Sunday, 30 July, 2006

The Age

Opponents of Labor leader Kim Beazley's U-turn on uranium mining are planning to make it a central issue in the coming campaign for party presidency.

Labor members will vote next month for a new federal president to replace incumbent Warren Mundine in 2007.

The issue has divided the party since Mr Beazley last week announced he wants to dump Labor's 22-year-old policy of opposing any new uranium mines after months of internal party debate.

He wants next year's national conference to endorse a new party platform which would impose stringent safeguards on uranium use and exports, but allow new mines to open.

Labor's environment spokesman Anthony Albanese has come out strongly against the change, as has former ALP national president Carmen Lawrence and opposition frontbencher and former anti-nuclear campaigner Peter Garrett.

Mr Albanese said the uranium debate would weigh heavily on the vote for the next party president.

"It's pretty clear that people are going to want to know what people's position is on the no-new-mines policy and that will be factor in them voting," he told the Ten network.

"That will be an opportunity, I'm sure, in which people's position on the no-new-mines policy will be a factor."

There had already been suggestions that members write their position on voting papers, he said.

Mr Albanese said the economic arguments in favour of overturning Labor's current policy did not stack up and the move would not be popular.

"Uranium is a very moderate export earner," he said.

"What we have here is uranium exports worth $500 million last year.

"That's about the same as manganese ore and oxide which we hear nothing about.

"It's about the same amount as the loss of two wind farm projects in Tasmania and South Australia, which aren't going ahead because of the government's failure to increase the mandatory renewable energy target," he said.

"Australia is missing out on economic opportunities both domestically ... but also the massive export potential that's there for us to position ourselves to take advantage of what's a trillion dollar growth industry (in renewable energy)."

Implicit in Labor's current position on uranium mining was a commitment to phasing out the practice, Mr Albanese said.

"You can guarantee that uranium mining will lead to nuclear waste. You can't guarantee that uranium mining won't lead to nuclear weapons."

It appears increasingly unlikely Mr Albanese will be successful in his campaign to retain the existing policy, but he says Labor will lose at the ballot box if he is not.

"I just don't believe that there are people out there in marginal seats who voted for (Prime Minister) John Howard at the last election, who are saying: `If only Labor got rid of our no-new-mines policy, that we'd change our vote to the Labor Party'," he said.

"I think there's ... many people who would be quite disheartened if Labor's seen to be watering down our strong position in opposition to uranium mining."

The party needed to be as distinct from the coalition on this issue as it was on Australian Workplace Agreements, he said.