Christine Milne (Tasmania, Australian Greens) Share this | Hansard source

I rise today to address the issue of the Prime Minister’s ongoing agenda on nuclear because there needs to be, very quickly, some clarity in Australia about what the Prime Minister and the government are up to with regard to this new push for nuclear. On the public record the Prime Minister is saying that he wants a discussion about nuclear energy for civilian power uses. We know that is a complete sham, so today I intend to talk about what is really going on, and that is essentially a push by Australia to expand uranium mining and the export of uranium to China. It is about a plan to enrich uranium and a plan to be part of a global fuel-leasing arrangement whereby Australia enriches uranium, sends it overseas and takes back high-level waste.

I moved in the Senate last week to rule out Australia developing such a high-level nuclear waste dump, because Australians do not want it. Australians overwhelmingly do not support the expansion of uranium mining and the proliferation risks that go with it. We are seeing some interesting politics from the Labor opposition. Last week they voted against the establishment of a high-level waste dump, and quite rightly so. But, unfortunately, they do support expanded uranium mining. Then the question comes to enrichment. Yesterday I put a very clear motion to the Senate opposing the construction of an enrichment facility in Australia, and Labor voted with the government to vote it down. We now have the ground set for a change of position at the ALP national conference next year or before. The shadow spokesman for environment, Anthony Albanese, will be sidelined in favour of expanded mining, uranium enrichment and engaging in the fuel cycle but not taking back the high-level waste—that will be Labor’s position; the government will want to take it back.

Why do I say that this is the government’s agenda and not nuclear power? We all know that if you want to address climate change it has got to be done in the next 15 years and nuclear power is not the answer. We also know that it is too expensive and it is not viable in Australia compared with much better, safer and quicker energy options in the renewables. No, this is about the Prime Minister being party to George Bush’s grand plan. This is about Australia, the deputy sheriff, acting for the United States as part of George Bush’s vision.

What is George Bush’s vision? He outlined it in February this year in his State of the Union address when he announced a global nuclear energy partnership that would build a reliable international fuel services consortium under which trusted nuclear fuel supplier nations would choose to operate nuclear power plants, fuel production and handling facilities, provide reliable fuel services to user nations that choose to operate nuclear power plants and take back the high-level waste. It is central to the global energy partnership of President Bush to find a way of getting a high-level nuclear waste dump built that will take waste from the consortium. So it is not just the countries that you might export to; the whole consortium could negotiate to send the waste back here to Australia.

At the same time as the Prime Minister’s inquiry into nuclear, we have on the side—and people seem to have forgotten about this—the fact that the Minister for Industry, Tourism and Resources, Mr Macfarlane, is going to receive a report very shortly from a group that the government has set up called the Uranium Industry Framework. When this was announced by the government it was announced as having an independent chair and having as its task the identification of opportunities for and impediments to the sustainable development of the Australian uranium mining industry over the short, medium and longer term. It was stated that the chair of the Uranium Industry Framework would be independent. Who do you find the government has appointed? Dr John White, one of the four members of the nuclear fuel leasing group which developed the business plan behind George Bush’s global nuclear energy partnership. That is a beautiful thing—the independent chair is not independent at all. He is the CEO of Global Renewables Ltd and part of the consortium of associated companies that would make a fortune out of the construction of a global nuclear waste dump.

Who else is on this supposedly independent uranium industry framework? We have got John Borshoff, from Paladin Resources. Remember Paladin Resources? It has just got a uranium mine going in Malawi. We have got Mark Chalmers from Uranium Equities and we have got Roger Higgins from BHP Billiton, which is set for a triple expansion at Roxby Downs in South Australia. We have got someone from Energy Resources Australia—surprise, surprise—the people who wanted to develop the Jabiluka uranium mine in Kakadu. We have got Cogema, Heathcote Resources and Cameco Australia represented. All of these are proactive uranium miners. So much for any report that is going to identify impediments! The only impediment they will find is the Australian people. The Australian people are the impediment to this group, and what it is going to come out with is a PR spin document which was leaked to the Australian Financial Review, quite clearly. Anyone who is interested in knowing what this group is going to say to the federal government need only read theFinancial Review from last Friday, in which we find that the group is going to come back to government and say that Australia should adopt a stewardship approach.

And who used the word stewardship at the weekend? Martin Ferguson, the Labor Party member, did. Stewardship is being co-opted. The notion of stewardship has very positive environmental connotations. It is also part of the religious lexicon. It is now being stolen by the pro-nuclear lobby to rush out and suggest that stewardship of the earth has got something to do with expanded uranium mining, enrichment and dumping waste on Indigenous communities. That is what we are talking about here. Former Prime Minister Bob Hawke said that Australia has got a great responsibility and a great opportunity to be the world’s nuclear waste dump. He said we will compensate Indigenous communities for putting the waste there, and we have got this tremendous opportunity to make money. What about health and the environment, and what about the cultural consequences to Indigenous people?

