Melissa Parke (Fremantle, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Assistant Minister for Health) Share this | Hansard source

Deputy Speaker, I seek leave to make a statement on the tabling of this report by the Joint Standing Committee on Treaties.

Leave granted.

As a member of the Joint Standing Committee on Treaties, I endorse the cautious approach adopted by the majority of the committee in its report on the Agreement between the Government of Australia and the Government of India on Cooperation in the Peaceful Uses of Nuclear Energy, which I will now refer to as the agreement.

However, I consider that the committee's major concerns, including the need for full separation of India's civil and military nuclear facilities and the establishment of an independent nuclear regulatory authority, are best addressed prior to ratification. The majority committee view that these matters can be addressed after ratification but prior to sale is positive in that it acknowledges the importance of this action before any future transfer of Australian uranium but, in my view, this position is at risk of being overtaken by more narrow political and commercial priorities.

The current agreement is seriously deficient and requires further attention to be strengthened to a standard consistent with both Australia's other nuclear safeguards mechanisms and community expectations. With regard to other matters about which the majority committee has expressed its satisfaction, such as the requirement for India to track and account for Australian nuclear material, I am not prepared to simply accept ASNO's assurances. I would actually need to see the confidential administrative arrangement that, it is claimed, provides for such tracking and accounting.

The additional comments made by Senator Sue Lines and I thus reflect the deep unease we feel at the agreement's departure from the strong safeguards arrangements Australia has with many other countries.

The additional comments are made based upon the evidence the committee received not only from community groups concerned generally about nuclear non-proliferation and uranium exports such as the Australian Conservation Foundation, Friends of the Earth, the International Campaign to Abolish Nuclear Weapons, the Uniting Church and the Gundjehmi Aboriginal Corporation but also from respected nuclear safeguards experts, such as John Carlson, the former head of ASNO for more than two decades; Ronald Walker, the former chair of the board of the International Atomic Energy Agency; and other experts, including Professor Lawrence Sheinman, Kalman Robertson, Ernst Willheim and Crispin Rovere. Each of these experts stated that they were not opposed to uranium sales to India, but they were extremely concerned that this particular agreement significantly weakens Australia's strong nuclear safeguards as contained in every other agreement Australia has with other countries.

The nuclear cooperation agreement with India raises a number of major issues, as raised by many submissions we received, including: (1) India is not a party to the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty or to the Comprehensive Nuclear Test Ban Treaty; (2) India is one of only three countries, the others being Pakistan and North Korea, which are still producing nuclear material for nuclear weapons; (3) India has not fully separated its military and civilian nuclear programs and has not placed all civilian facilities under IAEA safeguards and, according to such eminent experts as John Carlson AM and Ron Walker, some civilian facilities outside India's safeguarded program appear to be linked to its military program; (4) the committee heard that India's safeguards agreement with the IAEA gives India the right to use safeguarded nuclear material in facilities that are outside the safeguarded program and also to use unsafeguarded material in safeguarded facilities; (5) in the past India has disregarded peaceful use agreements and the plutonium for its first nuclear test, in 1974, came from the misuse of a reactor supplied by Canada under peaceful use agreements; and (6) the longstanding nuclear rivalry between India and Pakistan continues to directly threaten regional security and peace, and a new report by the US based Carnegie Endowment for International Peace and the Stimson Center concludes that Pakistan is currently rapidly expanding its nuclear capabilities because of its fear of India.

Therefore, having regard to these circumstances I consider it essential that any nuclear agreement with India should, at least, be as rigorous as all the agreements Australia has concluded with other countries.

Unfortunately, the proposed agreement does not provide strong safeguards and undermines a bipartisan safeguards policy that has operated successfully for almost 40 years. I am particularly concerned that the agreement in its present form fails to provide adequate assurance against the possible use of Australian obligated nuclear material to contribute to a military purpose.

The specific aspects of the agreement that are unsatisfactory include the following: (1) the agreement does not include right-of-return provisions if Australian material is diverted for military purposes, or if the agreement is breached in some other way; (2) the agreement does not limit Australian material to facilities under permanent IAEA safeguards; (3) the agreement's consent provisions for reprocessing and high enrichment are ambiguous and in the views of an eminent legal expert, Mr Ernst Willheim, are legally unacceptable; (4) the agreement does not give Australia programmatic consent rights for reprocessing, unlike with our other agreements; (5) it appears India is not prepared to undertake accounting for and tracking of Australian nuclear material in accordance with international practice and with Australian policy and legislation, including the Nuclear Non-Proliferation (Safeguards) Act 1987—details of the accounting system for nuclear material are said to be in an administrative arrangement that is confidential, so the text is not available to the committee or the public—this is not satisfactory; (6) the agreement does not give Australia the right to the IAEA safeguards' findings with respect to Australian nuclear material, unlike other agreements; and (7) this agreement undermines nuclear arms control and weakens Australia's non-proliferation credentials.

One of the strongest arguments in favour of concluding a nuclear cooperation agreement with India is that it brings India 'into the tent' with regard to international nuclear non-proliferation rules and norms. Far from achieving this outcome, this agreement entrenches India's nuclear deviance and privileges it ahead of Australia's other nuclear cooperation partners, thereby undermining the non-proliferation regime as a whole.

In my view, renegotiation is required to resolve the issues raised by the majority committee and by the additional comments. This could be realised either through amending the text or through an exchange of letters clarifying the text and the shared understanding and intent of the parties. If not resolved, these issues could have adverse consequences for Australia's ability to ensure that Australian nuclear material cannot contribute to any military purpose. If not resolved, there could be adverse consequences for public confidence in the agreement and for the preparedness of future governments to approve supply of nuclear material. There is also the potential for damage to Australia's international reputation and credibility as a proponent of nuclear non-proliferation and a strong upholder of nuclear safeguards.

And, as the member for Wills has said, I also want to thank the chair of the committee for doing his best to reach consensus, as far as it was possible, on many of these issues.

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