http://www.aph.gov.au/house/committee/jsct/14may2008/report1.htm
Submissions and transcripts of hearings are posted at:
http://www.aph.gov.au/house/committee/jsct/14may2008/index.htm
Below is:
* a summary of the report
* the JSCT media release, and
* the tabling speech by JSCT Chair Kelvin Thomson.
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Courageous decision on Russian nuclear deal
By Jim Green
ABC Opinion
19/9/08
http://www.abc.net.au/news/stories/2008/09/19/2369093.htm
On Thursday, the Federal Parliament’s Joint Standing Committee on Treaties had the courage to recommend against ratification of the uranium export agreement signed by John Howard and Vladimir Putin last September.
The majority report, written by committee chair Kelvin Thompson and other Labor members, concludes that the government should not ratify the agreement until a number of onerous conditions have been met, the most important being the implementation of nuclear safeguards inspections in Russia, separation of civilian and military nuclear facilities, demonstrated compliance with disarmament obligations, demonstrated resolution of the problem of nuclear theft and smuggling, and proper consideration of the ramifications of "recent political events affecting Russia" (read: Russia’s invasion of Georgia).
The claim by the Australian Safeguards and Non-Proliferation Office (ASNO) that "strict" safeguards conditions will "ensure" that uranium remains in peaceful use has been exposed for the lie that it is. The Safeguards Office conspicuously failed to provide any information to the Joint Standing Committee on the reality of safeguards in Russia. It was left to Friends of the Earth to do the research, the conclusion being that there have been no International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) safeguards inspections in Russia since 2001, and there is no reason to believe that this pattern of non-inspection will change in the future.
Not unreasonably, the Joint Standing Committee concluded that: "It is essential that actual physical inspection by the IAEA occurs at any Russian sites that may handle [Australian Obligated Nuclear Materials]. Further, the supply of uranium to Russia should be contingent upon such inspections being carried out."
Conceding that that there have been no IAEA inspections in Russia for many years, Foreign Minister Stephen Smith has nevertheless claimed that the Howard/Putin agreement "meets all of Australia’s long-standing safeguards requirements." That is precisely the problem, Mr Smith! Australia exports uranium with no requirement for IAEA inspections to take place. Moreover, the Howard/Putin agreement makes no provision for independent, Australian inspection and verification and we are therefore totally dependent on IAEA safeguards – which are non-existent!
In the short term, diversion of Australian uranium for weapons production is unlikely given the size of Russia’s nuclear weapons arsenal and its stockpiles of fissile materials. But as Kelvin Thompson has noted, "with uranium you have to have a system which is foolproof for hundreds of years." And in the short term there is certainly a risk of theft and smuggling of Australia’s uranium and its various by-products. The IAEA’s director-general, Dr Mohamed El Baradei, has recently estimated that only half of Russia’s nuclear materials have been reasonably secured.
If Stephen Smith and Prime Minister Kevin Rudd intend to ratify the Howard/Putin agreement, they will need to argue that Russia is complying with its disarmament obligations under the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) even though Russia is doing no such thing. Russia’s arsenal of over 14,000 nuclear weapons has an explosive yield equivalent to 200,000 Hiroshima bombs. The reduction in the number of nuclear weapons held by Russia is no comfort since, in Putin’s words, Russia plans to make its nuclear arsenal "more compact but more effective".
Putin has said that maintaining a nuclear arsenal "remains one of the top priorities of Russian Federation policy" and that Russia will develop "completely new strategic [nuclear] complexes." Once again demonstrating its contemptuous attitude towards nuclear disarmament norms and obligations, Russia threatened Poland with nuclear strikes following an August 20 agreement to host US missile defence bases in Poland.
Ratifying a uranium export agreement with a belligerent nuclear weapons states would shred the Rudd government’s credibility ahead of the formal launch of its International Commission on Nuclear Non-Proliferation and Disarmament in October.
The Joint Standing Committee notes that there is no imperative for early ratification of the Howard/Putin agreement and it advises reconsideration of the agreement after the 2010 NPT Review Conference. Last week, the Bush administration withdrew from Congressional consideration a similar nuclear cooperation agreement with Russia, citing Russia’s invasion of Georgia and its support for Iran’s nuclear program.
Supporters of the Howard/Putin agreement have argued that it would be irresponsible to withhold energy supplies from Russia in response to its invasion of Georgia and that to do so would legitimise Russia’s withholding of gas supplies from eastern Europe in recent years.
That argument misses the obvious point that uranium is not only an energy source but also feedstock for weapons of mass destruction.
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Treaties Committee report on sale of uranium to Russia
Media release
<www.aph.gov.au/house/committee/jsct/14may2008/media/media04.pdf>
In its 94th report tabled today, the Federal Parliament’s Treaties Committee reports on an agreement with the Russian Federation on cooperation in the use of nuclear energy for peaceful purposes. This agreement will, for the first time, allow Australia to provide uranium for use in Russia’s nuclear power plants.
Long standing Australian Government policy has only allowed Australian uranium and nuclear material derived from it to be exported to countries with which Australia has concluded a safeguards agreement. The key objective of safeguards agreements is to ensure that no material is ever used for, or diverted to, any military purpose.
Australia’s safeguards agreements are designed to complement the International Atomic Energy Agency’s (IAEA) safeguards system. The Committee heard a range of evidence at its public hearings in Melbourne and Canberra that drew into question the adequacy of the inspections regime for nuclear weapons states such as Russia.
