Shadow minister highlights Australian uranium mood swing

Fremantle, Australia — One of the most influential figures in the federal Australian Labor Party (ALP) drew strong applause at the first Australian Uranium Conference last month after speaking about the possibility of replacing the party’s restrictive “No New Mines” uranium policy.

Martin Ferguson, the shadow minister (or opposition critic) for Primary Industries, Resources, Forestry and Tourism, was the first speaker to address the 300 delegates in attendance at the recent conference, held here in the west Australian port city of Fremantle.

Ferguson, a former secretary of the powerful Australian Council of Trade Unions (ACTU), said that any decisions made on uranium policy during the next Federal Council meeting of the ALP in 2007 would be binding on all states.

The current No New Mines policy was instituted by the ALP in 1995 to replace the earlier Three Mines policy; both have effectively limited the country’s uranium mine development to expansion of its three existing mines.

Although the ALP is currently in opposition federally to the generally pro-uranium Liberal-National coalition government, the premiers of all of Australia’s states and territories belong to the ALP.

Ferguson said that the impact of the policy has been limited until recently, when uranium prices have skyrocketed.

He said there has been a political reappraisal of many issues, including the validity of the Kyoto Protocol — something Labor favoured in the 2004 general election, but which Britain’s Prime Minister Tony Blair and large business groups in New Zealand have recently expressed misgivings about.

Ferguson said Australia was blessed with great energy resources including natural gas and coal-bed methane, and is a dominant player in world uranium supply. As such, he added, it was time for Australia to face up to the responsibilities that come with being “owners of globally important nuclear energy resources.”

Ferguson later told the media a proper nuclear debate has been avoided for years.

“As a nation, we don’t have a clear view about the role of nuclear power in the world,” Ferguson said. “We don’t have a clear view about the strategic nature of Australia’s uranium resource.”

He added: “We do not even have a solution for the safe disposal of low and intermediate-level nuclear waste generated in our own country, let alone a clear view of the solution for high-level nuclear waste generated around the globe from nuclear power operations.”

This was a point revisited by Ian Duncan, a former project manager of Olympic Dam — one of the three existing uranium mines in Australia. Duncan, who spoke on the second day of the conference, told the delegates there were vast areas in remote Australia that could be used to house nuclear and other wastes.

Recently former Labor Prime Minister, Robert Hawke surprised some party members by suggesting that Australia should accept the world’s nuclear waste, given that the country’s large geological structures may be suited to holding radioactive or hazardous waste materials.

Not all Labor premiers are against new uranium mines: recently retired New South Wales Premier Bob Carr was reportedly in favour of lifting the restrictive Three Mines policy, and South Australian Premier Mike Rann — soon to face an election — also wants to see more development. South Australia dominates Australian uranium mining with Olympic Dam and the world’s biggest in situ leach (ISL) mine at Beverley, operated by Heathgate Resources, a subsidiary of big U.S. utility General Atomics.

However, a few days before the conference, the Australian Stock Exchange, which had been running hot on uranium stocks, was tripped up after news filtered through that the South Australian State ALP meeting had voted for no changes to existing uranium policies.

This was an ambush, in which a hardline group from the Australian Conservation Council was reportedly involved, and also a slap in the face for Premier Mike Rann, a self-professed supporter of mining whose state maintains a drilling fund to support local exploration.

South Australia was seen as the place to explore for uranium, not only because of the prospective geology, but as the only state where a Labor premier had proclaimed no aversion or qualification to uranium development.

News of this unexpected outcome produced an immediate downgrade of shares of companies exploring South Australia for uranium. It also prompted a brief statement by South Australia Mines Minister Paul Holloway stressing exploration as a high-priority issue for the state. He also said that he would be supporting a review of Labor’s national uranium mining policy and that any planned production expansion for Olympic Dam by new owner BHP Billiton (bhp-n, bhp-a) would be supported.

— The author is a freelance writer based in Perth, Australia.

Table 1: The World’s Top Uranium Producing Nations

TOTAL (incl. others)47,455

Source: Intierra

Table 2: The World’s Top Uranium Mines

Source: Intierra