URANIUM is hugely important to the Northern Territory and the rest of Australia.

The Ranger mine near Jabiru employs more than 500 workers and generates tens of millions of dollars in taxes and royalties each year.

South Australia's Roxby Downs operation is bigger and even more profitable.

The worldwide demand for uranium is growing steadily as many nations, including China and India, expand their nuclear energy networks.

Australia has 39 per cent of the world's known uranium resources. This percentage will undoubtedly increase markedly over the next few years as exploration - much of it in the Territory - continues.

Therefore, the anti-uranium stance taken by the Electrical Trades Union must be taken seriously.

The union has forbidden its Northern Territory and Queensland members - on pain of expulsion - from working in the uranium and nuclear industries.

This is an extraordinary directive.

Faceless union bosses have taken it upon themselves to tell Australians where not to work, which is surely against the law.

It's not surprising that the bully-boy directive has won the immediate support of the Greens, a party that would turn Australia into a retirement home given half a chance.

The union says that capitalists, supported by Labor, are putting profit before workers' health.

This is nonsense. There is no evidence that working in a well-managed uranium mine is dangerous; in fact, such work provides highly-paid skilled jobs, which enables working people to give their families a decent life.

The union directive should be challengedin court.

... and another thing

SHOULD the Electrical Trades Union ban its members from smoking? Cigarettes are far more dangerous than working at a uranium mine.