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Further implications
A referendum may not occur. It would need the support of the Opposition which it is unlikely to receive.
The Opposition wants to go to the 2018 state election on the question of whether South Australia should build a nuclear waste storage facility. The Liberal Opposition clearly believes the proposal is unpopular and that the Weatherill Labor government can be removed from power for having appeared to promote it.
Shifting public opinion on this question was always going to be difficult. Nuclear power and the management of nuclear waste products are deeply divisive issues. This may be particularly the case in South Australia which has a relatively recent history of having been the site of British nuclear weapons testing at Maralinga and Emu Field. South Australia has also fought a long battle with the federal government to prevent becoming the site of a storage facility for low-level nuclear waste produced within Australia. The federal government is currently making another attempt to establish such a repository in the state.
Opinion polls do suggest that opposition to a nuclear waste storage facility has softened; however, such a proposal still does not have majority support and were a referendum to be held the storage facility is unlikely to be approved.
The public education strategy which has been adopted has been a significant exercise in information dissemination; however, the issue is so sensitive that distrust remains. Critics of the proposal have disputed the objectivity of the Nuclear Fuel Cycle Royal Commission. The sources of its expert advice have been challenged as biased and many of the assumptions it has made in its economic modelling have been disputed.
Much about the issue remains irresoluble. There is currently not a deep geological nuclear waste storage facility in full operation anywhere in the world. Statements about their safety and profitability have to be predictions. When such high stakes hang on the issue, both in terms of financial outlay and public safety issues that extend beyond many lifetimes it is unlikely that electorates will readily embrace the risk.
The South Australian premier appears to have believed that 'information' and 'public education' would lead to an acceptance of the project. The difficulty seems to have been that such information as there is has not been sufficient to allay popular concerns.
There also seems to be the belief that some of the premier's assurances were tokenistic. The Indigenous community, for example, does not appear to have been convinced that an Aboriginal community would have been able to veto the decision to place a nuclear waste storage facility on its lands. Yankunytjatjara Native Title Aboriginal Corporation chairwoman, Karina Lester, has said the veto power was simply to 'cover the Premier's butt' and Aboriginal communities would feel 'pressured and intimidated' by a vote.
Faced with the opposition of the government and public opinion Karina Lester clearly doubts that an Indigenous community would have been able to assert its supposed rights. However, given the direction the public debate has taken, it seems unlikely that any site for a storage facility will ever be nominated.