Wyatt Roy (Longman, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

by leave—As I was saying before, Report 151 deals with the agreement between the government of Australia and the government of India on cooperation in peaceful uses of nuclear energy. The agreement offers the potential for Australia to become one of the world leaders in supplying fuel for low-carbon emission electrical power for expanding economies.

While there are considerable benefits for Australia and India, the agreement is not without risk. The committee has taken its time to consider those risks carefully and has made a number of recommendations.

But first I will discuss the benefits. The agreement has the potential to double the size of the Australian uranium mining industry, adding $1.75 billion to the Australian economy and doubling employment in uranium mining and export.

These benefits will occur mostly in rural and regional communities.

For India, the agreement will help with the goal of growing electrical generation from a base of just 408 kilowatt hours per capita per year in 2001 to 5,300 kilowatt hours per capita per year in 2052.

It will also provide a reliable supply of fuel, which is important to India's energy security.

India is one of a small number of nuclear-armed countries that have not signed the nuclear non-proliferation treaty. This is a barrier to nuclear cooperation, as the NPT has effectively limited nuclear proliferation.

However, given India's strategic situation, it is not realistic to expect India to dismantle its nuclear arsenal.

The agreement represents a new approach to non-proliferation, effectively treating India as if it were a party to the NPT.

That is, India can obtain uranium if it meets the nuclear safety and security standards expected of other nuclear-armed states.

The committee heard in evidence that some NPT countries object to this new approach.

If the new approach is going to work, India needs to make concrete non-proliferation advances to calm the fears of some NPT countries.

To that end, the committee recommends that Australia commit significant diplomatic resources to encouraging India to become a party to the Comprehensive Nuclear-Test-Ban Treaty and to negotiate a fissile material cut-off treaty.

The committee also recommends that the Australian government consider facilitating the negotiation of a nuclear arms limitation treaty for the Indian subcontinent region.

The committee notes some concerns about flaws in India's nuclear regulatory arrangements identified by the Indian Auditor-General and the International Atomic Energy Agency.

Recognising this, the committee recommends that no Australian nuclear fuel be sold to India until they are addressed.

The committee also examined a number of points of contention with the agreement itself. Many inquiry participants are concerned that Australian nuclear material in India may not be properly accounted for.

The accounting mechanisms for exported Australian nuclear materials are part of confidential administrative arrangements.

To ensure proper accounting of Australian nuclear material in India, the committee held a private briefing with the Director-General of the Australian Safeguards and Non-Proliferation Office to discuss the matter.

The Director-General was able to say that the administrative arrangement negotiated with India would allow him to report the disposition of Australian nuclear material in India, as required by the Nuclear Non-Proliferation (Safeguards) Act 1987.

Based on this evidence, the committee trusts that Australian nuclear material can be tracked and accounted for.

Finally, experienced legal practitioners who participated in the inquiry appear to have differing interpretations of a couple of aspects of the agreement, leaving the committee unable to determine which interpretation was correct.

The committee has recommended in each case that the Australian government outline the legal advice that it has received.

Having regard to these recommendations, the committee considers that binding treaty action can be taken.

I would like to thank the Australian government for its patience while the committee undertook the inquiry, and I would also like to thank the engaged and experienced participants in this inquiry. Finally I would like to thank the other members of the committee, particularly on the Labor side, for their patience in going through this on a detailed basis. It is my belief that the committee left no area uninvestigated, and I think that this is a very significant report. It represents a very positive move for the relationship between India and Australia. On behalf of the committee, I commend the report to the House.

Kelvin Thomson (Wills, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

by leave—The treaties committee has today handed down one of its most significant reports, and one which shows why the treaties committee is the parliament's most heavy-duty committee. We have recommended that uranium sales to India only commence when: (1) India has achieved the full separation of civil and military nuclear facilities as verified by the International Atomic Energy Agency; (2) India has established an independent nuclear regulatory authority under law; (3) the Indian nuclear regulator's existing policies and arrangements have been reviewed to ensure its independence; (4) the frequency, quality and comprehensiveness of on-site inspections at nuclear facilities have been verified by the International Atomic Energy Agency as being of best practice standard; and (5) the lack of sufficient planning for the decommissioning of nuclear facilities has been rectified.

