Finally using the N-word [March 31, 2006]

Whether the Coalition and Labor are ready or not, the uranium discussion must be had now, writes Dennis Shanahan
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March 31, 2006
AUSTRALIAN politics is going nuclear. It is going nuclear at a faster rate than anyone thought possible only a year ago. There is a lively and dangerous political debate just around the corner on uranium with ramifications for our economic prosperity, the international credibility of the Howard Government and the repositioning of the ALP.

If not handled carefully by the Coalition and the ALP, the outcome of the debate could have catastrophic consequences.

Next Monday, John Howard, the conservative Liberal leader whose formative years were during the height of the Cold War and who considers the collapse of the Soviet Union as the greatest world political event of his life, will sign a deal to sell Australian uranium to communist China.

This is the first time Australia will help fuel the Chinese nuclear cycle.

Next month, Australia will send a delegation of officials to New Delhi and Washington to examine the new deal between India and the US on nuclear technology and explore avenues for selling Australian uranium to India for nuclear power generation. India is not a signatory to the nuclear non-proliferation treaty and has detonated nuclear devices between 1974 and 1998.

Last Wednesday, Kim Beazley, the Labor leader whose party during his early years in parliament was deeply divided over uranium mining and the peculiar compromise of limiting uranium mining to three existing mines, said it didn't really matter how uranium was dug up.

"I don't think it's a question of so much who digs it up or how it's dug up, it's a question of the terms and conditions on which it's exported," the Leader of the Opposition said.

There is already a push within the ALP to have a full debate on uranium mining and nuclear energy and to dump the anachronistic three mines policy. MPs know that, no matter how much work is done on solar or wind power, the bulk of future energy needs will still be met by fossil fuels and nuclear power.

Yet, even two years ago political discussions of nuclear power in Australia or dropping the three mines policy were "no-go" zones for the Coalition and the ALP. It was considered there was too much fear and odium attached to nuclear energy, and the Labor Party would divide as it did in the 1980s over uranium mining.

Early, tentative and overcautious probes on having a nuclear debate in Australia only in the past year have accelerated and are about to blossom into a full debate on uranium mining and exports, the treatment of nuclear waste and nuclear power. It will still take some time but it is going to happen. It has to happen.

Greenhouse emissions and the threat of climate change, combined with the world economy's insatiable appetite for energy, have made clean energy an inescapable priority. Whether mankind is entirely responsible, whether we can do much or anything about climate change is almost irrelevant. Climate change is a worldwide political imperative.

This is even more so for Australia as one of the world's biggest producers of both fossil fuels and uranium in a region dominated by the booming (and polluting) economies of India and China.

Howard has thrown himself into global debate on greenhouse emission as well as the negotiations with China on energy deals, including liquid natural gas and uranium. Howard, as a founding member of the new Asia-Pacific Climate Pact (AP6), which includes China and India, has steered Australia away from the mandatory greenhouse emission targets and carbon trading of the Kyoto Protocol and yet meets the Kyoto emissions targets.

He has also linked the image of clean and green nuclear power reducing fossil fuel pollution in the booming Chinese economy, which is not bound by the Kyoto Protocol. His position was boosted by the recognition of British Prime Minister Tony Blair in the Australian parliament on Monday that the future of fighting greenhouse emissions goes beyond the protocol.

While Labor has emphasised the need to ratify Kyoto and introduce carbon trading, Blair held out the prospect of a combined effort against greenhouse emissions which included aspects of Kyoto and the AP6. Blair's view was that anything that doesn't include China and India (and the US) simply won't work.

So far so good for Howard, outflanking Labor domestically on climate change, burnishing his credentials on the relationship with China and edging towards a domestic nuclear debate without too much fallout.

Yet, the idea of selling uranium to India is far more problematic. India is not about to sign the NPT, the public is unlikely to give the tick it has to the China exports without demonstrable, world recognised controls and standards.

Howard's responses on India have been extremely cautious and he even downplayed the strategic fillip the proposal received when Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao told The Australian in Beijing China did not object to Australian uranium sales to India.

Howard has made it clear the decision on uranium sales to India would not be dictated by either the US or China.

For Beazley there is greater domestic pressure to have a nuclear debate. Simply put, Labor's three mines policy is illogical, inconsistent and unsustainable. It's also outmoded and a dangerous symbol of Labor's adherence to ideological baggage when it is trying desperately to regain economic credibility.

A debate on the three mines policy may create internal unrest but it would also demonstrate the Labor Party is prepared to talk about policies, take action on economic matters and not stand in the way of jobs. A bit like negotiating a true Labor position on forests in Tasmania and not some half-arsed pastiche designed with Greens preferences in mind.

Labor's primary vote will go down at the next election unless it regains some economic credibility and is not seen as a captive of the Greens on climate change, uranium mining or forestry.

There are downsides for the Coalition and Labor in a nuclear debate but it has to be had. They just have to manage it properly to benefit from it.