Now that nuclear industry is involved not
just in the potential for nuclear catastrophes.
It's involved in the unresolved nuclear waste
issues, right throughout the nuclear fuel
chain.
It's involved in the potential for weapons
from waste.
Potential for weapons to continue to be produced
and to be used in future because all of the
countries that hold and preserve the right
to use nuclear weapons are failing in their
obligations to disarm.
They're failing in their obligations to sign
the nuclear non-proliferation treaty, and
they are all effectively looking to modernise
their nuclear arsenals over time.
Some are involved in very particular potential
nuclear arms races.
Whether it's between India and Pakistan, whether
it's the long standing cold war between the
west and the east.
Whether it's the rising influence of the role
that China may take... whether it's in 3rd
player, other countries coming through and
developing capacity with Australian support
for nuclear power plants, and using that dual
use capacity to reserve the right to produce,
to build the capacity to preserve the right
to develop nuclear weapons in the future.
Now we're involved in some very strange business
in that Howard sold uranium to China.
China's not democratic, China's not transparent,
they won't have public meetings like this
about nuclear projects in China.
Those people would be itemised by the security
police over there and get a tap on the shoulder,
at some point in their time, if they want
to canvas these sort of views openly there.
They don't have public environmental impact
statements in China.
China and potentially India are the only places
in the world with major nuclear expansions.
One of the reasons that China can look to
do that is they don't have public accountability
to have to deal with there.
They don't have to explain what would go on
with the potential for nuclear accidents.
They don't have an issue with accountability
in terms of nuclear insurance in China.
Effectively, there is no nuclear insurance
anywhere in the world, it's all capped and
limited in the western countries.
So the potential for an accident like Fukushima,
or an accident in the US or elsewhere, that
the impacts of that accident would be taken
by the public and by the governments.
Not that to be compensated through insurance
would be any recompense for a nuclear disaster
in terms of your livelihood, your health and
your environment.
But there isn't even any nuclear insurance
in any credible sense anywhere in the world.
And there certainly isn't going to be in China,
where Howard sold uranium, and where Labor
when they came into Federal office chose not
to disagree with that branch.
They left it as it was.
Howard did a deal with Putin to sell uranium
to Russia.
Federal Labor passed that through, and formalised
and ratified that uranium sales deal.
It's Labor's responsibility that we're now
lined up to sell uranium to Russia.
A lot of interests want to sell uranium to
India.
India, while they do speak English and play
cricket, and are a friendly democratic country
in many respects, they're also locked in a
nuclear arms race with Pakistan.
They also face one of the highest terrorist
risks of anybody, certainly for any democratic
country and broadly, countries in general.
Japan could demonstrate responsibility for
the potential inherent dangers of nuclear
technology and nuclear power plants.
How can we expect the developing world to
have that capacity, when we in the west have
chosen not to exercise that responsibility?
India is not a signatory to the nuclear non-proliferation
treaty.
India is not a signatory to the atomic test
ban treaty.
India reserve the right to test weapons again
in the future.
India reserves the right to continue to develop
its nuclear arsenal, as other nuclear powers
do.
Why would we be looking to sell uranium to
India?
Federal Labor, at least Federal minister Martin
Ferguson and probably behind the scenes many
in the cabinet, would prefer to sell uranium
to India.
They'll have a national conference and they
may delete the wording at the conference that
says Australia will only sell uranium to countries
that are signatories to the nuclear non-proliferation
treaty.
That's what some of them wish to do!
But it's not just.. we need to be really clear,
it's not just people such as Minister Martin
Ferguson cop a lot of flack for being so pro-mining
and so pro-uranium and so pro-nuclear.
They do this on behalf of the cabinets and
the leaders and Prime Minister and premiers.
When you see a minister out there in favour
of the nuclear industry, they're largely doing
that with the support of the cabinet and government
overall.
They're playing a particular role on behalf
of a team in that respect, they may position
themselves as the 'bad cop' and let the good
cops go an talk about something else.