In recommending to the government that there be no uranium sales to India until these crucial conditions are met, the treaties committee has listened to, and taken into account, the expert advice which was given to us by, for example, John Carlson, the former head of the Australian Safeguards and Non-Proliferation Office. The treaties committee heard evidence that it is essential that any nuclear agreement with India should be at least as rigorous as all the agreements Australia has concluded with other countries, and that there is no justification for Australia to require less of India than of all other agreement partners. So we have urged the government to push India to become a party to the Comprehensive Nuclear-Test-Ban Treaty and to negotiate a fissile material cut-off treaty. In doing so we acknowledge the views of civil society witnesses who felt Australia could have done more in the negotiation process to pursue global disarmament.

We have also listened to the nuclear watchdog, the International Atomic Energy Agency, which undertook a mission to India in March this year to investigate India's regulatory framework. This mission found that the Indian nuclear regulatory agency was still not independent under law; the existing policies and arrangements at the nuclear regulator needed to be reviewed to ensure its independence; the frequency and quality of inspections at nuclear facilities was still not up to best practice standards; and there was still insufficient planning for the decommissioning of nuclear facilities. So the committee has made recommendations to deal with exactly these findings. We respect the work of the IAEA and believe that all countries, India included, need to observe its requirements to the letter.

The committee has also picked up on two areas where there is dispute about the legal position. The Australian Safeguards and Non-Proliferation Office is adamant that Australian consent is required to engage in uranium enrichment of 20 per cent and above. But nuclear treaty experts Ronald Walker and Ernst Willheim have a different view. Given the troubling difference of opinion, the committee has recommended that the Australian government outline the legal advice it has received regarding the consent to reprocessing provisions.

A similar conundrum arises in relation to whether this treaty breaches our obligations under the South Pacific Nuclear Free Zone Treaty, also known as the Treaty of Rarotonga. The committee was given opposing interpretations presented by very reputable sources. Once again, we have recommended that the Australian government outline the legal advice it has received concerning whether this proposed agreement breaches Australia's obligations under the South Pacific Nuclear Free Zone Treaty.

The committee has recommended that the Australia-India Nuclear Cooperation Agreement be ratified, subject to the recommendations I have outlined. Let me re-emphasise that point. Our support is subject to our other recommendations. If they are not implemented, then do not expect me to be supporting this agreement.

As we say in our report, 'For the committee, the highest standard of safety in the use of Australian material is a central requirement for the export of that material. Should Australian nuclear material be sold to India, the Australian public will want to be assured that the nuclear material is being used safely.'

The government will ignore these powerful recommendations, which come not only from opposition members but from members of the government, at its peril and at the peril of Australia's reputation as a responsible global citizen, with a strong commitment to non-proliferation and disarmament.

This report should act as an orange light, warning the government not to ratify this treaty precipitously but to tread carefully, aware of the immense and long-lasting consequences of error in this fraught and long-contested area of energy policy.

Finally, I want to praise and acknowledge the chairmanship of this inquiry, by the member for Longman, Mr Roy. In this very adversarial place I am probably not doing him or his career any favours by speaking well of him, but I will all the same. The chair has worked very hard to achieve a consensus among members who come to this issue with widely differing views about whether nuclear power is part of the problem or part of the solution and whether India has been a good global citizen in relation to nuclear disarmament and non-proliferation issues. As a result of the chair's maturity and understanding we have been able to put to the parliament a very significant report. I hope the government listens to this bipartisan call and implements all of its recommendations.

Melissa Parke (Fremantle, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Assistant Minister for Health) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Deputy Speaker, I seek leave to make a statement on the tabling of this report by the Joint Standing Committee on Treaties.

Leave granted.

As a member of the Joint Standing Committee on Treaties, I endorse the cautious approach adopted by the majority of the committee in its report on the Agreement between the Government of Australia and the Government of India on Cooperation in the Peaceful Uses of Nuclear Energy, which I will now refer to as the agreement.

However, I consider that the committee's major concerns, including the need for full separation of India's civil and military nuclear facilities and the establishment of an independent nuclear regulatory authority, are best addressed prior to ratification. The majority committee view that these matters can be addressed after ratification but prior to sale is positive in that it acknowledges the importance of this action before any future transfer of Australian uranium but, in my view, this position is at risk of being overtaken by more narrow political and commercial priorities.

The current agreement is seriously deficient and requires further attention to be strengthened to a standard consistent with both Australia's other nuclear safeguards mechanisms and community expectations. With regard to other matters about which the majority committee has expressed its satisfaction, such as the requirement for India to track and account for Australian nuclear material, I am not prepared to simply accept ASNO's assurances. I would actually need to see the confidential administrative arrangement that, it is claimed, provides for such tracking and accounting.

The additional comments made by Senator Sue Lines and I thus reflect the deep unease we feel at the agreement's departure from the strong safeguards arrangements Australia has with many other countries.

