South Australian Premier Peter Malinauskas says an approved radioactive waste dump near Kimba will not handle spent fuel rods from AUKUS subs, which will instead be stored on defence land.
The Minister for Defence Richard Marles announced yesterday that nuclear reactors powering the SSN-AUKUS Royal Australian Navy submarines would be made in the United Kingdom, but would be stored in Australia when they were decommissioned.
"We are making a commitment that we will dispose of the nuclear reactor," he said.
"That is a significant commitment to make, this is going to require a facility to be built in order to do that disposal.
"We are announcing that facility will be on defence land."
South Australia's largest swathe of defence land is the Woomera Prohibited Zone, covering 122,000 square kilometres.
Mr Malinuaskas said a site should be selected in the national security interest — which was the reason Adelaide was chosen to build submarines.
"It's not because it's trying to create work for South Australia, we're building subs here because no-one else can," he said.
"The same test should apply to the dump."
Mr Malinauskas also said it would not be possible for highly-enriched uranium to end up at the planned low-to-intermediate radioactive waste dump near Kimba on the Eyre Peninsula, because it was not Defence land.
Kimba District Council Mayor Dean Johnson, said the community had been reassured it would not store high-level radioactive waste.
"As far as I'm concerned, nothing's changed as far as the national radioactive waste management facility at this stage," he said.
"We understand it will be for the disposal of low-level waste only.
"There may be some intermediate waste held there … until final destinations are unveiled for that."
Dave Sweeney, a veteran anti-nuclear campaigner with the Australian Conservation Foundation, said Australians should be concerned by a Defence pact which required Australia to store highly-enriched uranium waste.
"Two years ago we weren't talking about nuclear subs in Australia, and now we're signing up for a $368 billion spend and we're locking ourselves into a nuclear-sub-propelled future," he said.
"That's a pretty extraordinary rate of development.
"It's something we've never done before, and something that there are deep concerns about whether we have the capacity to do."
Mr Marles said a process by which a facility to store highly-enriched uranium waste would be identified would happen in 12 months — but a facility would not be needed until the 2050s.
Mr Marles said the Commonwealth had worked closely with the International Atomic Energy Agency pending yesterday's AUKUS announcement.
He also said nuclear submarine construction and waste disposal would accord with Australia being a signatory to the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons since 1970.
