Ian Macdonald (Queensland, Liberal Party, Shadow Parliamentary Secretary for Northern Australia) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I move:

That the Senate take note of the document.

This document comes to the Senate at a time when the Senate has been debating the Uranium Royalty (Northern Territory) Bill 2008, a bill that was supported by all parties in the Senate and was duly passed yesterday. In the course of discussion on that bill, I sought some advice from the Labor Party on just what their position was on uranium, noting that Mr Garrett—the man who in a former life made his reputation and his fortune out of opposing uranium and singing songs about opposing uranium—curiously, and perhaps ironically, was the minister who signed off on another new uranium mine in Australia. I sought some advice as an interested citizen of Australia, but also as a senator representing the state of Queensland, on just what the ALP policy was on uranium. The parliamentary secretary at the table was kind enough to say that the policy was clear, even though I had quoted from Mr Albanese’s website, which indicated that the three mines policy was alive and well. I was told by the parliamentary secretary that that was not the case, which surprised me considering the Minister for Infrastructure, Transport, Regional Development and Local Government still had it on his website as of yesterday morning. I suspect it is probably gone by now.

The parliamentary secretary said she would get the minister responsible, Mr Ferguson, to send me a copy of the ALP’s uranium policy, which he dutifully did. I appreciate that and thank Mr Ferguson for that. It is an interesting document in that it does not say much about uranium policy; it says that if you do mine uranium it has to be done in the safest way. Well, hello! Why would any country in the world not want to do safely anything, particularly when it comes to mining uranium.

What I was really concerned about, what I really wanted to know, was what the ALP policy was in Queensland, because my state of Queensland is a state that has vast uranium resources and the ability to create jobs for Queenslanders is quite serious. We tried to look it up on the website, but when we came to the tab that said ‘Uranium Policy’ and clicked that it says: you are not eligible because you are not a member of the ALP. Queensland is led by the Australian Labor Party, and you would appreciate that Mr Rudd and Mr Swan are both members of that party. Federally they seem to approve of uranium mining, but in Queensland my understanding of the Premier is that she does not support uranium mining. I wonder how Mr Rudd and Premier Bligh get on, both being members of the Queensland division of the Australian Labor Party, when it comes to uranium. I am quite aware that the Labor member for Mount Isa, Betty Kiernan, is very much in favour of mining uranium, but Anna Bligh, the Premier, from the south-east corner of the state, who is very reliant on Green preferences, seems to be opposed to it. Senators and listeners might excuse me for being confused on just what ALP policy is on uranium.

The report of the Australian Radiation Protection and Nuclear Safety Agency also highlights some of the inconsistencies you get from nuclear use, as we do in medical areas quite dramatically these days. A lot of Queensland hospitals use the benefits of uranium and nuclear work. When it comes to storing the waste, we seem to again get a very confused message from the Australian Labor Party. The report that we are dealing with today in government documents gives a lot of good information about radiation protection and nuclear safety and brings to light where our current government, the Queensland government and other state governments stand on these very important issues.