Plans to build a nuclear waste dump near Kimba in South Australia have been quashed by the federal court.
The federal government had planned to store low and intermediate level radioactive waste at the proposed waste facility.
Barngarla traditional owners lodged an application for a judicial review in 20-21 saying they had been excluded from consultation.
In Adelaide on Tuesday morning, Justice Natalie Charlesworth ruled in the Traditional Owner’s favour stopping the project in its tracks.
Following the victory, Jason Bilney from the Barngarla Determination Aboriginal Corporation says the ongoing fight over their traditional lands has gone on for 21 years, and he would fight for another 21 years if he had too.
Bliney says the decision is “about listening to the First Nations people, and here we are today and we prevailed and we won.”
Former Resource Minister, Keith Pitt, suggested the location of the site in 2019.
He told the ABC he was disappointed with the outcome.
“The piece of land where this was to be sited didn’t have any native title.
There is no native title applied to it, it’s a dry land wheat farm.
The local community supported it overwhelmingly, more than 60 per cent, for those who were on the roll, that lived there.
There the ones who should be making the right decision.”
Image Credit: Nuclear-Free Collective Via Twitter
