Sunday 14 May 2006
ABC News Online

The Federal Government has made no firm decision on whether it would allow exported uranium waste to come back to Australia.

The acting Prime Minister, Mark Vaile, will not rule out Australia taking back nuclear waste from uranium it exports.

Prime Minister John Howard is in Washington where energy-related issues are expected to be discussed.

Mr Vaile has told Channel Nine the Government is yet to address what should be done with nuclear waste.

"We need to keep an open mind on all these issues," Mr Vaile said.

"If we expect to extract benefit from selling the product then obviously there is a role in terms of management through life both in terms of how it's used, what security circumstance it's used in other countries and then the question of waste come into being."

Earlier Mr Howard would not speculate if Australia would be asked to take the nuclear waste of other countries which was generated using Australian uranium.

"Look everybody is just running ahead of themselves on this issue," he said.

"There's been some talk about certain proposals I'll be interested to learn a little more about it. I have an interest in it, Australia has an interest it but we're not concern about anything, we haven't been asked to do anything."