David Gillespie (Lyne, National Party, Assistant Minister for Rural Health) Share this | Hansard source

Trade between Australia and India has been growing rapidly for many decades, in education, tourism, service industries, minerals and, indeed, energy. Like thousands of Australians, I too have travelled to India and it is a fascinating country, rich in history, culture and achievements. India is the world's largest democracy. Everyone knows there is incredible wealth in the country of India, but there are many areas that are poor, without sufficient access to power. The Prime Minister, Narendra Modi, leads a very progressive administration and it has great plans to lift many people out of poverty. Currently, India has 22 nuclear power plants producing six gigawatts of energy. Three hundred million people, though, are without access to energy and electricity, and many of them are, as a result, living in poverty. Lifting people out of poverty requires a lot of economic development, which requires an awful lot of energy, and that is what the Indian government is attempting to achieve. It plans to raise nuclear power production to 63 gigawatts, or 25 per cent of India's total energy requirements, by 2032. It estimates it would need up to 2,000 tonnes of uranium per year from Australia to supply those needs.

The bill that we are debating here, the Civil Nuclear Transfers to India Bill 2016, clarifies that decisions made approving civil nuclear transfers are taken not to be inconsistent with Australia's obligations under several treaties, including the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons and also the South Pacific Nuclear Free Zone Treaty, as long as particular conditions are met. The conditions require the application of nuclear safeguards under India's agreement with the International Atomic Energy Agency. This was originally signed in 2008 and there were additional protocols added in the India-IAEA agreement in 2009. This agreement is specific to India and defines and provides safeguards India now has in place at civil facilities. It covers nuclear equipment and material it imports, including uranium from Australia. We in Australia are part of the Nuclear Suppliers Group and supported work to define a framework which allows nuclear trade with India. We have the Australia-India nuclear cooperation agreement, the negotiations of which commenced under the previous Labor government in 2013, were continued by the Abbott government and came into force under the Turnbull government in 2015. The Joint Standing Committee on Treaties agreed in 2015 to bring this treaty into force. The bill will codify what Australia's requirements are, and ensures various acts and existing treaties are met.

Indian civil and military nuclear facilities are separated, and the civil ones are placed under the IAEA India safeguards. Twenty-two civil facilities exist under this agreement. If this agreement were ever changed, there would be a requirement that the Australian minister must notify parliament.

India has a population currently of 1.3 billion people, which is 18 per cent of the world's total population. This is predicted to grow to 1.7 billion people by 2050. It is one of the fastest-growing major economies in the world. It is party to the Convention on Nuclear Safety and has been an active participant in triennial reviews since 2005. Following the Fukushima tsunami, India had two of its operating nuclear facilities reviewed again by the International Atomic Energy Agency, and again in 2015 the Integrated Regulatory Review Service noted India's strong commitment to safety. India now has agreements under the Nuclear Suppliers Group and the IAEA with Canada, Japan, the United Kingdom, Russia, France, the Czech Republic, Argentina, Kazakhstan and Namibia. All of this demonstrates that India has extensive recognition internationally as a safe place to send uranium.

Australia supplies 10 per cent of the world's uranium and has 32 per cent of known world uranium supplies. We mine it at three mines: Ranger, Olympic Dam and Beverley. Eighty per cent of that is in South Australia. Uranium demand is growing at 4.8 per cent per year. We export uranium to the United States, countries in the EU, Japan, South Korea and China, including Taiwan.

Australia's involvement in nuclear energy is long and rich. The first small reactor was constructed at Lucas Heights in the early 1950s, and I recently had the pleasure of visiting our now replacement OPAL reactor at Lucas Heights. It is a cutting-edge research multipurpose reactor that is used to produce radiopharmaceuticals and isotopes for medical diagnosis and treatment of cancers. It is not used to generate power that would drive electricity generation. But the production of nuclear medicine isotopes has grown from 550,000 doses to over 10 million doses per year, and now we, at the Lucas Heights facility, supply about 30 per cent of global demand, and this is a major export for the country.

Thousands of research hours are utilising the electrons that are produced in the reactor to solve complex problems in industry and metallurgy. Our national synchrotron in Melbourne is the other piece of nuclear technology that utilises the electrons for research—again, that being the site of thousands of hours of research work.

In conclusion, in strongly supporting this bill, I would like to briefly mention the benefits of nuclear energy. It is clear that nuclear energy is an internationally proven technology, used since the 1950s. It currently provides around 11 per cent of the world's electricity needs. It is especially suitable for large-scale continuous electricity demand which requires reliability—namely, baseload. It is a low-carbon electricity source—the only one which can provide large-scale baseload power. The life-cycle emissions from nuclear power are similar to some renewable energies but without the need for backup supply. There are 450 reactors worldwide and 60 under construction. It is growing the fastest in China, where they have completed 30 new reactors since 2002 and have a further 20 reactors currently under construction. India, with 22 nuclear reactors, has another five under construction, and there are a range of other countries, including the United Arab Emirates, Turkey, Vietnam and Argentina, that are building or planning to build nuclear reactors.

Whilst the current uranium price is low, the forecast is that it will increase in the future to meet the growing demand for nuclear power in all these countries, including in India. It is interesting to note that Australia's current uranium exports generate more electricity than all of Australia's current electricity needs. This bill will facilitate and give commercial security to Australian exporters and miners of uranium, and we need to put in place certainty for contracts and supply agreements of this size and complexity to be secure in the legislative sense. I commend this bill to the House.

Debate adjourned.

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