The additional comments are made based upon the evidence the committee received not only from community groups concerned generally about nuclear non-proliferation and uranium exports such as the Australian Conservation Foundation, Friends of the Earth, the International Campaign to Abolish Nuclear Weapons, the Uniting Church and the Gundjehmi Aboriginal Corporation but also from respected nuclear safeguards experts, such as John Carlson, the former head of ASNO for more than two decades; Ronald Walker, the former chair of the board of the International Atomic Energy Agency; and other experts, including Professor Lawrence Sheinman, Kalman Robertson, Ernst Willheim and Crispin Rovere. Each of these experts stated that they were not opposed to uranium sales to India, but they were extremely concerned that this particular agreement significantly weakens Australia's strong nuclear safeguards as contained in every other agreement Australia has with other countries.

The nuclear cooperation agreement with India raises a number of major issues, as raised by many submissions we received, including: (1) India is not a party to the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty or to the Comprehensive Nuclear Test Ban Treaty; (2) India is one of only three countries, the others being Pakistan and North Korea, which are still producing nuclear material for nuclear weapons; (3) India has not fully separated its military and civilian nuclear programs and has not placed all civilian facilities under IAEA safeguards and, according to such eminent experts as John Carlson AM and Ron Walker, some civilian facilities outside India's safeguarded program appear to be linked to its military program; (4) the committee heard that India's safeguards agreement with the IAEA gives India the right to use safeguarded nuclear material in facilities that are outside the safeguarded program and also to use unsafeguarded material in safeguarded facilities; (5) in the past India has disregarded peaceful use agreements and the plutonium for its first nuclear test, in 1974, came from the misuse of a reactor supplied by Canada under peaceful use agreements; and (6) the longstanding nuclear rivalry between India and Pakistan continues to directly threaten regional security and peace, and a new report by the US based Carnegie Endowment for International Peace and the Stimson Center concludes that Pakistan is currently rapidly expanding its nuclear capabilities because of its fear of India.

Therefore, having regard to these circumstances I consider it essential that any nuclear agreement with India should, at least, be as rigorous as all the agreements Australia has concluded with other countries.

Unfortunately, the proposed agreement does not provide strong safeguards and undermines a bipartisan safeguards policy that has operated successfully for almost 40 years. I am particularly concerned that the agreement in its present form fails to provide adequate assurance against the possible use of Australian obligated nuclear material to contribute to a military purpose.

The specific aspects of the agreement that are unsatisfactory include the following: (1) the agreement does not include right-of-return provisions if Australian material is diverted for military purposes, or if the agreement is breached in some other way; (2) the agreement does not limit Australian material to facilities under permanent IAEA safeguards; (3) the agreement's consent provisions for reprocessing and high enrichment are ambiguous and in the views of an eminent legal expert, Mr Ernst Willheim, are legally unacceptable; (4) the agreement does not give Australia programmatic consent rights for reprocessing, unlike with our other agreements; (5) it appears India is not prepared to undertake accounting for and tracking of Australian nuclear material in accordance with international practice and with Australian policy and legislation, including the Nuclear Non-Proliferation (Safeguards) Act 1987—details of the accounting system for nuclear material are said to be in an administrative arrangement that is confidential, so the text is not available to the committee or the public—this is not satisfactory; (6) the agreement does not give Australia the right to the IAEA safeguards' findings with respect to Australian nuclear material, unlike other agreements; and (7) this agreement undermines nuclear arms control and weakens Australia's non-proliferation credentials.

One of the strongest arguments in favour of concluding a nuclear cooperation agreement with India is that it brings India 'into the tent' with regard to international nuclear non-proliferation rules and norms. Far from achieving this outcome, this agreement entrenches India's nuclear deviance and privileges it ahead of Australia's other nuclear cooperation partners, thereby undermining the non-proliferation regime as a whole.

In my view, renegotiation is required to resolve the issues raised by the majority committee and by the additional comments. This could be realised either through amending the text or through an exchange of letters clarifying the text and the shared understanding and intent of the parties. If not resolved, these issues could have adverse consequences for Australia's ability to ensure that Australian nuclear material cannot contribute to any military purpose. If not resolved, there could be adverse consequences for public confidence in the agreement and for the preparedness of future governments to approve supply of nuclear material. There is also the potential for damage to Australia's international reputation and credibility as a proponent of nuclear non-proliferation and a strong upholder of nuclear safeguards.

And, as the member for Wills has said, I also want to thank the chair of the committee for doing his best to reach consensus, as far as it was possible, on many of these issues.