Ms Julie Bishop (Curtin, Liberal Party, Minister for Foreign Affairs) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

by leave—On 5 September of this year Prime Minister Abbott and India's Prime Minister Narendra Modi witnessed the signing of an agreement to pave the way for the supply of Australian uranium to India for its civilian nuclear power needs. I have pleasure in tabling this agreement, the Australia-India Nuclear Cooperation Agreement.

India is the world's largest democracy, an emerging Asian superpower, an influential regional power and a strategic partner for Australia. This agreement signals a maturing of the Indian and Australian bilateral relationship, which was upgraded to a strategic partnership in 2009 and which has continued to deepen and strengthen in so many respects since then. It is also a sign of our mutual confidence and trust in the relationship. Changes to international guidelines on nuclear supply to India in 2008, agreed by the 48 members of the Nuclear Suppliers Group, have opened the door to cooperation with India in the field of civil nuclear energy.

The 2008 Nuclear Suppliers Group decision was based on a number of significant commitments from India; commitments such as separating its civil and military activities; accepting International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) safeguards at its civil facilities; putting in place an IAEA additional protocol on safeguards with respect to civil nuclear facilities; continuing its moratorium on nuclear testing; and working with others towards conclusion of an international treaty to end the production of fissile material for nuclear weapons and to prevent the spread of sensitive materials and technology.

In the years since 2008 India has met these commitments. India's additional protocol with the IAEA entered into force in July of this year. It has not undertaken any nuclear tests, and it is working with Australia and others to try to start negotiations on a Fissile Material Cut-off Treaty in the Conference on Disarmament.

Since 2009 India has progressively placed its civil nuclear facilities under IAEA safeguards, and plans that by the end of 2014 it will have completed that process—marking a clear separation of civil nuclear facilities from military programs. Were it not for the promise of increased international cooperation, India may have had little reason to move closer to the nonproliferation mainstream in this way.

As with each of Australia's 23 other nuclear cooperation agreements, the terms of this agreement tabled today commit India to ensure that all Australian uranium, and nuclear material derived from it, is used only for peaceful purposes and will remain within India's civil nuclear facilities. The IAEA applies safeguards at those facilities, which will ensure that nuclear material supplied to India by Australia will remain in peaceful civilian use only. In addition, India will ensure the security of Australian nuclear material in accordance with relevant broader international conventions and standards—the same conventions and standards that apply in Australia's dealings with other bilateral nuclear partners including the United States, Japan, Canada, and the EU.

Australia has a strong record on nuclear security. In the new agreement, both India and Australia have reaffirmed their respective commitments to ensuring that the use of nuclear energy is safe, well regulated and environmentally sound. India is party to the international Convention on Nuclear Safety and other nuclear safety treaties, and has supported international efforts to enhance nuclear safety following the Fukushima incident, including by inviting the IAEA to review aspects of India's national nuclear safety arrangements. Australia expects India will follow international best practice to ensure safety in its nuclear industry.

The Australia-India Nuclear Cooperation Agreement will provide a framework for greater cooperation between our countries on a broad range of nuclear-related areas, such as nuclear safety, production of radioisotopes and regulatory and technological advances in the nuclear fuel cycle. A senior officials' level dialogue between Australia and India on nuclear nonproliferation and disarmament, covering a wide range of issues including nuclear doctrine, disarmament and nonproliferation and export controls, offers a valuable opportunity to better understand and influence India's policies in these areas.

Australia steadfastly supports nonproliferation and disarmament and our policy towards India is aligned with other major uranium suppliers in the Nuclear Suppliers Group. The terms of the nuclear cooperation agreement also align with Australia's uranium export requirements and will ensure our supply of uranium to India is consistent with Australia's international nonproliferation objectives and obligations.

Exports of uranium to India will not commence until the agreement is brought into force and the administrative arrangement that will allow us to implement the agreement has been settled. The administrative arrangement will cover technical aspects, including the processes required to account for all Australian nuclear material in India. For Australia, nuclear cooperation with India provides an opportunity to increase exports and employment over the longer term. India is already an important trade partner with two-way trade worth around $16 billion.

Australia has a hard won reputation as a reliable, cost-effective supplier of energy and India is a large and growing market. It is estimated that by 2015 India will be the world's third largest emitter of carbon dioxide and its primary energy needs will double by 2030. Nuclear power is an important part of India's energy mix to help it reduce its carbon emissions and to provide it with the secure supply of power it needs to underpin its ongoing economic development. Australia is well placed to provide India with a significant proportion of its growing uranium needs.

Given that nuclear energy is a zero-emissions source of baseload power, I expect support for this treaty from across the political divide. The embrace of nuclear power will enable India to contribute to the reduction in global greenhouse gas emissions.

The completion of this agreement is one of many areas in which the government continues to strengthen our ties with India. Cooperation under the agreement, together with the development of a strong dialogue with India on nuclear nonproliferation and disarmament, will reinforce the nonproliferation commitments that India has made in recent years, help bring it further into the international nonproliferation mainstream and enable Australia and India to build an enduring bilateral relationship.

