[Bhpbilliton] Uranium policy a hypocrisy

[Christina Hill]

This article from today's Age newspaper may be of interest. 

 

Cheers, Christina 

 

 

Christina Hill
Acting Mining Advocacy Coordinator 
Oxfam Australia
132 Leicester St
Carlton Vic 3053
www.oxfam.org.au <http://www.oxfam.org.au/> 

 

Tel: +61 3 9289 9311
Fax: +61 3 9347 1495


 


Uranium policy a hypocrisy


DAVID NOONAN


The Age, October 5, 2009 

http://www.theage.com.au/opinion/politics/uranium-policy-a-hypocrisy-200
91004-ght0.html 

As China celebrates the 60th anniversary of communist rule with a
slickly orchestrated march down the Avenue of Eternal Peace to Tiananmen
Square that featured new nuclear-capable intercontinental ballistic
missiles, it is a fitting moment to question Australia's role as uranium
supplier to the crouching tiger of our region.

After the United Nations Security Council, with a push from US President
Barack Obama, agreed to a historic resolution last month to rid the
world of nuclear weapons, Australia needs to consider whether we see our
future as supplying China's uranium market. We also need to assess the
broader effects of Australia's uranium exports on nuclear
non-proliferation, regional security and China's human rights record.

One of Kevin Rudd's early initiatives as prime minister was to establish
the International Commission on Nuclear Non-Proliferation and
Disarmament, co-chaired by former foreign minister Gareth Evans, saying
this would be ''our gift to the world''.

Unfortunately, Australia can never credibly lead on nuclear
non-proliferation and disarmament while spreading nuclear risks as one
of the world's largest uranium suppliers. The mismatch between
Australia's rhetoric and the illusion of protection provided by nuclear
safeguards is stark in the case of China.

As a uranium exporter, Australia has a responsibility to strengthen
nuclear safeguards and to act decisively to disqualify any state that
does not fully observe its Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty obligations.
China is modernising - rather than eliminating - its nuclear arsenal and
has so far failed to ratify the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty. China is
one country that does not meet its non-proliferation treaty obligations.

BHP Billiton's plan to expand the Roxby Downs (Olympic Dam) copper and
uranium mine is being considered by the federal and South Australian
governments. BHP proposes the world's largest open pit mine as a uranium
quarry to fuel the global nuclear industry, with much of its efforts
directed towards China. BHP's plan would see Australia selling
uranium-infused bulk copper concentrate for processing in China,
transferring more than a million tonnes a year of radioactive waste and
thousands of tonnes of uranium.

Australian uranium will effectively disappear off the safeguards radar
on arrival in China, a country whose military is inextricably linked to
the civilian nuclear sector and where nuclear whistleblowers and critics
are brutally suppressed and jailed. This alone is reason to disqualify
China from acquiring Australian uranium.

In July, a well-known environmental activist and recipient in 2006 of
the prestigious Nuclear-Free Future Award, Sun Xiaodi, and his daughter
Sun Dunbai were jailed and sent to a ''re-education through labour''
camp for their efforts to expose corruption and contamination in China's
nuclear industry.

Sun Xiaodi is a former worker at No. 792 Uranium Mine in Gansu province
in north-west China. Since 1988, the whistleblower has travelled
repeatedly to Beijing to petition the Government to end corruption in
China's nuclear industry and to speak out for the rights of uranium mine
workers.

According to Chinese court documents, the crimes Sun Xiaodi and Sun
Dunbai are guilty of include inciting the public with libellous slogans
including "nuclear pollution" and "human rights violation". In reality,
Sun Xiaodi and Sun Dunbai are paying a very high price for speaking out.

Australians should recognise that it is not appropriate for us to export
uranium to a government that does not tolerate criticism of its nuclear
industry and fails to meet minimum international human rights standards.
We should also be mindful that our commitments to non-proliferation are
in conflict with our ''dual use'' uranium sales.

Australian uranium produces plutonium - a potent bomb-making material -
in nuclear reactors overseas. Australia consents to the separation and
stockpiling of this plutonium through the ''reprocessing'' of spent
nuclear fuel waste in a number of countries, including China. While our
Government says that the plutonium is only to be used for peaceful
purposes, we are in effect being asked to trust this and every future
Beijing regime.

Nuclear waste management remains unresolved around the world. With the
future of high-level nuclear waste accumulating at reactor sites across
the US still unresolved after 50 years of the nuclear industry, how can
BHP provide any credible assurances on nuclear waste management in
China?

Australia is strutting the international stage claiming credentials as a
regional democratic voice, nodding our head in agreement with the US
President's call for the abolition of nuclear weapons, while propping up
the nuclear sector in a China that is suppressing human rights,
modernising its nuclear weapons arsenal and engaging in building nuclear
reactors in Pakistan that will increase plutonium production capacity.

Australia's reputation and nuclear-safeguard responsibilities should not
be further compromised to suit BHP Billiton's commercial interests. The
first shipment of Australian uranium that BHP has now sent to China
should be the last.

The only potentially credible future for BHP's Roxby Down mine and the
proposed expansion is to trade only in copper and to leave the uranium
and other radioactive wastes at the mine site.

David Noonan is the Australian Conservation Foundation's nuclear-free
campaigner.

 

 

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