Showdown Looms Between Gillard, Bligh Over Queensland Opposition to Uranium Mining

A showdown looms between Australian Prime Minister Julia Gillard and Queensland Premier Anna Bligh over the state's opposition to uranium mining. Bligh said the state has no plan to review or revise the policy.

However, Ms Gillard is pushing for Labor to drop the ban on export of uranium to India in a bid to strengthen Australia's trade ties with India which did not ink the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NNPT).

The prime minister said it Australia would sell uranium to India to be used for peaceful purposes it would widen Australia's markets and increase job generation. However, Labor has a policy that bans sale of uranium to countries that are not signatories to the NNPT.

Ms Gillard has the support of Resources Minister Martin Ferguson and Foreign Minister Kevin Rudd. Despite the pressure, Ms Bligh refused to change Queensland's stand.

"If there is a debate at national conference about whether or not Australian uranium should be going to countries like India, it won't change the policy that we have in Queensland, which is that we don't mine our uranium," ABC quoted Ms Bligh.

India explained that it did not sign the NNPT because the south Asian nation wants to keep its nuclear option to defend itself against Pakistan and China, which have nuclear arms.

Ms Bligh insisted that amendments to the Labor policy would not affect Queensland's stand against uranium mining.

"Queensland is currently being overwhelmed almost by the amount of investment in new mining in coal and giving birth to whole new gas industry.... We do not have a mining deficit here in Queensland and we don't have any reason to be changing our policy on uranium," Ms Bligh stressed.

The prime minister defended the proposed changed in policy, claiming India will have to meet the same benchmarks that apply to buyers of Australian uranium such as strict adherence to International Atomic Energy Agency arrangements and strong bilateral and transparency measures.

Senator Doug Cameron spoke against the export of uranium to Indian because it could free up uranium supply within India which the country could use for its military program and add to the nuclear arms race.

Mr Cameron pointed out that India has intermediate-range missiles and is developing nuclear submarines with nuclear weapons.

However, Mr Ferguson pointed out that Australia sells uranium to China and Russia so it is hypocritical for the country not to sell the same resource to India which is one of the 10 largest economies in the world with huge purchasing power.

An informal survey by The Sydney Morning Herald found that 67 per cent of its readers favour lifting the uranium export ban to India, while 20 per cent said New Delhi should first ink the NNPT and another 13 per cent want the export prohibition to remain.