# The secret nuclear waste files the government is fighting to keep hidden

An episode of [7am](https://invisiblenetwork.ai/podcast/1461999702), 3 Aug 2026, 16 min.

Audio: https://p.podderapp.com/2544644999/traffic.omny.fm/d/clips/2fb3740d-3436-44af-8cc0-a91900716aa5/62723a1f-3e96-4fc4-882c-b25e0181da4d/24966ea0-c58d-4c22-93c6-b49b00638fc6/audio.mp3?utm_source=Podcast&in_playlist=70f29d90-2a63-48aa-bf8f-b25e0181da70

What do Jacqui Lambie, Pauline Hanson, Lidia Thorpe and David Pocock all have in common? Usually not much. But they're part of an unlikely group of politicians backing former senator Rex Patrick in a legal fight with the Albanese government over information the government does not want released. At the centre of that fight are documents about potential sites for nuclear waste storage from AUKUS submarines, a bill that could see Patrick forced to pay $150,000, and a warning about what happens when ordinary Australians push too hard for answers. Today, transparency campaigner Rex Patrick on the case that has united some of parliament's most unlikely allies. If you enjoy 7am, the best way you can support us is by making a contribution at 7ampodcast.com.au/support. Socials: Stay in touch with us on Instagram Guest: Transparency campaigner Rex Patrick Photo: AAP Image/Jono Searle See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

## Transcript

[0:01] Speaker 1: I'm Daniel James and you're listening to seven am. What
[0:10] Speaker 1: did Jackie Lamby, Pauline Hansen, Lydia Thorpe and David Pocock
[0:14] Speaker 1: all have in common? Usually nothing, but they're part of
[0:18] Speaker 1: an unlikely group of politicians backing former Senator Rex Patrick
[0:22] Speaker 1: in a legal fight with the Albanesi government over information
[0:25] Speaker 1: the government doesn't want released. At the center of that
[0:28] Speaker 1: fighter documents about potential sites for nuclear waste storage from
[0:31] Speaker 1: August Submarines. A builder could see Patrick force to pay
[0:35] Speaker 1: one hundred and fifty thousand dollars and a warning about
[0:38] Speaker 1: what happens when ordinary Australians push too hard for answers.
[0:42] Speaker 1: Today Transparency campaign Rex Patrick on the case that is
[0:47] Speaker 1: united some of Parliament's most unlikely allies. It's Tuesday, August four, Rex.
[1:03] Speaker 1: In May, you won a freedom of information case which
[1:06] Speaker 1: ordered the government to release information on where it will
[1:08] Speaker 1: stare nuclear waste for Australia's future orchast submarines. Now the
[1:12] Speaker 1: government is appealing to stop those documents being released. What
[1:16] Speaker 1: do you understand is in those documents or what they
[1:19] Speaker 1: could reveal.
[1:20] Speaker 2: Well, we know that Back in February of twenty twenty three,
[1:25] Speaker 2: the Minister announced that the government was going to do
[1:28] Speaker 2: a review into how to select a location for orcust
[1:32] Speaker 2: nuclear waste.
[1:33] Speaker 3: As part of being a responsible nuclear steward, Australia will
[1:39] Speaker 3: take responsibility for the disposal of the nuclear waste which
[1:44] Speaker 3: comes from member operating nuclear power submarines, which is both.
[1:48] Speaker 2: That report was completed in November of twenty twenty three,
[1:54] Speaker 2: so in December, a month later, I sought access to
[1:58] Speaker 2: both the report, but knowing the government might claim that
[2:02] Speaker 2: to be cabinet, I then also asked for the documents
[2:06] Speaker 2: that fed into that report, so the policy documents that
[2:10] Speaker 2: were being sort of built up in background.
[2:13] Speaker 3: The process by which we will determine how that all
[2:17] Speaker 3: occurs is a process that we're underway right now and
[2:20] Speaker 3: we will complete within twelve months. To be clear on that,
[2:23] Speaker 3: that is not to say in twelve months time there
[2:25] Speaker 3: will be a place, but it is to say within
[2:27] Speaker 3: twelve months time we will identify what the road will
[2:30] Speaker 3: be to determining where.
