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Dear Ministers and Senator,

Re: Radiation Health, redundant permits and unjustifiable costs; my letter 5 December 2000 and various replies. All correspondence and technical explanatory notes are posted at http://www.proscitech.com/uranyl.asp This is a well-visited and advertised site.

Unfortunately all replies were totally unsatisfactory and none answered the clearly put questions.

The points made to the Federal Government in relation to the importation of Uranyl Acetate were:

1 Your permit system is not serving any apparent useful purpose. The safety of importing and distributing small quantities of this expensive substance, which contains 12g of depleted uranium/25g jar of UA, never has been compromised and certainly is not improved through permits. DU is useless for the manufacture of nuclear bombs and the main danger from water soluble UA is in fact chemical toxicity. What is the rationale for requiring a permit for such small quantities of such an expensive and radiologically, not particularly dangerous, substance? Why do you not then similarly control smoke detectors, which after all are sold to private people who on average are more likely to pervert their use, which even includes the possibility of constructing a nuclear bomb.

2 At $130.00, the cost of a permit is absurdly high and is contrary to current government policy, whereby costs of permits and other fees must reflect the marginal cost of that "service". Why do you permit your Department to act contrary to stated Government policy?

3 The permit must now (because of inane Qld legislation) purchased by the end-user and applies to a purchase of up to two jars. Although the end-user has only a very small requirement for UA, the $130 fee is an inducement to import two jars, with a spare sitting on the shelf for perhaps two years; so the permit possibly decreases safety.

4 Since both State and Federal laws govern the importation and sale/use of radioactive substances, there are differing requirements within Australia. Furthermore, it is now obvious that some of the individual jurisdictions have insufficient resources or nous to formulate policy and well-considered legislation. Consequently, overall efficacy suffers. It would be in the interest of good governance if the Federal Government assumed a leadership role and negotiated with the States to assume the policy and lawmaker functions in regards to radioactive substances.

Minister Wooldridge had my letter answered by Dr John Loy of ARPANSA. Dr Loy failed to address a single point that I made in relation to Federal matters, but he pointed out that the particularly onerous legislation was by the Queensland Government and that I should address my complaint to them. Thanks for nothing. I knew that and that was spelled-out in my original letter, but where was your justification of YOUR grasping and time-wasting policies?

I again wrote to Minister Wooldrige and received a reply from Senator Tambling; this may have been reasonable, except that his letter was a reply to my first letter and was just a reiteration of Dr Loy’s earlier letter. Dr Loy and Senator Tambling's letters were just a waste of time. I expect that Senator Tambling was misled on the issues and was not given the full correspondence.

Queensland's Minister Wendy Edmond’s reply is more complex and initially identifies the issues correctly, but point by point, the reply is a non sequitur.

What does the Minister mean when making the claim: "The Queensland community has a justifiable expectation that the Minister of Health will institute regulations of a high standard to protect. . . ." This is a vacuous statement that may ring in Parliament, however, I was writing on a technical matter and provided details why the discussed legislation is inept. I believe that I deserve a reply concerning the facts of the matter. The Minister may have received letters from constituents who are concerned about nuclear waste, power stations, submarines and perhaps even jumbo jets, which carry trim ballast of 370kg of depleted uranium.

25g of uranyl acetate (12g of depleted uranium), which when packet (jar, Al envelope + tin can) emits radiation scarcely above background levels and much less than one smoke detector or a TV.

Minister, where are the letters asking that 25g of Uranyl acetate, destined to scientific laboratories, should be treated like a powerful X-ray generation device, or a 10,000kg shipment of "Yellow Cake", which radiologically and in chemical toxicity is much like uranyl acetate? Did citizens demand that shifting of a few radioactive rocks should require a permit? Do you have letters asking that Queensland's radiation standards should be considerable more stringent than those employed right around the world and every other Australian State? Where are those letters or did you just make an idle statement?

Minister, how would safety be improved by your legislation? Users used to order one new jar of UA and when that was running low, they would order a new one. Now, because of the permit cost (thanks ARPANSA and Queensland's "Radiation Health"), they now order two jars. There is more UA sitting on shelves now because of your legislation. Please give me ONE reasoned argument how your legislation has improved safety in relation to the importation and use of UA. I know the issues and the material and all I can see is that your Department has increased costs and effort required, but I know of no improvement in safety which is attributable to your 1999 legislation, certainly as pertaining to UA.

