3. The Prime Minister’s recent statements

A. General comments

17 July 2006: Committee for Economic Development of Australia, transcript: Prime Minister John Howard, "Australia's National Challenges: Energy and Water"

“Australia cannot absent herself from global development surrounding nuclear energy. We are part of the nuclear fuel cycle, whether we like it or not.”

6 June 2006: Transcript of the Prime Minister, Press Conference, Parliament House, Canberra
Source: http://www.pm.gov.au/media/...

“…what we have embarked upon is the first stage of a very significant journey and that is a journey of trying to understand whether the economic and other dynamics of this industry have so changed against the background of environmental attitudes, energy pressures, as to mean that we should and could and might afford and might sensibly embrace enrichment, perhaps a nuclear industry at some time in the future.”

20 May 2006: Transcript of the Prime Minister, Joint Press Conference with the Right Honourable Stephen Harper, Prime Minister Of Canada, Willson House, Ottawa. Source: http://www.pm.gov.au/media/...

“…But we’re in a very similar position and speaking once again for Australia, the scene on nuclear energy is going to change significantly in our country. … And I want a full blooded debate in Australia about this issue and I want all of the options on the table.”

16 May 2006: Transcript of the Prime MInister, Press Conference, The Hay Adams Hotel, Washington. Note the PM's refusal to rule out taking spent fuel rods from other countries.
Source: http://www.pm.gov.au/media/...

PM: "We sell uranium, we don’t have anything on the table at the moment that involves the processing of uranium for sale or lease as nuclear fuel."

JOURNALIST: "So I can be exactly clear. Australia will not be taking spent fuel rods from other countries?"

PM: "We have no proposal to do that."

B. Uranium Mining

29 December 2006: Press conference by the Prime Minister on releasing the final Switkowski report in Sydney.

"I ask the state governments now to remove the existing restrictions around Australia on the export of uranium. Dr Switkowski makes it very plain that the uranium industry in Australia has great potential and he’s very keen that the existing restrictions be removed and I ask Labor governments around Australia not to wait until a conference in April of next year, but act now in the interests of the country and the interests of their own states to remove the existing restrictions."

"We have the largest uranium mine in the world and we have about 38 per cent of the world’s recoverable uranium reserves so we would be nationally indolent if we didn’t take advantage of that enormous gift that providence has left us."

13 November 2006: Media release by the Minister for Industry, Tourism and Resources (Ian Macfarlane) on releasing the Uranium Industry Framework report.

""The Report recommends a two year action plan for government and industry to remove impediments to the growth of Australia's uranium industry."

25 September 2006: Statement by the Prime Minister on selling uranium to India, broadcast on ABC Radio:

"As time goes by, if India were to meet safeguard obligations, some Australians would see it as anomalous that we would sell uranium to China, but not to India."

25 September 2006: Statement by the Deputy Prime Minister, Mark Vaile on ABC.

"Our policy remains the same as it has been. The way we addressed this issue with China, we maintained we could not do business with China until we had the nuclear non-proliferation treaty signed and in place, and that is the policy that we would apply today with India."

19 October 2005: Speech by the Minister for Industry, Tourism and Resources (Ian Macfarlane) to the Uranium Conference in Freemantle.

"We are not realising our potential – Australia holds 40 per cent of the world’s low cost uranium resources, worth about $75 billion Australian dollars. But we are only the second largest producer of low-cost uranium behind Canada which has almost half the reserves we do. There is no reason why Australia can’t be the world’s largest producer. To help achieve that vision, this year I announced the development of a comprehensive, three year Uranium Industry Framework."

C. Enrichment

28 August 2006: Transcript of the Minister for Foreign Affairs. Alexander Downer, contribution to the SA Business Journal Roundtable, Adelaide.

“There are some very good arguments on why it would be better to have uranium enriched in Australia. Number one, of course, is that you could make a lot of money out of it and that's good for the country."

6 June 2006: Transcript of the Prime Minister, Press Conference, Parliament House, Canberra.
Source: http://www.pm.gov.au/media/...

“I’ve always maintained that holding the reserves of uranium that we do, it is foolish to see ourselves simply as an exporter of uranium, which the Government has very strongly supported, subject to satisfactory safeguards, for a very long period of time. I think we should also look at the value-added process, which is principally enrichment.”

“I don’t think they want to have a re-run of our historical experience with wool processing, where we had the best wool in the world, but we had to send it somewhere else to be processed. And I think a lot of them are starting to say well we’ve got all this high grade uranium, are we just simply going to be a supplier of it to other countries, or should there be an opportunity for Australia to process it?”

16 May 2006: Transcript of the Prime Minister, press conference, the Hay Adams Hotel, Washington, USA.
Source: http://www.pm.gov.au/media/...

“And I’m in favour at all times of examining whether it is in our national interest to progress the use of nuclear power in Australia. Now obviously that would include a consideration of whether we should process the uranium here. I suppose you could theoretically send the uranium elsewhere and have it processed and then buy it back as nuclear fuel. That might strike a lot of Australians as odd given that we have 40 percent of the world’s reserves of uranium. But these are all things to be discussed.”

