AUSTRALIA has a "moral obligation" to accept nuclear waste if it wants to increase uranium exports, says one of the world's biggest nuclear companies.

Amid deepening rifts within the Labor Party and union movement over uranium mining and nuclear power, French nuclear giant AREVA said yesterday it was illogical for the Labor state premiers to support a ban on new uranium mines.

But Simon Mann, the Australian general manager of AREVA subsidiary Cogema, said there was "probably ... a moral obligation for Australia to accept waste material" if it wanted to export uranium. He told a parliamentary inquiry into the development of a non-fossil fuel energy industry that Australia had large volumes of uranium and the potential to have seven of the world's top 20 uranium mines.

But he said there was sufficient uranium elsewhere in the world to make the Australian ban on new mines irrelevant.

Cogema wants to mine the environmentally sensitive Koongarra uranium deposit in Kakadu National Park.

On Thursday, Australian Workers Union national president Bill Ludwig added to the pressure on the Labor Party to reverse its 20-year "three-mines" ban on new uranium mines amid a global debate on the merits of nuclear energy. He called on the Queensland Government to allow the development of the state's uranium deposits - a move immediately rejected by Premier Peter Beattie.

"I don't support, nor does this Government, the opening of uranium mining," Mr Beattie said yesterday.

"The reality is that uranium is in clear conflict with the coal industry. I mean, why would a state like Queensland, that has 300 years of coal, want to give a competitive energy a leg up. It is just crazy."

Mr Ludwig's view threatens to split the labour movement. Two powerful left-wing unions, the Australian Manufacturing Workers Union and the Construction Forestry Mining and Energy Union, which represents thousands of coalminers, have been opposed to nuclear power and uranium mining.

The CFMEU said yesterday it remained opposed to the building of nuclear power stations and the use of nuclear power in Australia - but would not rule out support for new uranium mines.

Secretary Tony Maher said he would not commit to supporting changes to the three-mines policy ahead of debate on the issue next month. But he said the union, rather than going into combat with the AWU, was being "cautious and conservative".

Mr Maher said he was conscious of not capitulating to "big mining companies who have uranium in their portfolios" but said Australia's use of nuclear power was a "separate issue" to expanded uranium mining.

Resources Minister Ian Macfarlane yesterday called for Labor to "swiftly reconsider its three-mine policy".

"Their own members - MPs and unionists - can see the light but the policy purists remain hidebound by their seriously outdated three-mine policy," he said. "This is not a discussion about the use of nuclear energy in Australia, it's about exporting uranium, one of the most abundant resources in the country."

Mr Mann said yesterday public concern about nuclear waste storage was probably the outcome of the lack of education in Australia concerning nuclear power. "It's a very emotive issue. People need to understand that waste material could be stored very safely."

However, Alan Clayton, research officer for the Association of Mining and Exploration Companies, told the committee waste material should be disposed of close to where uranium was used.

Labor resources spokesman Martin Ferguson said Labor wanted better nuclear waste management before it gave support to the use of nuclear power in Australia. But he said he expected Australia to be the largest exporter of uranium in the world "in a few short years".