Minister set for uranium expansion
Simon Lauder
ABC - The World Today
ELEANOR HALL: The Federal Environment Minister, Peter Garrett, says he's not surprised that the Government in Western Australia has opened the door to more uranium mining.
Australia has only three uranium mines but many potential sites have been identified in Western Australia and the discovery of more deposits in the Northern Territory raises the prospect of an expansion there as well.
Mr Garrett refused to speculate on how many new mine proposals will come across his desk but he said they will all be scrutinised by his department.
Simon Lauder has our report.
SIMON LAUDER: As Western Australia's premier, Colin Barnett, announced the Government's open door policy on uranium mining he made it clear he doesn't expect much opposition to the decision.
COLIN BARNETT: Uranium mining was perhaps the major issue of the last state election. The Labor Party tried to make the election a referendum on uranium mining. If they did, they failed, and it's significant that the Federal Labor Government and most state governments now support uranium mining.
SIMON LAUDER: And there's no word of protest from the Federal Environment Minister Peter Garrett.
PETER GARRETT: We knew that Western Australia, if it changed government at the recent election, had a policy for opening up a uranium mining, that's the decision the West Australian Government has taken. Our responsibility is to take whatever decisions are made by the West Australian Government. If there are appropriate regulatory issues that have got be addressed, we'll address them in the same way that we're doing in the Northern Territory and South Australia.
SIMON LAUDER: The Federal Labor Party ended its ban on the extension of uranium mining, before it was elected to government a year ago. There are now just three mines in Australia, but the Australian Uranium Association says there are up to eight potential mine sites in WA.
Peter Garrett won't add to the speculation that Australia could go from three uranium mines to 11.
PETER GARRETT: That's a speculation. I'm not going to start speculating on the number of mines. Our job is to apply the proper regulatory approaches under the EPBC Act and that's what we'll do.
SIMON LAUDER: The executive director of the Australian Uranium Association, Michael Angwin says uranium from Western Australia will be worth billions of dollars.
MICHAEL ANGWIN: The demands for uranium into the future is likely to be very strong, depending upon how you measure it, the increase in demand for uranium and nuclear power will be somewhere between 50 and 100 per cent in the next 20 years or so. So that I think if you're looking to the long-term that is a very, very, very, very good outlook for our industry.
SIMON LAUDER: Despite the economic benefits, the State Labor Party is maintaining its stance against uranium mining. The Opposition leader, Eric Ripper.
ERIC RIPPER: There are many issues associated with uranium mining, there's the question of the safety of mining and of transport, for workers and people who live close to the transport routes and there's the question of the safety of nuclear power stations, there's the question of the version of nuclear material to terrorist activities, there's the question of the storage of the waste.
SIMON LAUDER: Mr Ripper says uranium mining in WA will put pressure on the state to open up a nuclear waste dump.
The president of the Australian Nuclear Science and Technology Organisation Ziggy Switkowski says that's not so.
ZIGGY SWITKOWSKI: There's also this view that there's a whole lot of nuclear spent fuelled and waste out there that countries want to export. Whereas in fact most countries have laws on their books to say, "If we're going to go nuclear, we are responsible for our own waste".
We will store it within our boundaries, we will not accept anybody else's waste. And I think you'd struggle, you'd struggle to find nuclear waste that people wanted to send to Australia. Even though we might be a hospitable environment for that sort of stuff.
SIMON LAUDER: The Senate inquiry into the proposal for a commonwealth nuclear waste dump to be built in the Northern Territory has been holding hearings in Alice Springs this morning.
Greens Senator Scott Ludlum has been at the hearings and he wants the Federal Government to abandon the idea.
SCOTT LUDLUM: Well it's been passed from John Howard to Minister Martin Ferguson who's just running the same line that Howard ran, that we will dump this waste wherever we please. We've heard quite a bit of evidence from people I've asked questions in Parliament about why the Labor Government has not yet repealed this piece of Howard legislation, and they don't tell us.
There's no answer coming forth from Minister Martin Ferguson. So while he sits comfortably in Melbourne, presumably working out how to impose this side of the Northern Territory, there's a huge amount of alarm and concern up in the NT as to why this key election commitment had not been met.
SIMON LAUDER: It may not only be in the west where the ground is to be opened to un-tapped uranium deposits.
ERA says it's found up to 40,000 tonnes of uranium oxide near the Ranger mine in Kakadu National Park. That could extend the mine's life by another seven years.