That responsibility is shared across the governments,
it's not just individual ministers who've
doggedly pursued nuclear interests.
Foreign affairs minister Kevin Rudd wants
to sell uranium to the United Arab Emirates,
just before the Fukushima nuclear disaster,
he announced Australia's intention to have
a nuclear co-operation group with the United
Arab Emirates.
We could sell uranium to the Middle East.
That's obviously a stable, democratic regime
and region.
United Arab Emirates is just across the shore
from Iran's nuclear weapons program.
Neighbouring countries such as Bahrain, where
they jail the doctors and nurses for having
tried to prepare the wounds of democratic
demonstrators.
We have the temerity to say 'could we have
a right to say, here?'
These are the sort of governments that Kevin
Rudd wants to sell uranium to.
And he said in his media release that this
will be for the commercial interests of Australia's
uranium producing companies.
We don't actually have uranium producing companies.
We have BHP and Rio Tinto, two of the world's
largest mining companies, yes that's true.
It's for their interests that Kevin Rudd is
over in the Middle East, and much of his overseas
tours have been around the Middle East promoting
the potential of future Australian uranium
sales.
He said 'it should be a model... what we intend
to to with the United Arab Emirates should
be a model for uranium sales across the Middle
East.'
That's the level of geopolitical strategic
foreign affairs sense that Australia's governments
support, Labor and Liberal, for the uranium
sector actually makes it available.
Selling to China and Russia, breaching all
the nuclear treaties to not sell to India
locked in arms race with Pakistan.
Looking to sell into the democratic region
of the Middle East.
Being uncritical of Israel's continued nuclear
weapons program and continued threat against
its neighbours.
That's the style of foreign policy we have
that is largely influenced by whatever reason,
by the vested interests of the uranium mining
companies.
And it's those broad issues that we need to
get our heads and handles around as a democratic
society if we want to redress BHP and people
like Premier Rann and others who want to take
our society back into this state.
We don't wish to be responsible for those
ongoing nuclear risks such as have been demonstrated
t Fukushima.
We don't wish to have responsibility for unresolved
nuclear waste, right throughout the nuclear
fuel chain.
We don't want to be a party to fuelling a
potential nuclear catastrophe or the potential
for nuclear war or terrorism.
It could well be that it is power plants in
a country that has ticked all the other boxes.
It could be a nuclear power plant in a country
that is democratic, that doesn't have nuclear
weapons, that claims that they have an inspection
regime that has some transparency.
Terrorists can blow up that reactor just as
well as in a country that doesn't tick some
of those benefits and boxes.
All of those nuclear power plants are fundamentally,
unacceptably dangerous pre-positioned weapons
and until we get our head around that dual
use potential for catastrophe and boiling
water to produce electricity, then we're not
going to able to cut through the mining interests
or cut through the political support, or get
any significant role and play in terms of
where we want energy and climate policy to
go and there is very little prospect of the
South Australian Government taking any serious
honest view to have South Australian commit
to real climate change targets by 2020 when
they're looking to give one company for one
project the right to blow out our total emissions
by the order of 12%.
So there are much broader audiences than just
those who have concern, those who do hold
concerns about international responsibilities,
about nuclear risks, about the rights and
interests of traditional owners who occupy
their culture and their country, without the
imposition of mining, uranium mining and radioactive
tailings and responsibility for uranium taken
from their country to potentially cause impacts
elsewhere.
You have to get to a broader pool of people
to recognise that it's a democratic issue
in Australia that we shouldn't be a party
to those risks, that it shouldn't be taken
from here to impose those risks elsewhere.
If we're ever to play our role as the Big
Australian, Dirty Australian in terms of uranium
sales and coal sales, and increasingly of
LPG and other types of gas sales, and we're
ever going to recognise our role in climate
change, it won't be through hawking uranium
to suit public relations missions of the major
mining companies and nuclear corporations
to claim that they too can boil water, but
never mind that it may well blow up.
