Mark Bishop (WA, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Hansard source

My question is to Senator Coonan in her capacity representing the Minister for Foreign Affairs. Is the minister aware that the nuclear non-proliferation treaty contains the only binding commitment in a multilateral treaty to the goal of disarmament by nuclear weapons states? Doesn’t the government’s decision to approve the sale of Australian uranium to India, which has not signed the NPT, fundamentally undermine the effectiveness of the treaty to limit the spread of more nuclear weapons? Doesn’t the decision by the Howard government help create an international precedent to sell uranium to other non-NPT signatory countries, such as Pakistan?