D. Nuclear Power

6 February 2007: Speaking in Parliament, the Prime Minister said:
Source: http://www.news.com.au/dailytelegraph/...

"Let me say to the climate change purists, or the climate change fanatics (in Labor), the cleanest and greenest energy source of all is the one you won't look at, and that's nuclear power."

29 December 2006: Press conference by the Prime Minister when releasing the final Switkowski report in Sydney.
Source: http://www.pm.gov.au/news/interviews/...

"...we have to be realistic and accept that nuclear power is part of the mix, it’s part of the long term solution. It’s not the silver bullet, there’s no silver bullet, but a nation like Australia with all our uranium reserves and given our power needs and the fact that they’ll double between now and 2050, we would be crazy in the extreme if we didn’t allow for the development of nuclear power."

21 November 2006: Statement by the Prime Minister during an ABC interview on the day the Switkowski draft report is released.
Source: http://www.abc.net.au/pm/content/...

"There's no one single solution to the problem of climate change. You need every weapon in the armoury, and one of them, of course, is obviously nuclear power."

4 November 2006: Address by the Prime Minister to the Queensland Liberal Party convention.
Source: http://www.sunshinecoastdaily.com.au/...

 "Nuclear power is potentially the cleanest and greenest of them all ... And we would be foolish, from the national  interest point of view, with our vast resources of uranium, to say that we are not going to consider nuclear power."

16 October 2006: Statement by the Minister for Industry, Tourism and Resources (Ian Macfarlane) at the 15th Pacific Basin Nuclear Conference, Sydney, Australia.

 "The reality is ... it will probably be 10 years at the earliest before a nuclear power station is actually built in Australia."

15 October 2006: Statement by the Prime Minister on Channel Nine.
Source: http://www.abc.net.au/news/newsitems/...

 "In an age where we're worried about global warming we should be looking seriously at nuclear power as an option, because it's clean and it doesn't emit greenhouse gases and I can't understand why the extreme Greenies oppose it".

6 June 2006: Transcript of the Prime Minister, Press Conference, Parliament House, Canberra.
Source: http://www.pm.gov.au/media/...

“And we should also look at whether nuclear power stations in Australia become economically feasible.”

22 May 2006: Transcript of the Prime Minister, Press Conference, Farmleigh House, Dublin. 
Source: http://www.pm.gov.au/media/...

“It is a different world from what it was a few years ago, not only because of the price of oil - that’s an important factor - but also the reality that nuclear power is cleaner and greener than other forms of power. But like all forms of power generation, it’s governed by the laws of arithmetic and the laws of economics. And I’ve said all along that that is a factor, a dominant factor, a very important factor that will be involved.”

E. Nuclear Waste Disposal in Australia

23 May 2007: Interview with the Minister for Industry, Tourism and Resources, Ian Macfarlane, by The Age writer Katharine Murphy. She reported the Minister saying:

The Government would not consider nuclear fuel leasing — where Australia would take back high-level radioactive waste — until the case had been established for nuclear power. Source: http://www.theage.com.au/news/national/...

16 May 2006: Transcript of the Prime Minister, press conference, the Hay Adams Hotel, Washington, USA.  
Source: http://www.pm.gov.au/media/...

 “The question of waste disposal of course is an issue for those who process uranium and develop nuclear fuel, rather than the supplier of the uranium – which if Australia were to remain as a bare exporter would be the situation obtaining in relation to us.”

F. Global Nuclear Energy Partnership

6 September 2007: Announcement by Prime Minister John Howard during APEC2007: Source: http://www.ens-newswire.com/ens/sep2007/...

PRIME MINISTER: Australia intends to participate in the Global Nuclear Energy Partnership.

22 May 2007: Interview with US Energy Secretary Samuel Bodman by ABC Radio journlist Kim Landers: Source: http://www.abc.net.au/worldtoday/...

KIM LANDERS: You mentioned that you wanted to expand the partnership of GNEP, and I'm wondering if that could possibly include countries like Australia, which has a third of the world's uranium deposit and is now considering moving into nuclear power itself.
SAMUEL BODMAN: Yes.

21 May 2006: Transcript of the Prime Minister, Press Conference, Farmleigh House, Dublin. 
Source: http://www.pm.gov.au/media/...

JOURNALIST: “Wouldn’t it make sense in that case for the two biggest [uranium] suppliers [Canada and Australia] to seek membership of that group… wouldn’t it make sense to be in the tent, to be part of that group?”
PRIME MINISTER: “Well, it’s in its formative stages, and let’s wait and see.”

6 June 2006: Transcript of the Prime Minister, Press Conference, Parliament House, Canberra.
Source: http://www.pm.gov.au/media/...

JOURNALIST: “Isn’t it also a problem that by simply selling the ore we don’t get a seat at the ‘nuclear table’ as it were? We have no influence.”
PRIME MINISTER: “That is an issue, yes, it is an issue. It is not a dominant issue, but it is a consequence, yes. If we are not a nuclear fuel supplier then that shuts us out of certain gatherings.”