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

Last year, 2015, was a year in which security concerns were a prominent part of the national discussion. Yet at the end of that year the government made a decision that received little attention, even though its security implications far outweigh many of the shadows the government chose to jump at.

In November 2015, the government signed off the Agreement between the Government of Australia and the Government of India on Cooperation in the Peaceful Uses of Nuclear Energy. It did so by ignoring the very sensible and reasonable preconditions of the Joint Standing Committee on Treaties, which reported on the proposed agreement in October. As Dave Sweeney from the ACF has written, JSCOT recommendations that have been ignored by the government include the following requirements:

… the full separation of military and civil nuclear facilities, the establishment of an independent nuclear regulatory authority, a review of the adequacy and independence of the regulatory framework, IAEA verification that inspections of nuclear facilities are of best practice standard, improved decommissioning and radioactive waste planning and more.

In setting those requirements, the committee noted that Australia should only export uranium in circumstances where we can be certain that it will be used safely but at the same time recognised that India's nuclear safety framework is considered weak by international experts. The committee report stated:

Recent examinations by a number of reputable institutions indicate that safety standards are not as high as they should be, particularly in the areas of the independence of the nuclear regulator, and the quality and quantity of safety inspections.

On that basis, the committee recommended that Australian uranium should not be sold to India until an independent nuclear regulator could be established and the safety inspections of Indian nuclear facilities meet best practice standards. The committee's recommendations were informed by evidence from top nuclear safety experts, including the former head of ASNO, John Carlson; and Ron Walker.

I believe the pursuit of a stronger and more supportive relationship with India is the right thing to do and it is critical to our future in the Asia- and Indo-Pacific.

India is an important friend to Australia. For too long, it has been under-represented in our conversation about the Asian century, especially when you consider its great successes as a democracy and a federal republic of enormous diversity. The relatively recent awakening to the importance of China, which is welcome in itself, has meant that the importance of India—economically, culturally and geopolitically—continues to be under-regarded in Australia. But the export of uranium and its ultimate use are matters of the utmost significance. The idea that there can be a neat and reliable separation of the civilian and military uses of uranium is a furphy. Former US Vice President Al Gore tellingly stated, 'In the eight years I served in the White House, every weapons proliferation issue we faced was linked with a civilian reactor program.'

At the very least, the supply of Australian uranium to any nuclear weapons state opens the possibility that existing reserves can be redirected for military purposes. India has openly developed reserves to serve their massive projected growth in nuclear power capacity. In addition to the fact that selling uranium to India is clearly inconsistent with our long-held position to withhold the supply of uranium to countries who have not signed the nuclear nonproliferation treaty, the committee also noted that it would appear to breach the treaty of Rarotonga, which obliges Australia not to provide sources of or special fissionable materials or equipment to any non-nuclear weapons state or to any nuclear weapons state unless it is subject to safeguards agreements with the International Atomic Energy Agency.

Late last year, the Minerals Council of Australia misrepresented the JSCOT process and the approach taken by Labor parliamentarians when it issued a statement that said:

The uranium industry congratulates the government, the opposition and the Australian Safeguards and Non-Proliferation Office … in developing these agreements with their vitally important safeguards.

This is an astoundingly superficial gloss on an outcome that has been rushed forward in wilful blindness to good process and the precautionary principle. Whatever economic benefits lie in supplying uranium to India, the safety and security considerations should be paramount. I note that the aftermath and full consequences of the Fukushima disaster are still unfolding and that Japan operates its nuclear power capacity within a much stronger regulatory oversight and infrastructure maintenance framework than India is capable of implementing at this stage.

We have heard so often in this parliament that the core responsibility of the Australian government is to consider the safety of the Australian people. Yet in making this decision the government may well have increased the likelihood of a nuclear event, military or civilian, that could have profound security and health implications for everyone in Asia and the Indo-Pacific. There can be no doubt that in rushing to sell uranium to India the safeguards remain insufficient and the risks remain acute. Most concerning of all, the government has blithely put aside both international commitments and the well-established principles that were designed to provide some reasonable modicum of nuclear safety.