NO amount of comforting words from Resources Department officials will provide comfort to the people of Hill End so long as the community remains on the shortlist for a new national nuclear waste facility.
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The federal government – and the department – have consistently said they would not foist the new waste dump on an unwelcoming community. And, by any definition, Hill End has shown itself to be just that ever since the short list was released last November.
Yet, the government also seems unwilling to remove Hill End from the short list before the March 11 deadline.
Those two positions taken by the government appear at odds with each other and so you cannot blame the people for remaining nervous and sceptical.
Calare MP John Cobb yesterday took the concerns of the Hill End community direct to federal parliament and asked that their voices be heard in this matter.
He was speaking after a community meeting in Hill End on Saturday passed a motion calling on him to take their concerns to Resources Minister Josh Frydenberg, and Mr Cobb should be congratulated for moving so swiftly.
His short address in parliament yesterday was a welcome change from Mr Cobb’s initial reluctance to express strong support for Hill End, but still it probably comes too late to win him any real credit in the local area.
For too long, the people of Hill End have felt they were fighting this battle alone, and Mr Cobb would have been well served to get behind them from day one.
But the past is done, and there should be some acknowledgment that Mr Cobb is now speaking up to let all his colleagues know that Hill End does not want this dump site.
Nevertheless, the proposal to build the facility at Hill End remains far from dead and buried but, hopefully, the support of the federal MP will be another nail in its coffin.