The Committee considered that it is essential that the highest possible standards and safeguards be applied in the supply of Australian uranium for nuclear purposes. The Committee has therefore recommended that ratification of this agreement does not proceed until:
(a) Russia’s reform process to clearly separate its civilian nuclear and military nuclear facilities is completed and independently verified;
(b) IAEA inspections are implemented for Russian facilities that will handle Australian Obligated Nuclear Materials;
(c) The Government is satisfied that the Russian Federation is complying with its obligations under the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons (NPT) noting that this treaty is scheduled for review in 2010;
(d) The Government is satisfied that Russia will not subsequently abandon this treaty or other nuclear treaties;
(e) Further consideration is given to the potential ramifications for this agreement of recent political events affecting Russia;
(f) Further consideration is given to Article IX of the Agreements, `State Secrets’, and the Government is confident that this article will not undermine the intent of this agreement;
(g) Further consideration is given to the justification for secrecy of `Material Unaccounted For’; and
(h) The Australian Government discusses with the United States, United Kingdom, European Union, Canada and Japan, whether the problems of the past in relation to Russian nuclear material being stolen, have now been addressed satisfactorily.
The Committee has also reiterated a previous Committee recommendation that the Australian Government lobbies the IAEA and the five declared nuclear weapons states under the NPT to make the safeguarding of all conversion facilities mandatory. The Committee also considered that Australian efforts to strengthen the resourcing of the IAEA should be continued.
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Kelvin Thomson, Chair of the Joint Standing Committee on Treaties, speech to Parliament on 18/9/08
Mr KELVIN THOMSON—by leave—Report 94 contains the committee’s findings on two treaty actions tabled on 14 May 2008.
After a careful and extensive sifting of evidence both for and against ratifying the treaty which would open up uranium sales to Russia, the treaties committee recommends that the Australian government not proceed with ratification of the treaty until:
(a) Russia’s reform process to clearly separate its civilian nuclear and military nuclear facilities is completed and independently verified;
(b) IAEA inspections are implemented for Russian facilities that will handle Australian obligated nuclear materials;
(c) The government is satisfied that the Russian Federation is complying with its obligations under the Treaty on the Nonproliferation of Nuclear Weapons (NPT) noting that this treaty is scheduled for review in 2010;
(d) The government is satisfied that Russia will not subsequently abandon this treaty or other nuclear treaties;
(e) Further consideration is given to the potential ramifications for this agreement of recent political events affecting Russia;
(f) Further consideration is given to article IX of the agreement, ‘State Secrets’, and the government is confident that this article will not undermine the intent of this agreement;
(g) Further consideration is given to the justification for secrecy of ‘material unaccounted for’; and
(h) The Australian government discusses with the United States, United Kingdom, European Union, Canada and Japan, whether the problems of the past in relation to Russian nuclear material being stolen, have now been addressed satisfactorily.
Clearly we have set the bar high, but each of the conditions represents a considered response to the evidence before the committee. Some Liberal Party members of the committee have dissented from the committee majority, arguing that we should ratify the treaty now and that our conditions are unnecessary. They say we can have confidence in the International Atomic Energy Agency. But when we went to war in Iraq, the Liberal Party insisted that we were at risk from weapons of mass destruction and advanced the notion of preventive war. This was a massive vote of no confidence in the IAEA. But now this same Liberal Party says the IAEA will ensure that nothing goes wrong— and this despite the IAEA not having carried out any inspections in Russia since at least 2001, and probably longer.
The Liberal Party is so hungry for the uranium export dollars that they want to believe nothing can go wrong. They are prepared to turn a blind eye to what happens after we sell the uranium to Russia. If this sounds familiar, that is because it is. Remember the AWB scandal? Liberal and National Party ministers received numerous warnings that AWB was paying kickbacks to Saddam Hussein. They turned a blind eye to them. The present Leader of the National Party, for example, was warned by wheat grower Ray Brooks. His response was that the AWB blokes were good blokes who would not do a thing like that. They were hungry for the wheat export dollars. This hunger blinded them to the need to be thorough, the need to check things out properly. It is the same here. The Liberal Party’s hunger for the uranium export dollars blinds them to the need to be thorough, the need to check things out properly.
I suspect there are those who will seek to portray the committee’s recommendations as the product of left-wing, anti-uranium prejudice. Such a portrayal is without foundation. In the United States, both Republicans and Democrats alike have joined forces and withdrawn an agreement for civilian nuclear co-operation with Russia. It is in many respects a parallel treaty to this one. Are the United States Republicans and Democrats left-wing, anti-uranium zealots? No, they are simply reacting to the facts before them. That is what the treaties committee has done. We are not opposing the export of uranium. What we are saying is that uranium is an unusual product, dangerous to human health and the environment for thousands of years and capable of inflicting massive carnage in the hands of terrorists or rogue states. Accordingly, it requires great care.
So concerned was the Liberal Party about the risk to us all from weapons of mass destruction that they took us into war in Iraq, with its death toll of thousands of innocent lives and its never-ending misery. Yet they are now so unconcerned about the risk of materials being diverted, stolen or ending up in the hands of rogue states like Iran that they are not even prepared to sign up for a set of recommendations which guarantees inspections, which asks hard questions and which challenges secrecy provisions—in short, which accepts our responsibilities. If you sell uranium, there are responsibilities that come with that. The committee majority has accepted these responsibilities. The committee minority has abdicated them. They would take the money and run. We owe the world, and ourselves, better than that.