Warren Snowdon (Lingiari, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Parliamentary Secretary for Northern Australia and Indigenous Affairs) Share this | Hansard source

Firstly, let me say that I enjoyed listening to the previous member, the member for Melbourne Ports. I do not always agree with him but I think the arguments which he presented about the proliferation of nuclear weapons, in particular in relation to Iran and North Korea, are very apposite. We need to take strong note of them because there is absolutely no doubt in my mind, and I am sure in the minds of many others, that we have to be watching very carefully as to what happens in relation to those matters.

Nevertheless, it is important that we do solidly support the legislation that is before the House today. The Non-Proliferation Legislation Amendment Bill 2006 will implement new requirements of the amendments to the Convention on the Physical Protection of Nuclear Material which were agreed in July 2005. The bill amends a range of acts, including the Nuclear Non-Proliferation (Safeguards) Act 1987, the Comprehensive Nuclear Test-Ban Treaty Act 1998, the Chemical Weapons (Prohibition) Act 1994 and the Australian Federal Police Act 1979.

The 2005 amendment will come into force after two-thirds of the parties to the Convention on the Physical Protection of Nuclear Material have ratified or otherwise accepted the 2005 amendment. Unfortunately, to date only seven parties have done so. The title of the Convention on the Physical Protection of Nuclear Material is expanded under this legislation to include the protection of nuclear facilities. The preamble to the convention is also replaced completely by the new preamble in the 2005 amendment. The paragraph relating to criminal offences is expanded both to include coverage of nuclear facilities and to reflect an urgent need to strengthen existing offences.

There is a new paragraph which reflects the desire to ‘avert the potential dangers posed by illicit trafficking and the unlawful taking and use of nuclear material and the sabotage of nuclear material and nuclear facilities, noting that physical protection against such acts has become a matter of increased national and international concern’. I note that this legislation has gone through the processes of the Senate and the Senate committees, and they have endorsed strongly this legislation as well as Australia’s continued engagement in multilateral efforts on disarmament and nonproliferation.

I want to also attach myself to those recommendations, because, as the member for Batman said, it seems to me that we have a great responsibility for a number of reasons, but, because of our interest in ensuring that the nuclear non-proliferation treaty is back on track, we should be increasing our efforts internationally to ensure that is the case. I say that because we know that there is a debate taking place within the Labor Party at the moment—and other members have referred to it—about the question of expansion of the nuclear industry in Australia through the mining of uranium. That debate will have its culmination on the floor of the national conference in April in Sydney.

I have been involved with this debate on the nuclear industry since the mid-1970s. I did my utmost to prevent the expansion of uranium mining in the Northern Territory in 1977 and 1978, and the arguments about the nature of the nuclear industry which were used then remain valid today. These are issues which this community has to contemplate, and one of these issues is the question of nuclear non-proliferation. There is grave concern, despite the fact of the wealth that the uranium industry might bring to this country, about the question of proliferation of nuclear weapons. As I said earlier, we have heard the member for Melbourne Ports in a very erudite way explain what is happening with North Korea and Iran in terms of nuclear nonproliferation. There is genuine concern in the community, despite the fact that we export uranium, about the question of nuclear nonproliferation, and it is of interest to know that that issue—although not one which is seen in the headlines of major newspapers when we have these discussions—is very important to the Australian community. We need to ensure, as this bill does, that we support every effort that will prevent the expansion of the nuclear industry, but, most importantly, we need to protect—and ensure that we protect—those places where nuclear materials might be stored or otherwise used.

We need also to contemplate the arguments which are used—again, as they were in the early seventies—about the expansion of the uranium industry in Australia in terms of their environmental impact: what that has meant, what has developed over time, what the issues are and whether they have been addressed. That is something which I know is, again, at the heart of many of the concerns which are being expressed within the Labor Party as I talk to members of the Labor Party about the proposal to change the Labor Party’s policy at its conference. Those issues go not only to the immediate environmental impacts of the mining operation themselves but also, most importantly, to the question of the downstream effects of nuclear waste. The member for Batman, I think quite properly, said that this country needs to take a far more sophisticated approach to the question of nuclear waste disposal.

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