We are already seeing the federal government being prepared to overrule the Northern Territory in order to place a nuclear waste dump in the Territory. It is arguing that it is just for the small level of reprocessed waste from Lucas Heights. How do we know that? There is a multinational approach here to developing a high-level waste dump as part of a US grand plan, and that is what is being talked about here. There is absolutely no guarantee that any waste dump that is developed is not the thin end of the wedge to this huge, multinational waste dump for high-level waste. That is what I am concerned about, and that is why I think people need to look very carefully, first of all, at this group that was set up by the government that is going to make a report to the government. We already know what it is going to find; the most controversial thing is that their goal is to ‘shape public perceptions, building community confidence and taking a whole-of-value chain approach’.

The group is telling the government that the main impediment to going ahead with George Bush’s grand plan and to Australia being the deputy sheriff, dumping this waste on Indigenous communities who do not want it, is the Australian people. Now it is going to adopt a whole PR campaign based around the notion of stewardship and based around shaping public perception so that it will break down that resistance, soften people up and get people ready for expanded uranium mining, enrichment, leasing those fuel rods overseas and taking back the high-level waste.

Here we have a bonanza happening for the uranium industry. We have got government signed up to an export contract to China for uranium as yellowcake, and the safeguards are weak. We are encouraging nuclear proliferation, not non-proliferation as we are bound to do under the nuclear non-proliferation treaty. We have got a problem with our good friend the United States, because people in the United States do not like the US-India agreement to send nuclear technology to India outside the non-proliferation treaty. Australian companies are desperate to get hold of that Indian market, and now they have found a way around it. They have found a way around the nuclear non-proliferation treaty; they are trying to find a way around the Nuclear Suppliers Group by going with the George Bush model of setting up this nuclear fuel suppliers group. Let me tell you, the Greens do not support expanded uranium mining. We do not support mining uranium and exporting it overseas; we do not support enrichment; we do not support waste dumps. We are going to be campaigning strongly against them.

But I am extremely disturbed by the fact that we have an absolutely transparent agenda from the government. You only have to go to Washington to see what is going on, and you only have to go and ask Dr John White, from Global Renewables—the supposedly independent chair of the uranium industry framework. Frankly, he should step down. If Ziggy Switkowski had to step down then so too should this person, because he is not independent. He is up to his neck in the uranium industry, and he is up to his neck in trying to establish a high-level waste dump in Australia. How can the government suggest he is in any way independent? This particular uranium industry framework is a joke, and the government’s agenda is transparent. But unfortunately the opposition’s agenda is not transparent. I think Indigenous communities in the Territory, and communities all over Australia, have a right to know what Labor’s agenda is on enrichment and this fuel leasing proposition. That is clearly what is coming down the line here for Australians to vote on.

The Greens have got a very clear position on this. We are not fiddling around with it; we do not support what is going on with this expanded uranium agenda. We have a very clear agenda to move wholeheartedly to renewables. That is why I moved yesterday for an inquiry into this whole area of renewable energy and meeting Australia’s future energy needs in a sustainable, secure and safe way. And what happened? The government and Labor voted it down. They do not want to have an inquiry into the broader issues of energy security. Instead they are blinded by the dollar signs from the uranium industry, and by the prospect of dollar signs from taking on the whole world’s high-level nuclear waste and how much money they can generate from that, without thinking about the regional and geopolitical consequences and the destabilisation of the region that will occur.

If you do not think Indonesia is watching, have another look at it. It is intently watching what Australia is doing. By becoming a deputy sheriff to the US we are actually fuelling a situation where Indonesia is going to push even harder for an expanded nuclear industry and part of the nuclear fuel cycle. Australia is doing that as well. We should abandon that altogether and use the fact that we have 40 per cent of the world’s supply of uranium to keep it in the ground, and take a leadership position in helping the world move beyond it—not entrench the world in a nuclear fuel cycle that has as its only justification the production of nuclear weapons.

We do not support that. We do not think that nuclear weapons make the world a better place, and that is the only reason you would be involved in the nuclear fuel cycle. For all the other talk and dressing it up in all sorts of ways, this is not about energy security; this is about being part of a Bush plan. The Greens reject it and call on Dr John White to step down and the industry minister, Mr Macfarlane, to ask him to step down and explain to the Australian people why the government tried to dress up the uranium industry framework as having any sort of independence. When the word ‘stewardship’ is coming out of the mouths of the uranium industry, people need to reject it absolutely. Language is a powerful tool. Do not let the uranium industry steal the notion of stewardship of the earth for the purposes of long-term pollution and destruction of the culture, environment and health of Indigenous communities anywhere in Australia.