Tuesday, 21 August, 2007

by Mukund Padmanabhan
The Hindu

ADELAIDE: Australia will not sell uranium to India if the Labour Party wins the Federal election, scheduled later this year.

In an exclusive interview, Mike Rann, the South Australian Premier and senior Labour Party leader, said there was no question of allowing the present Federal Government’s uranium proposal to go through as “it is absolutely against Labour Party policy.”

Mr. Rann, who as Premier administers a State with 40 per cent of the world’s uranium reserves, said his condemnation of the Liberal Government’s decision to sell uranium to India was not specifically directed at the country.

He explained it stemmed from the general principle that uranium should not be sold to any country that has not signed the Non Proliferation Treaty (NPT).

Selling uranium to India would lead to similar demands from other countries and have a “cascading effect,” he said. This would damage the “internal structure of the NPT.” While there is no shortage of people who want to buy Australian uranium, he said a Labour Party-led Government would “love to sell uranium to India provided it signs the NPT.”