste of taxpayers' money that only ANSTO could have dreamed up, and it is not the kind of priority we would see coming from CSIRO."
Hallam said that ANSTO has "distorted priorities by acting as a biased pro-nuclear lobby within the government. Its advice to the government and the inquiry has been highly misleading and we would be better off without it.
"The very existence of ANSTO distorts proper research priorities by demanding big slabs of taxpayers' money for dubious projects such as the new reactor. At the same time, there are growing concerns with the existing Lucas Heights reactor, whose emergency shutdown system is suspect and which has no backup system. ANSTO's very insistence that the reactor is safe is itself a major cause for concern.
"It's high time to get rid of this dinosaur from the Cold War, and to incorporate those programs that are worth doing into CSIRO."