[2:32] Speaker 2: So the report and the documents themselves don't actually mention
[2:38] Speaker 2: that location. No location has been selected, but all of
[2:43] Speaker 2: the criteria what the geological site must be, issues such
[2:49] Speaker 2: as transportation, security, making sure that the facility is not
[2:55] Speaker 2: located on an earthquake zone those sorts of things. But
[2:59] Speaker 2: I know from the hearing that took place and the
[3:02] Speaker 2: decision that was made by the Administra of Review Tribunal
[3:07] Speaker 2: that it does include at least one location. The tribunal
[3:12] Speaker 2: made the point that naming one location doesn't tell you
[3:16] Speaker 2: that that's the location the government has chosen. But I
[3:21] Speaker 2: think the government's worried that if you name any location,
[3:24] Speaker 2: people are going to get upset. Look, that information that
[3:29] Speaker 2: I'm seeking has been described by the Administra Review Tribunal
[3:35] Speaker 2: as information that is of significant public interest. I've also
[3:41] Speaker 2: just been in the last couple of weeks had a judge,
[3:45] Speaker 2: Justice O'Sullivan make the same declaration in relation to similar documents.
[3:52] Speaker 2: So a huge public interest in the disclosure of these
[3:55] Speaker 2: sorts of documents so that the public can discuss and
[3:59] Speaker 2: scrutiniz the government as they work towards finding a place
[4:03] Speaker 2: to put Baucus nuclear waste.
[4:06] Speaker 1: So it's a hot political issue, as anything to do
[4:08] Speaker 1: with nuclear waste usually is Why did the government, beyond
[4:12] Speaker 1: that argue this information should remain secret. What harm did
[4:16] Speaker 1: it say would come from releasing it?
[4:18] Speaker 2: Well, I might summarize it as saying that the government
[4:22] Speaker 2: wants to control the narrative. Those words were talked about
[4:26] Speaker 2: in the hearing. They say that if you just release
[4:30] Speaker 2: a little bit of it, then people are going to
[4:32] Speaker 2: get the wrong impression. If you don't do it in
[4:35] Speaker 2: a controlled manner, it's going to create difficulty for the government.
[4:39] Speaker 2: But of course all of those arguments don't stand. So,
[4:43] Speaker 2: for example, if you're worried about small amounts of information
[4:47] Speaker 2: being misleading, release more, tell people more. And indeed the
[4:52] Speaker 2: FI is there to allow you to appear in behind
[4:55] Speaker 2: the sort of thick curtains of government officers and just
[4:58] Speaker 2: see what's going on.
[5:00] Speaker 1: What do you think the government's been so secretive about
[5:02] Speaker 1: this work?
[5:03] Speaker 2: Well, I think you mentioned that the issue. You said
[5:05] Speaker 2: it was a hot political issue. I think it's a hot,
[5:08] Speaker 2: radioactive political issue. Part of me feels as though if
[5:13] Speaker 2: it were not documents or added to that topic, maybe
[5:16] Speaker 2: the appeal wouldn't be taking place. But the government has
[5:19] Speaker 2: appealed on questions of law that they've asked the court
[5:22] Speaker 2: to determine, and then the matter will get remitted back
[5:26] Speaker 2: to the Administra of Review Tribunal to be dealt with
[5:29] Speaker 2: in accordance with law. So it's all very technical stuff,
[5:33] Speaker 2: but what it does is put a really big bar
[5:38] Speaker 2: in the way of someone like me trying to pursue
[5:42] Speaker 2: these sorts of documents. And indeed, if you think about it,
[5:46] Speaker 2: I mean they've taken me to court. They know that
[5:50] Speaker 2: I'm not a lawyer. Just imagine someone wins an FOI
[5:55] Speaker 2: and the government sends them a nose of appeal, no
[6:00] Speaker 2: idea what to do, and when they read the appeal,
[6:03] Speaker 2: it says the government is seeking costs against you if
[6:07] Speaker 2: they are successful. Right now, those jos you get to
[6:11] Speaker 2: about one hundred and fifty thousand dollars. That's not an
[6:13] Speaker 2: unreasonable estimate.
[6:15] Speaker 1: Yeah, let's talk about that, Rex. Because the government isn't
[6:19] Speaker 1: just appealing this decision. It's raised the states. It's insisting
[6:22] Speaker 1: that you pay up to one hundred and fifty thousand
[6:24] Speaker 1: dollars to cover its legals costs if you lose the
[6:28] Speaker 1: legal fight. What do you make of that decision? How
[6:31] Speaker 1: do you reflect on that? Do you take that as
[6:33] Speaker 1: a threat?
[6:34] Speaker 2: But it's more than a threat because they've actually done
[6:36] Speaker 2: the appeal. What is offensive about it is that the
[6:41] Speaker 2: information I'm seeking, there's no information that I'm going to
[6:44] Speaker 2: use to make money or have some personal benefit in
[6:49] Speaker 2: relation to It's information where I get to look at
[6:54] Speaker 2: perhaps fifteen emails, and those emails may or may not
[6:59] Speaker 2: have something interesting in them, and the price tag they
[7:02] Speaker 2: want to put on that is one hundred and fifty
[7:04] Speaker 2: thousand dollars. This is a deep pocketed government bringing a
[7:09] Speaker 2: citizen to the federal court, testing and asking the court
[7:14] Speaker 2: what the law is, knowing full well that I don't
[7:17] Speaker 2: have the capacity to go from fund lawyers, and I
[7:21] Speaker 2: certainly can't risk fifty thousand dollars in adverse legal costs.
