Nick Minchin (SA, Liberal Party, Minister for Finance and Administration) Share this | Hansard source

I thank Senator Allison for that question. As I said yesterday, negotiations with China on a nuclear safeguards agreement have been under way for some time and, I am advised, are progressing well. It may be that, during Premier Wen’s visit next week, an announcement may be made in respect of that matter. I can also confirm, as I think I said yesterday, that any such agreement would be based on the very strict safeguards regimes that we have in place with four other nuclear weapons states—the UK, the US, Russia and France. They have been extremely successful for the long period that they have been in place, and China would be no different if such an agreement were brought about.

I note that the agreement would of course provide for monitoring of China’s compliance, and China has already agreed to International Atomic Energy Agency inspections of designated facilities. Other conditions that would apply would include no retransfers to third countries, no uranium reprocessing without prior Australian consent, an assurance that internationally agreed standards of physical security would be applied to Australian-supplied uranium, and detailed administrative arrangements setting out procedures on accounting for and reporting on Australian-supplied uranium. Any agreement that is negotiated between our two governments would be subject to parliamentary and public scrutiny through the Joint Standing Committee on Treaties process. So we do approach this matter extremely seriously. We will not tolerate any relaxation of what is a very strict regime regarding the export of uranium.

I should note that we are very conscious of the very significant demands in the booming Chinese economy for additional energy sources, given the growth of the Chinese economy. I would have thought parties of the Left, like the Democrats and the Greens, who profess to have an interest in issues of climate change and global warming, would want to see a country like China increasing its reliance on nuclear power generation rather than relying on coal-fired power generation, if they have any interest in containing greenhouse gas emissions. I do not know whether that is a factor in the thinking of the Democrats, but it is certainly a matter that we take into account.

We do think Australia, as a major resource holder of uranium and conscious of the demands for additional energy supplies in the world, should be in a position where it can properly consider requests for the supply of Australian uranium, given the impact on the emission of greenhouse gases that is involved in any developments based on coal-fired power. Therefore I would have thought the Democrats would be interested in China developing the peaceful nuclear power option. But I can assure Senator Allison and the Senate that we will have very strict safeguards in relation to any agreement to supply uranium to China for that purpose.