CANBERRA: Australia should not sell uranium to India until it sets up an independent nuclear regulator, separate its civil and military nuclear facilities and allow safety inspections, a multi-party committee recommended on Tuesday.
The Treaties Committee tabled a report in parliament into the uranium deal with India, carefully favouring it but with few recommendations including that India should be encouraged to become a party to the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty (CTBT).
The report has for the first time addressed several issues including the uranium export to a nation which is not party to the nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT).
The merits of selling uranium to India, a deal which was inked last year by Prime Ministers Tony Abbott and Narendra Modi, were being examined by experts as part of the Treaties Committee’s inquiry into the Government’s proposal.
The report said Australia must commit to “significant diplomatic resources to encouraging India to become a party to the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty, and to negotiate a fissile material cut-off treaty.” India is not a signatory of the NPT nor CTBT.
“It would be fair to say that, in this debate, there are no small risks or benefits. Every issue the Committee has dealt with in this inquiry bears significant potential benefits and risks,” the report said.
“To begin with, the quantum of uranium involved could easily double the size of the uranium mining industry in Australia, bringing significant export revenue, and business and employment opportunities at a time when commodity prices for other mining exports are slowing the pace of growth in Australias mining industry,” it said.
“For India, the significance of the proposed Agreement is possibly even greater. As an emerging world power with a considerable shortfall of generating capacity, nuclear powered electricity generation will grow as one of a number of generating sources selected because of their low carbon emissions,” the report said.
It asked that given the benefits for Australia and India from the proposed agreement, can the risks be tolerated and ameliorated? Australian authorities estimate India’s uranium import could grow up to 2,000 tonnes a year, valued at 200 million dollars. India currently gets about 50 percent of its energy from coal and only 2 percent from nuclear power.
Australia holds about a third of the world’s recoverable uranium resources, and exports nearly 7,000 tonnes a year. Among recommendations, the report said that the uranium treaty only be ratified if India manages to achieve the full separation of civil and military nuclear facilities, and that it establishes a fully independent, nuclear regulatory body. It also recommends the International Atomic Energy Agency verify that inspections of nuclear facilities live up to international standards.
