Lyn Allison (Victoria, Australian Democrats) Share this | Hansard source

The Democrats also support the terms of reference put forward today to examine Australia’s deal with Russia. We do not think that the parliamentary oversight which Senator Payne suggests will be provided through the Joint Standing Committee on Treaties is adequate. Typically that committee does not undertake a thorough examination of the sorts of issues that have already been raised by Senator Milne and which I will raise as well. It is doubtful that that could be in any way a thorough going over of this agreement, so why not refer it to a committee for proper examination? I would also ask why it is that we have to have this deal with Russia right now. This is a major departure from the previously cautious approach that Australia has taken to who gets to have its uranium. At the end of an electoral cycle why is it that suddenly this agreement needs to be renegotiated and signed? I think that is something of a mystery. It is also questionable whether, with an election looming, even the treaty process which is being promised will have any effect at all.

The first point I want to make is that we are being sold something of a pup, because it is not clear to me how the government can justify Russia needing our uranium. Russia has its own uranium. Even if Russia were to install 30 reactors over the next 30 years, there would be no need for us to rush into an agreement with Russia to hand over our uranium to it. It does not need it at this point in time. In fact, Russia has 700 tonnes of highly enriched uranium which was extracted from the nuclear weapons that it dismantled in the 1990s. That highly enriched uranium is required to be mixed with uranium in order to make a substance which is then exported to other countries, notably the United States. The real issue here seems to be not so much that Russia needs our uranium but that Russia needs our uranium so that it can pass a product off to the United States. At least half of the United States’ supply of reactor fuel has been sourced from Russia over recent years. But there is, as I said, 700 tonnes of highly enriched uranium still sitting there. Not only that but there are 10,000 weapons.

It has been said that Russia needs to be congratulated on reducing its armaments, its nuclear weapons arsenal. It did; it got rid of mostly obsolete weapons, and that presumably did not pose a problem, but it still holds 10,000 nuclear warheads—probably enough to blow up the planet as we know it. Why Australia has not taken the opportunity to leverage out of Russia an agreement to a time frame within which it will dismantle the remainder of its weapons is anyone’s guess. Since the United States stands to benefit from this deal, or so it would seem to me, then why not put some leverage on the United States as well? These two major powers, together with the other nuclear weapons states around the world, are ignoring the nuclear non-proliferation treaty, which requires them to disarm. The deal was that countries that were not nuclear weapons states would not take up nuclear weapons provided that the nuclear weapons states would begin a process of dismantling their weapons. That has come to a standstill. There has been no progress in the United States, and, as I said, while Russia has almost halved its nuclear weapons, 10,000 remain.

The other thing we should be pressing Russia to do is ratify the additional protocol of the IAEA. Why not do that? Here is a perfect opportunity to make sure that the weapons inspection regime is extended so that the IAEA can properly supervise Russia’s separation, so-called, of peaceful activities and uses of uranium from warlike activities and uses. Again, the government has failed to do the right thing in terms of the security of this material.

On human rights, similarly, the government has chosen to ignore the fact that the human rights regime—in fact, the compliance of the Russian government to its own laws—has been appalling in recent years. The radioactive polonium poisoning of Alexander Litvinenko hit the world’s papers, and the United Kingdom is having great difficulty in prosecuting the KGB agents whom it expects are responsible for his awful death. Not only that but, at a forum just a couple of weeks ago, Senator Milne and I heard that 14 journalists who were dissidents and critics of the Putin regime have mysteriously lost their lives in violent circumstances. Garry Kasparov, the former world champion chess player, urges Australia not to sell uranium to Russia, saying that it has:

… zero obedience to the rule of law …

We heard lots of evidence about the extent of the corruption in Russia, which gives us no confidence whatsoever that our uranium will be held secure. It seems to me that Russia wants to be a major supplier around the world of enriched uranium for use in nuclear reactors. It is entitled to wish to be in that situation, but the question is whether or not Australia should be allowing it to happen.