ELEANOR HALL: Simon Lauder reporting.
Australia has only three uranium mines but many potential sites have been identified in Western Australia and the discovery of more deposits in the Northern Territory raises the prospect of an expansion there as well.
Mr Garrett refused to speculate on how many new mine proposals will come across his desk but he said they will all be scrutinised by his department.
Simon Lauder has our report.
SIMON LAUDER: As Western Australia's premier, Colin Barnett, announced the Government's open door policy on uranium mining he made it clear he doesn't expect much opposition to the decision.
COLIN BARNETT: Uranium mining was perhaps the major issue of the last state election. The Labor Party tried to make the election a referendum on uranium mining. If they did, they failed, and it's significant that the Federal Labor Government and most state governments now support uranium mining.
SIMON LAUDER: And there's no word of protest from the Federal Environment Minister Peter Garrett.
PETER GARRETT: We knew that Western Australia, if it changed government at the recent election, had a policy for opening up a uranium mining, that's the decision the West Australian Government has taken. Our responsibility is to take whatever decisions are made by the West Australian Government. If there are appropriate regulatory issues that have got be addressed, we'll address them in the same way that we're doing in the Northern Territory and South Australia.
SIMON LAUDER: The Federal Labor Party ended its ban on the extension of uranium mining, before it was elected to government a year ago. There are now just three mines in Australia, but the Australian Uranium Association says there are up to eight potential mine sites in WA.
Peter Garrett won't add to the speculation that Australia could go from three uranium mines to 11.
PETER GARRETT: That's a speculation. I'm not going to start speculating on the number of mines. Our job is to apply the proper regulatory approaches under the EPBC Act and that's what we'll do.
SIMON LAUDER: The executive director of the Australian Uranium Association, Michael Angwin says uranium from Western Australia will be worth billions of dollars.
MICHAEL ANGWIN: The demands for uranium into the future is likely to be very strong, depending upon how you measure it, the increase in demand for uranium and nuclear power will be somewhere between 50 and 100 per cent in the next 20 years or so. So that I think if you're looking to the long-term that is a very, very, very, very good outlook for our industry.
SIMON LAUDER: Despite the economic benefits, the State Labor Party is maintaining its stance against uranium mining. The Opposition leader, Eric Ripper.
ERIC RIPPER: There are many issues associated with uranium mining, there's the question of the safety of mining and of transport, for workers and people who live close to the transport routes and there's the question of the safety of nuclear power stations, there's the question of the version of nuclear material to terrorist activities, there's the question of the storage of the waste.
SIMON LAUDER: Mr Ripper says uranium mining in WA will put pressure on the state to open up a nuclear waste dump.
The president of the Australian Nuclear Science and Technology Organisation Ziggy Switkowski says that's not so.
ZIGGY SWITKOWSKI: There's also this view that there's a whole lot of nuclear spent fuelled and waste out there that countries want to export. Whereas in fact most countries have laws on their books to say, "If we're going to go nuclear, we are responsible for our own waste".
We will store it within our boundaries, we will not accept anybody else's waste. And I think you'd struggle, you'd struggle to find nuclear waste that people wanted to send to Australia. Even though we might be a hospitable environment for that sort of stuff.
SIMON LAUDER: The Senate inquiry into the proposal for a commonwealth nuclear waste dump to be built in the Northern Territory has been holding hearings in Alice Springs this morning.
Greens Senator Scott Ludlum has been at the hearings and he wants the Federal Government to abandon the idea.
SCOTT LUDLUM: Well it's been passed from John Howard to Minister Martin Ferguson who's just running the same line that Howard ran, that we will dump this waste wherever we please. We've heard quite a bit of evidence from people I've asked questions in Parliament about why the Labor Government has not yet repealed this piece of Howard legislation, and they don't tell us.
There's no answer coming forth from Minister Martin Ferguson. So while he sits comfortably in Melbourne, presumably working out how to impose this side of the Northern Territory, there's a huge amount of alarm and concern up in the NT as to why this key election commitment had not been met.
SIMON LAUDER: It may not only be in the west where the ground is to be opened to un-tapped uranium deposits.
ERA says it's found up to 40,000 tonnes of uranium oxide near the Ranger mine in Kakadu National Park. That could extend the mine's life by another seven years.
ELEANOR HALL: Simon Lauder reporting.