Andrew Bartlett (Queensland, Australian Democrats) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I move:

That the Senate take note of the documents.

These documents both relate to agreements between the government of Australia and the government of the People’s Republic of China on the transfer of nuclear material and cooperation in the peaceful uses of nuclear energy. According to the summary page given: ‘The agreements seek to cover the transfer of nuclear material and nuclear cooperation, including the transfer of nuclear-related material, equipment or technology. The purpose of the agreements is to establish between Australia and China appropriate nuclear safeguards and a physical protection regime for Australian uranium and nuclear material derived from it supplied to China. These agreements will allow for the supply of Australian uranium to China’s nuclear power program and establish strict safeguard arrangements and conditions to ensure such supplies are used exclusively for peaceful purposes.’

Whether or not they do that is a matter of opinion. I will not express an opinion on that at the moment because one of the reasons I am speaking on them is to draw public attention to the fact that they have been tabled and that they will automatically be the subject of an inquiry by the Joint Standing Committee on Treaties, a committee in this parliament which serves a useful function in examining some of these agreements. This is an area of great public interest and of great public and global significance. I encourage those in the public arena who have an interest in this issue to follow this debate and participate, if they wish, in the inquiry that will be undertaken by the Joint Standing Committee on Treaties.

As an aside to the debate, without going straight to its heart, I think the issue of the human rights record of China does need to be taken into consideration when we are considering undertaking major trade and treaty agreements, including on nuclear material. No country in the world is pure when it comes to human rights, but I think it is an eminently defendable statement to say that the human rights record of China is on the poorer end of the spectrum. There are very serious human rights abuses in the way the government of China operates. The fact that there are enormous trade opportunities with that government should not be used as a reason to sweep those human rights abuses under the carpet.

There is a wider debate that needs to be had amongst the global community about disarmament and nuclear proliferation. One of the greater concerns I have, beyond an agreement with any one specific country, is the issue of disarmament. The word ‘disarmament’ seems to have disappeared from the political lexicon in recent times. Despite all the talk of concerns about weapons of mass destruction that was thrown around the place a few years ago to justify military action in Iraq, there is very little political will or desire amongst many governments on the global stage to pursue the reduction of weapons of mass destruction. We might want to stop them getting into the hands of a particular bunch of people, but there does not seem to be any great desire anymore to reduce the overall numbers of weapons.

I suggest that the fewer weapons there are in total, the lower the chance there is of any of them falling into what might be perceived as the wrong hands. I think we need to re-energise the whole global disarmament debate—not just about nuclear weapons, but about weaponry of all sorts. As we are seeing in the Middle East at the moment, continuing supplies of weaponry from all sides are contributing a lot to continual escalation of conflict and, frankly, increase the risk that it might widen to a scale that could well bite all of us in very nasty ways. So there are big debates that I believe we need to re-energise. This is just one part of it, but it is a part of it that I hope the public do participate in.

Question agreed to.