Andrew Laming (Bowman, Liberal Party, Shadow Parliamentary Secretary for Regional Health Services and Indigenous Health) Share this | Hansard source

In supporting many elements of the motion today, it is probably important to look at the work that is occurring in Canada at the moment in addressing some of the issues in the export of asbestos to developing economies. That is the area that I will focus on this morning. In Quebec there are, I think, two small mines still exporting chrysotile to developing economies like India and parts of Africa. This is of great concern because a number of tactics have been used to try and bring that trade to an end and so far they have been unsuccessful.

A motion like this draws our minds to what we are doing in this country. The Australian Labor Party’s position on uranium is not so dissimilar to the debate we are having today about asbestos: the great tension about whether we can mine something and export it overseas even though we choose to not use it domestically. While I think it is great to bring a euphemistic motion before this chamber, it is important to remember that, if you take just a slightly different look at another mineral, in many cases you will find that the very movers of this motion are doing exactly the same thing with a different element. That said, we can look at Canada and understand that some very powerful coalitions are forming to pressure that country to revise its position on the export of—

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