South Australian Premier Jay Weatherill has committed his state to a referendum on whether to host Australia's first nuclear waste dump, saying he will push ahead despite lukewarm public support.
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The referendum will effectively be a plebiscite, because it will seek an opinion rather than change the state's constitution.
Mr Weatherill's announcement comes ahead of the Labor state government's formal response to its royal commission on the nuclear industry and after a "citizens' jury" appointed by the government rejected the idea two to one, saying the dump should not be built under any circumstances.
Liberal Opposition Leader Steven Marshall has abandoned his earlier tentative support for the idea, saying the jury verdict rendered it "all but dead and buried".
A report prepared for the royal commission found the dump would cost $145 billion to build and operate, but bring in $257 billion in revenue, boosting budget income by a third.
But two of the report's authors have been named by the ABC as lobbyists, serving as president and vice-president of the Association for Regional and International Underground Storage, which promotes the underground storage of nuclear waste.
The report said the waste would be stored above ground in the outback for 17 years while the permanent underground repository was being built, and much would remain above ground while the repository was expanded with the income that would come from holding fees. Only after 120 years would all the waste be permanently stored.
South Australian independent senator Nick Xenophon was scathing of the findings, saying they assumed that no other countries would compete with Australia to provide cheaper underground storage and that any extra income received by the state would be kept rather than shared with the rest of Australia through the Grants Commission process.
"I supported a referendum when it looked as if both sides of politics wanted the dump, but now that they don't there is no point," Senator Xenophon said. "The next state election will be in 2018 and will itself be a referendum if Labor continues to pursue the idea."
Mr Weatherill refused to expand on when the referendum would be held or how the question would be phrased, saying only that it would be held be "at the end of the process", after everything had been worked out.
"I could have easily come here and said it's all over," he said on Monday. "We will not pursue a change to our policy, but if the mood in the community shifts and bipartisanship is re-established we will remain open to the question."
