FORMER prime minister Bob Hawke has called for Australia to assess a nuclear waste industry as a moral, financial and environmental response to climate change.

Mr Hawke, speaking after the Australian-American Leadership Dialogue he attended as a participant, said: "This issue, frankly, seems to me to be straightforward in its obligations and benefits.

"I have spoken to Aboriginal leaders and to people from the environmental movement and they are prepared to consider the proposition."

With the nuclear power industry expanding rapidly around the world due to climate change and Australia supplying that industry with uranium exports for decades ahead, Mr Hawke said the issue arose from Australia's global obligations.

"There is a responsibility to deal with global warming and consider what role Australia should play," Mr Hawke told The Australian.

"Australia can make a significant difference to the safety of nuclear generation by agreeing to take waste from nuclear power stations. This would be an important contribution to safety and energy security. It would also become a strong source of national income for Australia that could be dedicated to our own environmental and water requirements.

"The fact is that Australia has some of the geologically safest places in the world to act as a repository for nuclear waste."

Mr Hawke floated this idea four years ago, only to have an immediate rejection from both the Howard government and the Labor Party that was strong on politics and weak on argument. He believes that in the interim, the argument has only strengthened. Mr Hawke says his idea should be examined if Australians are serious about the problem of climate change and accept at face value the moral obligations this imposes. He says the financial benefits from any decision would be immense.