Alexander Downer (Mayo, Liberal Party, Minister for Foreign Affairs) Share this | Hansard source

I thank the honourable member for Boothby for his question. I think members will be aware he is the Chairman of the Joint Standing Committee on Treaties, and at the moment they are examining the nuclear safeguards agreement that we have negotiated with China, so he has a real understanding of these issues. In answer to the honourable member’s question, let me say that Australia is at the forefront of international efforts to control the spread of nuclear weapons and nuclear materials that could be used in weapons systems and to ban weapons testing.

As the foreign affairs minister, I introduced into the United Nations General Assembly in September 1996 the comprehensive test ban treaty, which was adopted by the General Assembly. We in Australia have the world’s most rigorous uranium export safeguards—and with 40 per cent of the world’s known exploitable and commercially available uranium it is important we do. Australia is a very active member of the Nuclear Suppliers Group and also of the International Atomic Energy Agency. No country has a more diligent record than Australia. As the House and the honourable members know, the Prime Minister has commissioned a review of uranium mining and processing and nuclear energy, and I think this is a responsible thing to do so that we can have a serious debate about these issues.

There has been some criticism, in particular from the Leader of the Opposition, who said on the ABC on 24 July:

I’m not going to move to support enrichment and nuclear power because I think that’s the policy of an idiot ...

I would draw the House’s attention to the fact that France, the United Kingdom, the United States, Japan and many other countries in the world use nuclear energy, so the suggestion that somehow these countries are run by idiots or have the policies of idiots is, I would have thought, a bizarre thing for the Leader of the Opposition, who aspires to be the Prime Minister, to say. He said on the same day to the Sydney Institute—and this was, after all, in a written speech—that our consideration of these nuclear issues:

... sends the wrong message to the region. There is no question that Australia would be less secure, and not more, if our neighbours believe we have nuclear ambitions.

I do not think that is actually a responsible thing to say. This country does not, of course, have nuclear weapons ambitions, and everybody in the region knows it. To suggest that a country which is considering issues like nuclear power is also considering nuclear weapons and that others in the region would think that is, to say the least, utterly absurd. Japan, South Korea, Thailand, Vietnam and Indonesia all either have nuclear energy programs or at least are considering them.

The simple fact is that the people of Australia deserve to have a more mature debate on these sorts of issues than those kinds of statements suggest. I certainly think that it is quite the wrong thing to drum up antagonism towards this country in the region just in order to make a political point.

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