I present a copy of the Agreement between the Government of Australia and the Government of India on Cooperation in the Peaceful Uses of Nuclear Energy, the national interest analysis on the agreement and a copy of my ministerial statement.

I ask leave of the House to move a motion to enable the member for Brand to speak for 7½ minutes.

Leave granted.

I move:

That so much of the standing and sessional orders be suspended as would prevent Mr Gray speaking in reply to the ministerial statement for a period not exceeding 7½ minutes

Question agreed to.

Gary Gray (Brand, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Minister for Resources) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I thank the Minister for Foreign Affairs for tabling this document. Today is a good day. This is a good agreement and it is the culmination of a decade of hard work that spans both sides of this parliament, a decade of hard work that spans many foreign ministers and prime ministers, a decade of hard work that has resulted in an agreement between Australia and India to not only allow the sale of Australian uranium to India but to do it through a better and stronger bilateral agreement than that which would otherwise have been available under the NNPT. Successive foreign ministers and prime ministers of both countries are to be greatly congratulated.

In just a few weeks, our parliament will be graced by a historic visit from India's Prime Minister, Mr Modi. He will speak to our parliament, and it is a good thing that he speaks to our parliament after we have, with good grace, completed this important piece of work. This important piece of work is not only helpful for Australia's trade relationship but extremely important for India's development. The great agenda which Prime Minister Modi has for the Indian people is an agenda for growth and wealth creation and an agenda to lift people from poverty and to give them better lives. Prime Minister Modi will achieve that by increasing electricity production in India. He will achieve that through a nuclear reactor build that will provide power for hundreds of millions of Indian families. He will do that to help Indian families to warm their homes in winter and to cook and chill their food. This nuclear reactor build will drive industry, drive jobs, create wealth and create better lives.

This is not simply a good agreement because it allows Australian uranium to be sold to India; it is actually an important part of an agenda which the government of India has to create better lives for all of its people. As such, this piece of work is not simply about a trade relationship; it is what we are all about. Australia is by any measure an energy superpower. We do not provide energy just to our neighbours in North Asia; we are one of the world's significant suppliers of uranium. But we are also more than that. We are partners in nuclear cooperation, in developing better industry and better standards in the countries with which we trade and with which we have partnerships. This cooperation agreement does just that.

In 2011 and 2012, when the former federal government began a long process of aligning its internal Labor Party processes to allow for the proper facilitation of this agreement, it took the great courage of former Prime Minister Gillard to bring the Labor Party platform to a point where it could happily, and in an inclusive way, embrace this agreement. Great diplomatic agreements, as significant as they are and as enduring as they should be, are built on pragmatic and practical local management politics.

Before agreeing to export uranium to India as a strategic partner for Australia, we needed to have commitments and responsible actions to support nuclear nonproliferation—and Australia obtained those assurances. We required that the agreement be consistent with international guidelines on nuclear supply and that it provided an acceptable basis for peaceful nuclear cooperation. In response to that the government of Australia was always prepared to negotiate the provision of Australian uranium.

Australia's existing stringent bilateral safeguards agreements with other countries specify that our uranium and the nuclear material derived from it must be used exclusively for peaceful purposes in civilian nuclear fuel cycles—and that is what this agreement does. Australian uranium and the nuclear material derived from it is also protected in accordance with strict internationally agreed standards for its physical security. These agreements ensure that countries to which Australia agrees to sell its uranium are committed to International Atomic Energy Agency safeguards and international nuclear security standards. Under those agreements countries receiving uranium must also report on their use of Australian nuclear material and seek Australian consent for any enrichment, reprocessing or third-party transfer.

This agreement allows for these critical elements to be in place. A bilateral nuclear safeguards agreement with India imposes high standards. It ensures that Australian uranium remains solely used for peaceful purposes. It ensures that Australian uranium will help burn the lights, support industry, cook meals, generate a better standard of living for generations yet to come in India. It ensures that our mines in South Australia, in the Northern Territory—hopefully soon in Western Australia—will be suppliers of safe uranium for safe and peaceful purposes, with a lower carbon footprint than fossil fuel burning, with a better industrial profile than other environmental fuels available in India, and with the capacity to provide baseload power to the world's most populous democracy.

We stand here today at the culmination of nearly a decade of effort that spans the combined wisdom and concentration of former Prime Minister Howard, Prime Minister Rudd, Prime Minister Gillard and, of course, today, Prime Minister Abbott. To have this agreement book-ended, if you will, in just a few days' time with the appearance in this chamber of India's Prime Minister, Mr Modi, is a good thing—a good thing for this agreement and a good thing for the way in which our nations have worked together to produce this agreement, which will not just endure but will strengthen our relationships and make industrial development in India safer, better and cleaner. I commend this agreement to the House.