SUPPORT is increasing for a high-level nuclear waste repository in South Australia, as the controversial proposal is subjected to extensive community scrutiny.

An exclusive Advertiser/Galaxy opinion poll finds 49 per cent of respondents are in favour of the nuclear royal commission proposal to take overseas high-level waste and bury it deep underground.

This mirrors a poll taken in mid-February, immediately after the royal commission’s interim findings, which argued a high-level repository for imported spent nuclear fuel would generate estimated revenue of $445 billion, through a State Wealth Fund over 70 years.

Continued public support for a nuclear waste repository represents a dramatic contrast to years of overwhelming opposition early last decade to proposals for both high-level and low-level waste dumps.

media_camera Jay Weatherill walks through tunnels 420 below the surface at the Onkalo underground research facility near Rauman in Finland. Pic: Calum Robertson

The latest poll, of 869 voters between 12-14 September, finds a slight increase of two percentage points in people strongly in favour of the proposal since the February poll, as people firm from declaring themselves partly in favour.

However, 38 per cent are opposed and 13 per cent undecided — almost exactly the same figures as the February Advertiser/Galaxy poll.

Strong support has increased among both Labor voters, up five percentage points to 21 per cent, and Liberals, up four percentage points to 35 per cent.

However, more than a quarter of Labor voters are strongly opposed, with an eight-point increase to 26 per cent uncovered in the poll.

Powerful forces within state Labor are hotly opposed to the dump, with SA Unions secretary Joe Szakacs last week publicly urging Premier Jay Weatherill to ditch the proposal unless there was a dramatic change to the safety and economic case.

Mr Weatherill, who this week toured the world’s most advanced high-level nuclear waste disposal facility in Finland, has indicated it could be at least five years before SA reaches a point of no return in investigations toward setting up a similar repository.

Nuclear waste - how is it transported? Nuclear waste - how is it transported?

He has vowed to declare the government’s position by the end of the year, after consultation on the royal commission’s recommendations extending to more than 100 locations across the state by October 20.

The turnaround in public opinion on the nuclear issue was first pinpointed by the Sunday Mail’s Your Say, SA survey of more than 5700 people, published in November last year, which found 34 per cent support for an international waste repository and 43 per cent backing a national dump.

SA public outrage in 2004 forced the federal government to abandon plans for a national low-level waste dump, which had been proposed for near Woomera but fiercely resisted by the-then premier Mike Rann.

In April, a cattle station west of Wilpena Pound, at Barndioota, was earmarked as the site for the revived national low-level dump, which would store medical, laboratory and other waste.

In a process unrelated to SA’s investigation of a high-level repository, the Federal Government is expected to make a final decision by the second half of next year, after design, safety, technical, environmental and indigenous heritage assessment at Barndioota.