[7:27] Speaker 2: This is a huge chilling effect. The message here is
[7:32] Speaker 2: stop at an FOI loss. If you pursue win, we
[7:37] Speaker 2: may take you to court and you may lose your house.
[7:42] Speaker 1: Still to come why this is one hundred and fifty
[7:45] Speaker 1: thousand dollars fight. They've seen political enemies band together, rex
[7:59] Speaker 1: politicians who are really on the same side about anything
[8:02] Speaker 1: abandon together to back you on this. From paul Ing
[8:05] Speaker 1: Hanson to Jackie Lamby, to Lydia Thorpe and David Pocock,
[8:09] Speaker 1: they say the decision to pursue legal costs is a
[8:11] Speaker 1: breach of the rules which require the government to act
[8:14] Speaker 1: as a model litigant. Can you explain those rules for us?
[8:17] Speaker 2: Well, the model of rules basically say that the government
[8:21] Speaker 2: shouldn't take advantage of a citizen who simply cannot resource
[8:27] Speaker 2: a legal team. So if I were a corporation and
[8:30] Speaker 2: I was after documents related to the business that I
[8:34] Speaker 2: was engaged in, one might say, well, it's reasonable that
[8:37] Speaker 2: the corporation pays legal fees if they're unsuccessful in their
[8:42] Speaker 2: endeavor to get a document. We might even suggest that's
[8:45] Speaker 2: the case if I was seeking documents to help me
[8:50] Speaker 2: win a compensation case something like that. But in a
[8:54] Speaker 2: pure case that involves no pecuniary interest, no financial interest
[8:59] Speaker 2: in a matter of significant public interest and questions to
[9:05] Speaker 2: the court about how the public law works, that is
[9:09] Speaker 2: not a case where the government should seek to impose costs.
[9:14] Speaker 1: And what's the government's response to claims of a breach.
[9:18] Speaker 2: Well, they say that it's not a breach. They have said, well,
[9:20] Speaker 2: we're not. We consider it to be a test case.
[9:23] Speaker 2: Now that might be something that gets argued out in
[9:26] Speaker 2: the court because the court just as that as the
[9:29] Speaker 2: government has a responsibility to be fair to citizens. The
[9:32] Speaker 2: courts take seriously, their role to be fair to citizens
[9:38] Speaker 2: under their constitutional role. So the deal here is that
[9:43] Speaker 2: I can't afford the one hundred and fifty thousand dollars I
[9:46] Speaker 2: might need to have a lawyer instructing a barrister who
[9:50] Speaker 2: might be led by a senior council, because that's what
[9:53] Speaker 2: the other side may have, which means I'm on my own.
[9:56] Speaker 2: And what happens is when I go to court, if
[9:59] Speaker 2: I lose, use that's when I'll have to pay the
[10:02] Speaker 2: commerce legal costs. And we all know that if you're
[10:06] Speaker 2: self represented, there's a much greater chance of losing. So
[10:09] Speaker 2: it's almost like this double whammy that they know I
[10:13] Speaker 2: can't get a lawyer and the chances of winning against
[10:17] Speaker 2: the silks or kick cases and senior counsels which they
[10:21] Speaker 2: may well engage at taxpayers expense, it will make it
[10:26] Speaker 2: extremely difficult for me. And maybe the point here is
[10:30] Speaker 2: just to make sure that the documents never get released
[10:34] Speaker 2: and the narrative control is maintained. Okay, I'm sorry, why
[10:39] Speaker 2: can't that report be released again?
[10:43] Speaker 1: The report is a classified report, Senator.
[10:46] Speaker 2: Oh, it's a classified report, but I mean there's no
[10:49] Speaker 2: detail really, So what's so classified with it.
[10:53] Speaker 1: I mean, you haven't gone anywhere, really is it?
[10:56] Speaker 2: And the minister setup would be released as a part
[10:59] Speaker 2: of a social license.
[11:00] Speaker 3: So when is the Minister of Defense going to release it?
[11:04] Speaker 1: Jackie Lamby says, this is the government trying to send
[11:07] Speaker 1: a message. What is that message? Rex? And are you
[11:10] Speaker 1: worried that this could stop others in the future from
[11:14] Speaker 1: pursuing information the government simply doesn't want exposed.
