On the uranium debate now


Insiders - 28/05/2006: Troops face tricky mission, PM warns: "On the uranium debate now, and you have promised a full-blooded debate. Will that be a debate not only about uranium mining and enrichment but also about nuclear power plants?
JOHN HOWARD: Yes, it should be. It should be about the whole kit and caboodle and there is no point in limiting it to one thing. And it doesn't seem to me to make a lot of sense to favour the export of uranium without looking at enrichment. It doesn't make much sense to look at enrichment without looking at potential to have nuclear power stations in this country. I mean, we don't want in relation to uranium, as it were, to have a rerun of the old sort of sending our wool overseas to be processed. I mean, for decades we've lamented that we sent wool to Manchester to have it processed, now I don't want a modern-day version of that. If we have a capacity for enrichment, then let's have a look at it.
BARRIE CASSIDY: Beyond enrichment, though-
JOHN HOWARD: I've got an open mind- sorry.
BARRIE CASSIDY: ..if you go beyond enrichment and show any indication that you're half serious about nuclear power stations, for example, the Labor Party will have a field day?
JOHN HOWARD: Oh, the Labor Party will be opportunistic about this. They are about everything. They just oppose everything for a short-term political advantage.
BARRIE CASSIDY: You get the sense the population will be nervous about it as well?
JOHN HOWARD: Well, I'm not sure. You may be right, I may be wrong, but I think that this is a debate which may in fact come at a time when there is a change of attitude occurring in the Australian community, because you have the additional element now you didn't have 20 years ago of climate change. There are a lot of greenies, if I can use the vernacular"