urg::: Union wants uranium ban lifted

Fri Sep 23 07:10:26 EST 2005

News Limited

Union wants uranium ban lifted
23-09-2005
From: AAP

ONE of Australia's biggest unions has urged the Labor Party to dump 
its ban on new uranium mines.

Bill Ludwig, national president of the Australian Workers' Union 
(AWU), has called on Queensland Premier Peter Beattie to lift his 
state's ban on uranium mining, The Australian newspaper reported 
today.

The AWU would take a proposal to the next federal Labor conference in 
2007 calling on the party to scrap its 20-year-old "three mines" 
policy, the paper said.

"I think we should have a practical debate about this and not an 
emotional one," Mr Ludwig said.

"We've got no in-principle opposition to nuclear power, provided it 
is done in a responsible way."

Mr Ludwig's remarks were expected to reopen hostilities in the labour 
movement, with other major unions such as the CFMEU and AMWU bitterly 
opposed to nuclear power, the newspaper reported.

The Australian's Editorial: Nuclear standoff

September 23, 2005

It's time for Labor to modernise its uranium policy

WHEN Queensland union leader and Labor strongman Bill Ludwig speaks, 
he can usually depend on his party's undivided attention. So it's 
just possible his intervention in calling on Queensland Premier Peter 
Beattie to abandon his opposition to any expansion of uranium mining 
will be the catalyst the ALP needs to drag its outdated three-mines 
policy kicking and screaming into the 21st century. In making his 
call for a rational uranium policy that recognises escalating world 
demand for greenhouse-gas-free energy, not to mention soaring prices 
and hundreds more mining jobs, Mr Ludwig, Queensland secretary of the 
Australian Workers Union, has joined federal Labor resources 
spokesman Martin Ferguson in accepting the ALP needs a seismic shift 
in its policy thinking towards the Centre to restore its credibility. 
The ALP's hypocritical, decades-old uranium policy, which says it is 
fine to mine uranium at South Australia's Olympic Dam and Beverley 
mines but not in Queensland or the other states, can no longer stand 
up against the evidence that Australia is missing out on billions of 
dollars in potential exports in an energy market predicted to double 
over the next 30 years. Perhaps Mr Ludwig has hopes of increasing his 
membership if uranium mining begins in Queensland, thus advancing the 
AWU's interests against the rival union that represents coal miners. 
But whatever his motive, his argument in favour of uranium mining 
merits debate.

Last month Mr Ferguson, a left-wing stalwart, exploded one of his 
faction's sacred cows when he declared it would be hard to begrudge 
energy-hungry China access to Australian uranium for peaceful 
purposes. He was right. Australia has more than a third of the 
world's uranium, but supplies only a fraction of the ore for the more 
than 400 reactors around the globe. In Queensland, an estimated 
35,000 tonnes of low-cost recoverable uranium worth about $3 billion 
remains underground. Apparently deaf to increasing pressure from 
Canberra for the anti-uranium states to bring down the yellow cake 
barricades, Mr Beattie continues to back his local coal industry, 
arguing Queensland has a 300-year supply of the fossil fuel and 
insisting Australia should push to develop "clean coal" energy. In 
taking this stand the Premier is badly out of step with the 
Queensland Resources Council, which has called for new uranium mines 
to be opened in the state. He is also out of step with burgeoning 
world opinion that nuclear is the way to go if the international 
community is to tackle global warming in a serious fashion. At the 
same time, he appears to be ignoring glaring indications that 
Australia's coal, as well as its uranium, is likely to be needed to 
feed the Asian tiger's insatiable appetite for energy.

With its move to take control of the Northern Territory's uranium 
deposits last month, the Howard Government has secured the initiative 
in a battle Labor cannot afford to lose as it attempts to rebuild an 
image of relevance. The explosive power the issue continues to wield 
within the ALP means the looming fight for a uranium policy remake 
will be bloody. Together with Mr Beattie, West Australian Premier 
Geoff Gallop and South Australian Premier Mike Rann remain staunch 
opponents of opening new mines, but there are cracks in the ALP's 
policy facade. When he was NSW premier, Bob Carr threw the equivalent 
of an incendiary device into Labor ranks by calling for a debate on 
the use of nuclear fuel in the face of global warming. In Western 
Australia, Labor MP Shelley Archer backs Mr Ferguson's call for a 
debate on the ban on uranium mining there. It is time for Opposition 
Leader Kim Beazley to force the ALP to forge a modern uranium policy. 
Mr Beazley needs to demonstrate some spine and take on his party's 
energy dinosaurs.