Australian Prime Minister Julia Gillard is pressing her Australian Labor Party (ALP) to overturn a decades old ban on exporting uranium to India. Meanwhile the high echelons of the ALP are pushing for Labor to expand uranium mining within Australia. Labor has so far rejected exporting uranium to India because it is not a signatory to the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty.
This represents a major policy shift for Labor and Australia. It is a retrograde step in an uncertain world. The volatility around the globe, not just economically but in terms of protracted wars, the spread of the Taliban into Pakistan, represent real threats to the peace and security of the world. Iran is on the verge of acquiring a nuclear weapon.
This is not the time to release the reigns on the uranium industry in Australia. Indeed it suggests we should tighten our controls over our exports. Uranium never was, and never will be, safe. Julia Gillard is thumbing her nose at those who supported her in creating a carbon price for this country, and will bed down with the opposition to redefine the nuclear parameters of our country.
Uranium is the second most dangerous thing on this planet. The most dangerous thing is people. People using uranium is madness.
India is not part of the Nuclear Non Proliferation Treaty. We ought not be trading uranium with them. If we look only at the economic benefits, the short-term and illusory economic benefits, of uranium mining, then we prove that our horizon is blinkered.
Environmentally it is a disaster.
For the peace and security of the world it is a disaster.
Uranium mining does not benefit Australians.
There will be more pressure on us to find a place to bury the waste from this product, and yet we know that there is no safe way to safeguard this waste for half a billion years. It is just not possible, and is too great a risk.
We need to get a petition circulating to take to the national conference of the Labor Party next month.
This is a step in the wrong direction. We should be pulling out of uranium, not investing further into it. Nuclear power is not a solution to the climate debate. There are very many non-dangerous alternatives to reducing our carbon footprint. I would welcome the input of anyone with the wherewithal to begin a petition rejecting this retrograde step on behalf of Julia Gillard and the Labor Right.
Where is this going?
This is something suicidally stupid to do - handing out uranium without any conditions regarding its final destination. And in this instance it cannot even be argued that the NPT prescribed each country was responsible on its own. If India produces any contamination from it, civilian or military, will its enabler nation accept compensation claims? And if not, will it accept political responsibility for the damage inflicted upon the NPT by any such precedent? Or is Australia suggesting that it is going to take back the radioactive waste resulting from its export products? Have they even projected an economic calculation on the entire fuel cycle, mine to dump?