I understand that radiation safety officers in Queensland have numerous problems with the new legislation - it's not just the UA issue. Just one example: radiation sources employed for the production of X-rays in analytical equipment is used in mining and other analytical laboratories. These sources are dangerous and to ensure that the source matrix was not falling apart, a wipe test was used when the device was ten years old. The wiper was then sent away for testing. Now the entire X-ray source has to be shipped. The greatest danger from any such materials is in transit. Furthermore, a mine site cannot operate without the source for any length of time. So rather than obtaining a 5-year extension of the license for the source, it's now more likely to be scrapped. The result of your legislation is: more dangerous shipping of truly dangerous materials, much greater cost to laboratories and more, truly hazardous radioactive waste.

Your legislation was not written after extensive consultation, but was largely made up by your officers who seemingly are not in tune with real advances of safety issues and the requirements of a modern economy. It is absurd to expect that small business managers and radiation safety officers would scan newspapers for proposed legislation. Your department knew most of the users and importers of radioactive materials; why then did they fail to notify these people well in advance, which would have allowed discussion to optimize proposed legislation. Why the statement that your Department did consult widely? They did not.

There is a certain naiveté in your assertion that "you accept the department's advice that UA and other unsealed uranium compounds . . . ." First, as far as this trader is concerned, the UA is supplied as a sealed device and is only opened in the laboratory (to import and store a maximum of two x 25g UA, we were to be required to have a nuclear store and a safety officer and more). I note that a smoke detector is less sealed than our UA and they are available in unlimited quantities to complete non-experts. Second, why Minister, did you fail to accept my advice: your department had instigated the bad legislation and now is in no position to retract. It's obvious that you could not obtain any unbiased opinions on these matters from your staff. So why did you not ask some well-established radiation safety officer at a large university or some radiation expert at ANSTO or with the CSIRO about your legislation?

I have dealt with the relative danger of UA on our business website. This information has been posted there for many months and I have invited your department to refute my claims or to correct any wrong information; no such correspondence has been received. If your legislation is practical and would improve safety, then surely your experts could have pointed out why that would be so. If your legislation is sound, then surely other States and countries would follow and adopt some of the salient points, but this has not happened. Good laws would treat substances according to their intrinsic danger. I suggest if your legislation was consistent, then jumbo-jets should never be allowed to land in Queensland and smoke detectors should be illegal, or at least subject to permits and in any case, they should not be available to the common public. There is also a case for banning TV sets and computer monitors in Queensland; all of these items only require a screwdriver to open, just like a can of UA.

Thus far I have received a lot of words, but not one reasonable letter in reply to my letters on this issue. Considering the appalling responses, I now wonder why government departments employ a multitude of writers for the "ministerials"? These professional writers are intelligent and can follow the issues. Yet those replies would have failed any high school's English exam, for not addressing the issues. Why do Ministers allow their reputation to be compromised by signing replies that are totally inept on the issues, but allow a department to maintain the status quo in regards to non-sensible departmental policies or legislation?

A reasonable reply (from the Federal Department), which would not entrench bad departmental customs and policies, could have made these points:

1 I am asking the Department's Secretary to explain to you and me in logic how the permits will benefit good governance; if he is unable to do so I'll instruct him to scrap those permits.

2 I am asking the Department's Secretary to justify the $130.00 permit fee. That fee must be in accord with current Government policy and reflect the actual cost (not including the Department’s on cost) involved in administering the permit system. I understand your concern and assure you that I will not tolerate my Department charging greater than reasonable commercial fees for services rendered. (Otherwise credence is given to the prevailing view that government is less efficient than private enterprise; which is true only if we are poor managers!)

3 It makes obvious sense to have a single Australia-wide policy concerning such technical and commercial matters as the regulation of radiation health. To achieve that we would have to obtain agreement with all States, though it would be possible to leave out an uncooperative State. In any case, this requires carefully considered legislation and co-operation, but this is a worthwhile project and I have instructed my Department to move towards that goal.

Has any Minister ever signed a satisfactory reply to a meritorious letter, which however had shown departmental policies to be badly flawed?

There is one final question for Minister Wendy Edmond: How do you reconcile your radiation health legislation with your Premier's highest policy objective, which is the increase in employment? Your legislation makes the use of any radioactive substance or X-ray device in Queensland considerably more expensive and time-consuming, apparently with no gains in safety to offset these costs. Why should hi-tech and mining companies and research laboratories not regard your legislation as a negative point when deciding in which State to establish their facility? Your poorly considered legislation is a considerable impediment to commerce and science. It has been costly to my business and additionally I had to contend with some appalling reasoning in reply.

Good business and good politics are logical.

I would still like to receive a constructive and meaningful response from somebody in politics.

Sincerely

Jim Darley