Barry Wakelin (Grey, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

My question is addressed to the Minister for Foreign Affairs. Would the minister inform the House of the value of our uranium exports and of recent advances in the legal framework for these exports. Are there any alternative policies?

Alexander Downer (Mayo, Liberal Party, Minister for Foreign Affairs) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I thank the honourable member for Grey, whose electorate contains Roxby Downs, the second largest uranium mine in the world. It is soon to be the largest. In 2005-06 Australia exported 10,000 tonnes of uranium ore concentrates. That was valued at $545 million. The expectation is that this year our uranium exports will be worth some $700 million. That is enough uranium to power almost 50 nuclear reactors, producing, interestingly enough, 40 per cent more than Australia’s total electricity production, or two per cent of global electricity.

So our uranium exports make a very strong contribution to the global energy scene. Last year our uranium was used in the United States, Japan, France, Korea, the United Kingdom and a number of other European countries. It is worth reminding the House that on 3 February the nuclear safeguards agreement that we negotiated with China entered into force. I acknowledge that the Leader of the Opposition supported this agreement, saying that he approved of the proposal of the Australian government to negotiate and then conclude an agreement with China to export uranium to China.

The honourable member asked whether there are alternative policies. Let me make this point: the Labor Party does have an alternative policy. The Leader of the Opposition is going to go to the national conference of the Labor Party, and the Labor Party will be briefing the media that this is going to be a big challenge to get through a change to the three mines policy. Any journalist who writes that that is going to be a big challenge and a difficult task is a sucker, because that deal is already done. The Leader of the Opposition is not a brave man, and he would not take such a proposal to the Labor Party national conference if he thought there were any chance on earth of it being defeated. So do not write that story.

The second thing is that the Leader of the Opposition and the majority of the Labor Party are saying, ‘We think Australia should export more uranium.’ That is what the Labor Party’s position is, and that is good. I agree with that. The Leader of the Opposition, though, also says that nuclear power stations are a bad idea, that we should not have nuclear power stations in Australia, that we should not have nuclear power and that nuclear power is dangerous. He asks, ‘What is going to happen to all the waste?’ and all those sorts of questions. Hang on. I believe that the Leader of the Opposition goes around telling people that he is the cleverest person in politics. Bearing that in mind, if he is so clever, how come he has not worked out the rather obvious proposition, if I may say so—the obvious conundrum—for him to say that it is a good idea to export uranium but it is a bad idea to have nuclear power stations?

What does the Leader of the Opposition think that this uranium is going to be used for? Fluorescent-faced watches or something like that? Lava lamps? To pave the streets of Paris—or Beijing, dare I say it? The contradiction and the hypocrisy in the Leader of the Opposition’s position are obvious for all to see. But it makes the point, does it not, that this Leader of the Opposition always has contradictory positions. He is in favour of more uranium mining and more uranium exports, but he is totally opposed to nuclear power stations. He says that he is the most brilliant person in politics, so he has worked out that that is a contradiction. Why does he do it? He does it because the Leader of the Opposition is not only the most brilliant person in politics but also the greatest political opportunist ever seen.