The Senate has passed two bills to override the Northern Territory's objection to the dump after the South Australian government opposed the federal government's preferred site near Woomera.
A detailed study of three Defence sites - Fishers Ridge, 43km south-east of Katherine, Harts Range, 100km north-east of Alice Springs, and Mount Everard, 27km north-west of Alice Springs - will be conducted next year.
The project would then need to meet conditions set down by the Australian Radiation Protection and Nuclear Safety Agency (ARPANSA), before being built and starting operation by 2011.
The government argued the laws were needed to reduce the potential for costly delays.
But Labor, the Australian Democrats and the Australian Greens attacked the legislation as draconian.
Coalition MPs, including Northern Territory Country Liberal senator Nigel Scullion, secured a number of amendments to the bill.
They included the ability of the NT government and indigenous land councils to decide on other site options, a prohibition on the storage of high level and overseas waste and the free storage of the NT's own waste.
Opposition territories spokesman Senator Kim Carr said today the laws defied scientific analysis and represented a broken election promise.