PA/46/11 15 November 2011
Australia’s Prime Minister Supports Sale of Uranium to India
Public comments from Australia’s Prime Minister, The Hon. Julia Gillard MP:
1) Excerpt from an opinion piece in today’s Sydney Morning Herald newspaper about next month’s Australian Labor Party Conference
“…just as I have said to the nation that we must analyse and understand the opportunities and challenges of this Asian century, the Labor Party too has to focus on our long-term economic goals and be prepared to confront difficult questions about maximising prosperity and the strength of our relationships in our region of the world.”
“One of our nearest neighbours is India. Long a close partner. The world's biggest democracy. Growing at 8 per cent a year. Yet despite the links of language, heritage and democratic values, in one important regard we treat India differently. We will not sell India uranium for peaceful purposes - though Canada is preparing to - while policy allows us to export it to countries such as China, Japan and the United States.”
“It is time for Labor to modernise our platform and enable us to strengthen our connection with dynamic, democratic India. As in other areas, broadening our markets will increase jobs. We must, of course, expect of India the same standards we do of all countries for uranium export - strict adherence to International Atomic Energy Agency arrangements and strong bilateral undertakings and transparency measures that will provide assurances our uranium will be used only for peaceful purposes.”
2) Excerpt from Prime Minister’s Press Conference in Canberra, Australia, today (15/11)
“I want to outline my approach to a number of issues at the forthcoming ALP National Conference. Firstly, I want to deal with the question of uranium and India.
The Labor Party’s current platform prevents us selling uranium to India, because it is not part of the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty. I believe the time has come for the Labor Party to change this position. I believe that for three reasons.”
“First and foremost selling uranium to India will be good for the Australian economy and good for Australian jobs. If I can give you just some quick statistics about that, Australia is the world’s third largest supplier of uranium; uranium contributes over $750 million to the Australian economy, creating over 4,200 jobs. India is expected to increase its use of nuclear power from its current three percent of electricity generation to 40 percent by 2050. India is our fourth biggest export market, a market worth nearly $16 billion to Australia with enormous potential to grow as India becomes wealthier. I think those statistics give a sense of the size and scale of the economic opportunity here for Australia in the future, as India rises and brings hundreds of millions of people out of poverty, it will need more energy, it is looking to supply 40% of that energy need through nuclear energy, we are a very big supplier of uranium so having access to this new and growing market is good for Australian jobs.”
“Second I believe that this will be one way we can take another step forward in our relationship with India. We have a good relationship with India, it’s the world’s largest democracy, a stable democracy and we have worked on our links with India, but as I have described to the Australian people before, Australia faces a unique set of opportunities in this the Asian century, where we live in the right region of the world which will see strong economic growth and India as a rising giant will be part of that strong economic growth, so put simply our best possible partnership with India is also good for Australian jobs.”
“Third I believe this change should make sense and should take place because circumstances have developed in the international community. It made sense, the current platform, when there was a widely supported international strategy to bring India into the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty, there was a period of time where that was a widely engaged in international strategy, but the US-India Civil Nuclear Agreement changed that strategy, it effectively lifted the de-facto international ban on cooperation with India in this area. Consequently given that change in diplomatic circumstances around the world, for us to refuse to budge is all pain with no gain and I believe that our national platform should recognise that reality.”
“So this is a significant issue for Australia that will be the subject of discussion and debate at our National Conference but I am making my position on this issue very clear.”