Australia moves to sell Uranium to Russia
Updated
The Australian Government has paved the way for it to sell uranium to Russia. The former Howard Government signed an agreement in 2007 on the sale but it was never ratified. In 2008 a parliamentary inquiry recommended the deal be scrapped unless eight stringent conditions were met, including the resumption of inspections of Russian nuclear facilities by the global watchdog, the International Atomic Energy Agency. Now, the federal government has decided the treaty contains "appropriate safeguards" for Australian uranium to be used in Russia's civil nuclear sector. The government says it will make a final decision on ratifying the agreement "in due course".
Presenter: Alexandra Kirk
Speakers: David Noonan, Australian Conservation Foundation
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NOONAN: This is the Howard-Putin nuclear deal from 2007 before the last federal election. We had expected federal Labor to honour their policy and election commitments to strengthen rather than to weaken nuclear safeguards. Clearly they're looking to breach the strong conditions and recommendations of this federal parliamentary inquiry not to proceed with proposed uranium sales to Russia.
KIRK: But the Government says that the agreement that Australia would have with Russia would ensure that any uranium supplied could only be used for peaceful purposes, that it has to be subject to Russia's safeguards agreement with the International Atomic Energy Agency and could only be used in facilities jointly agreed to by Australia and Russia.
NOONAN: Well we believe that on the evidence presented to the federal parliamentary inquiry Australian uranium would simply disappear off the safeguards radar on arrival in Russia.
This treaty allows Australian uranium to be used in facilities that are not covered by the International Atomic Energy Agency. It provides specifically for the substitution of Australian uranium for uranium from other countries and that they would then ignore essentially where our own uranium would go.
KIRK: Under agreements already in place, while there's no obligation on Russia to accept safeguards under the international atomic agency rules, they have agreed to have voluntary safeguard agreements with the IAEA, and they have ratified the Comprehensive Nuclear Test Ban Treaty a decade ago.
Where's the evidence that they would breach any of these agreements?
NOONAN: Well the federal parliamentary inquiry recommended that there should be a complete separation of the military from the civilian nuclear sector in Russia and that there should be independent verification of that separation. Clearly that hasn't happened.
The inquiry also recommended that there should be evidence that Russia was finally providing proper nuclear security on both fissile material and on radioactive waste, and there is a long history of failure to provide proper security for nuclear material in Russia.
KIRK: Is the bottom line that the Australia Conservation Foundation is against Australia mining or selling uranium fullstop?
NOONAN: Look, mining and selling uranium is unsustainable and it is particularly adverse to be promoting that the absolute failure of standards in the Russian nuclear sector as an example of confidence this federal Labor Government claims the community can have in the nuclear sector and in the so-called assurances around Australian uranium exports.