[11:18] Speaker 2: Yeah, it just means that the ready sensitive stuff, the
[11:20] Speaker 2: government has a means to be able to say you
[11:23] Speaker 2: ain't going to get it even if the law says
[11:26] Speaker 2: that you can, because you never get to test the
[11:28] Speaker 2: law properly. And so Senator Lambe has weighed and she's concerned,
[11:33] Speaker 2: and I've spoken to her. This issue is not about
[11:37] Speaker 2: Rex Patrick. Okay, I'm old enough and ugly enough to
[11:41] Speaker 2: look after myself. The big worry here is the FOI
[11:45] Speaker 2: Act is a layman's tool.
[11:48] Speaker 1: You know.
[11:49] Speaker 2: A senator can ask questions on notice, an order to general,
[11:53] Speaker 2: can demand papers when they're oversighting government. The media can
[11:57] Speaker 2: ask questions and use its its powers in terms of
[12:02] Speaker 2: its ability to influence the public to potentially get answers
[12:05] Speaker 2: to information. All the citizen has is FOI. It's a
[12:11] Speaker 2: given to them by the Parliament to be able to
[12:13] Speaker 2: participate in democracy and to be able to scrutinize their government.
[12:17] Speaker 2: And the government is just putting a huge price tag
[12:22] Speaker 2: on that activity, even though the Act says that access
[12:25] Speaker 2: to documents should be granted two people in the least
[12:30] Speaker 2: costly way, so that the Act actually says that, Yet
[12:35] Speaker 2: they're basically saying, well, we're just going to outmuscle you,
[12:39] Speaker 2: mister Patrick and anyone else who's watching pay attention.
[12:43] Speaker 1: And finally, Rex, I mean, how important are freedom of
[12:47] Speaker 1: information requests to a robust democracy? I mean how important
[12:50] Speaker 1: have they become? Because government over the decade seems to
[12:53] Speaker 1: me as Orbersuasians have become more and more secretive. What
[12:58] Speaker 1: kind of things wouldn't we know without FOIS?
[13:02] Speaker 2: I look, there's all sorts of stuff. I was the
[13:04] Speaker 2: person that took Scott Morrison to court over a national
[13:08] Speaker 2: cabinet being declared during COVID and basically then saying well
[13:12] Speaker 2: we can't see the information and the basis upon which
[13:16] Speaker 2: really big decisions like you can't leave your house, you
[13:19] Speaker 2: can't cross a border, you can't send your kids to school.
[13:23] Speaker 2: How those decisions were being made, so FOI properly pursued
[13:28] Speaker 2: as opened up national cabinet. FOI has enabled us to
[13:33] Speaker 2: see all sorts of misconduct by officials, or unfair play
[13:39] Speaker 2: by governments or poorly thought through ideas. Fois are a
[13:45] Speaker 2: critical tool for journalists who want to see what's happening
[13:49] Speaker 2: behind the closed doors of government to be able to
[13:52] Speaker 2: report and inform the public. They will be looking at this,
[13:56] Speaker 2: and in fact it wasn't just the politicians that have
[14:00] Speaker 2: weighed in and written to the Attorney General, so to
[14:02] Speaker 2: have some civil society groups, including people like the Human
[14:07] Speaker 2: Rights Law Center, but also some of the journalists organizations
[14:12] Speaker 2: because they understand the implication of this.
[14:18] Speaker 1: X Patrick, thank you so much for your time.
[14:20] Speaker 2: Thank you.
[14:33] Speaker 4: Also in the news day one of radio shock jock
[14:36] Speaker 4: Allan Jones's long awaited trial has kicked off in Sydney,
[14:39] Speaker 4: with the court hearing Jones allegedly kissed and touched a
[14:42] Speaker 4: year twelve student who had invited to his home in
[14:45] Speaker 4: the Southern Highlands. The prosecution says Jones met the teenager
[14:49] Speaker 4: during a radio interview about the promising young athletes achievements,
[14:53] Speaker 4: later paying for his phone and a six hundred dollars
[14:56] Speaker 4: a week allowance to help with his training. Jones faces
[15:00] Speaker 4: twenty two charges related to six male complainants. He denies
[15:03] Speaker 4: any wrongdoing. And One Nation has finally announced its Victorian
[15:07] Speaker 4: leader ahead of the upcoming state election. The party's state
[15:10] Speaker 4: president or In Pickering, but One Nation's policies and full
[15:14] Speaker 4: list of candidates won't be released for another month, just
[15:17] Speaker 4: three months out from the vote. The announcement was made
[15:20] Speaker 4: yesterday in Melbourne, with the ABC, the Age and The
[15:23] Speaker 4: Guardian all refused entry. Hansen says she's quote not putting
[15:26] Speaker 4: up with the spin gotcha moments, so they're banned.
[15:30] Speaker 1: I'm Ruby Jones.
[15:31] Speaker 4: This is a an am thanks for listening.

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