Senator Payne said that Russia will have to ask our permission to transfer radioactive material out of the country but she did not say which countries are ‘in’ and which countries are ‘out’. Since we are prepared to sell uranium to China, Russia and India, one wonders which countries would actually be ruled out. Is it okay to send it to North Korea or to Iran? When can we see a list of countries to which Australia would approve the transfer of material which included our uranium? It is not forthcoming now and I somehow doubt that it would be in any short inquiry taken on by the Joint Standing Committee on Treaties.

Our government claims that the agreement will guarantee that our yellowcake is used purely for peaceful purposes, but it is hard to seriously believe that Australian officials are going to have access to Russia’s facilities. It defies all common sense. Russia is either unwilling or unable to stop nuclear material from getting into the hands of terrorists. We know that from 2001 to 2006 there were 183 reported trafficking incidents involving nuclear materials in the former Soviet Union. So why isn’t the government insisting that the level of security over radioactive material be greatly enhanced so that we do not get any further examples of a very lax security approach?

There is, of course, one way of guaranteeing that our uranium is only used to generate power—and that is, as I said earlier, to insist on disarmament and nonproliferation. On both counts, Russia fails miserably. Like all other weapon states, Russia is actively engaged in nuclear rearmament. The euphemism used by Russia, as by other places, is ‘modernisation’. What this means is nasty, more powerful nuclear weapons and very few of the old arsenal being dismantled.

Russia’s nuclear weapons program still generates a lot of international instability. President Putin recently announced that his long-range bombers would resume their routine flights around the globe for the first time since the eighties. Plans are afoot, I understand, to double combat aircraft production by 2025, with more nuclear missiles. The fact is that there is a build-up of nuclear weapons around the world, and Russia’s dismantling of just a few thousand obsolete nukes in favour of these newer ones offers no comfort to the rest of the world. Russia, like all other nuclear weapons states, flouts the nuclear non-proliferation treaty every day.

Most discussion about a nexus between nuclear trafficking and organised crime and terrorism has focused on the former Soviet Union, particularly Central Asia and the Caucasus. According to the US based Arms Control Association, these regions house a large number of insufficiently secured nuclear facilities in close proximity to the trafficking routes for drugs and small arms. Most trafficking is in low-grade nuclear material from medical and industrial facilities abandoned by the military. However, 10 of the known trafficking incidents between 2001 and 2006 involved highly enriched uranium. On three occasions the uranium had an enrichment level of greater than 80 per cent, making it suitable for a nuclear bomb. In 2002, Chechnyan rebels stole nuclear material from a Russian nuclear power plant and, in 2003, two individuals attempted to acquire 15 kilograms of uranium allegedly for use in a radioactive bomb to be detonated in St Petersburg.

Admittedly, significant proliferation cases where kilogram-level quantities of weapons grade material are trafficked have dropped off since the 1990s, but the absence of evidence in more recent cases is not evidence of absence. Investigations of trafficking incidents usually focus solely on the seller of the uranium, with no attempt to uncover wider networks. Communication between governments in the region is poor and many borders are unprotected because of internal disputes. Most customs officials are not trained to recognise the significance of trafficking in nuclear materials.

All of this evidence is well known to the Australian government, so it cannot claim ignorance. The deal with Russia, which seems to be in its final stages, carries very grave risks that no responsible government should find acceptable. Again, I find it amazing that Mr Howard is mystified by how poor his polling is right now. Perhaps he needs to reflect on the fact that his willingness to sell Australian uranium to almost any country that asks for it might have something to do with that.

This agreement needs much more significant oversight than is being allowed. I urge the government, in the interests of transparency and global security, to refer this to a committee for a significant inquiry—not one that start and stops in five minutes but one that can take a thorough look and hear the evidence from those who are expert in this field.

Senator Payne said the treaty’s commissioning will depend on the sitting schedule—and that is the problem. That is why we need to delay this agreement until there has been a proper inquiry which any senator who wishes to be part of can take an interest in and inform themselves of the issues. The Democrats strongly support the reference of this treaty to a committee and hope that the government will reconsider.