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| Down Under | |
| Labor set to remain member of Bush's nuclear club | |
| 2008-07-15 | |
THE Rudd cabinet is considering Australia's continued involvement in US President George W. Bush's Global Nuclear Energy Partnership, despite Labor claims before the election that membership could force Canberra to establish uranium enrichment plants and accept the world's nuclear waste.
The Government will face a backlash from the conservation movement if it proceeds with plans to stay in the nuclear partnership or continues the Howard government moves to join the Generation IV International Forum. Labor environment spokesman Peter Garrett said last September: "Membership of the GNEP could force Australia to establish uranium enrichment plants and accept the world's nuclear waste." Joining the partnership was "another clear sign" of John Howard's "personal crusade for a nuclear-powered Australia", Mr Garrett said at the time. In a recent letter to conservation groups, Mr Ferguson -- a key figure behind Labor ditching its controversial three uranium mines policy -- insisted the Government remained opposed to nuclear power or the development of further stages of the nuclear fuel cycle in Australia. "The construction of uranium conversion or enrichment facilities, as well as fuel fabrication or spent fuel reprocessing plants in Australia is therefore prohibited," he wrote. And the Government would prohibit importation of spent nuclear fuel or radioactive waste from "other countries". As the holder of the world's largest uranium reserves, Australia had an important role in the "safe and proliferation resistant" use of nuclear energy, Mr Ferguson said. But conservationists reject these arguments on the same grounds Labor rejected them when they were put by the Howard government. "If Labor is now considering participation in these international nuclear forums, it can only mean that both a nuclear enrichment industry and a longer-term nuclear waste dump are still on the table for Australia," said Alec Marr of The Wilderness Society. The Howard government signed Australia up to the GNEP in September last year. The Rudd Government has continued to send officials to its meetings, most recently in Jordan in May. The group aims to restrict the number of countries enriching uranium to the existing powers -- the US, Britain, China, Russia and France -- with nuclear fuel shipped to other countries and the waste repatriated to the suppliers so it cannot be reprocessed for use in nuclear weapons. But conservationists say GNEP is largely about solving the US problem of what to do with its growing nuclear waste stockpile, and that Australian involvement will lead to an international nuclear waste dump here. The Government will announce the site for a domestic dump in August. | |
| Posted by:Steve White |