Committee approves sale of uranium to China
Wednesday, 6 December, 2006
ABC NT Local News
Democrats Senator Andrew Bartlett was the only Treaties Committee member to oppose the sale of uranium to China.
"I'm disappointed I am the sole dissenting voice and the only member of the committee to oppose selling uranium to China," he said.
"I think there was a lot of evidence provided to the committee that showed that the safeguards against misuse of uranium are not as strong as we like to think."
Senator Bartlett says the safeguards are too flimsy.
"I don't think you can trust any nuclear power, any country that already has nuclear arms, not to use some of those resources for proliferation," he said.
"Even if it's not the actual Australian uranium that ends up going into nuclear weapons, by exporting uranium to China it will free up their ability to use their own uranium they mine locally for such purposes."
Greens Senator Christine Milne also says the report vindicates concerns about the inadequacy of the international safeguards regime.
Nuclear watchdog
Meanwhile, the parliamentary committee has also recommended the resources of the nuclear watchdog, the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), be boosted.
The deputy chairman of the Treaties Committee, Labor's Kim Wilkie, says it is important to increase the money available for the IAEA, which is headed by Mohamed El Baradei.
"Mr El Baradei has said that the agency is totally under-resourced in order to perform its function - in fact, he stated their budget is less than a small police force," he said.
"Therefore one of the recommendations calls on Australia to make a voluntary additional contribution to that body and to lobby the rest of the world, after investigation of how much money it needs, to actually increase their contribution."
Mr Wilkie says uranium sales to China will deliver economic benefits for Australia, and it is the Federal Government's duty to take a lead role in efforts to strengthen nuclear safeguards.
He says the IAEA is constrained by a lack of funding and Australia should set an example by increasing its contributions.
He also says Australia needs to boost funding for its own safeguards and non-proliferation office.
"I think at this stage their funding's around 400,000-odd dollars, whereas in Canada a few years ago they were spending $4 million on similar programs," he said.
"So Australia needs to look at improving what we do in that whole area of improving safeguards world-wide, particularly as we're such a major player in the sale of uranium in the international community."