Senator Eric Abetz

“This afternoon Labor Senators will have the opportunity to back Australia’s economy, security and the environment and their Prime Minister when I move a motion calling on the ALP National Conference to approve the sale of Australian uranium to India,” Senator Abetz said.

This morning Senator Feeney nailed his colours to the mast when he wrote in the Age that:

People such as my colleague Senator Gavin Marshall, who want to retain Labor's policy of refusing uranium sales to India, need a powerful justification to persist with a policy that restricts trade and reduces our export income.
And
Our current policy is illogical and hypocritical. It damages our wider relationship with India while offering no prospect of bringing India into the non-proliferation treaty. It is a piece of empty moral posturing with no practical effects except harmful ones. It’s time we got rid of it.

“Accordingly I expect him to support my motion, along with other Labor Senators who back Prime Minister Gillard’s call to overturn Labor’s policy in this area,” Senator Abetz said.

URANIUM SALES TO INDIA

1. notes the Howard government's 2007 decision to sell uranium to India subject to appropriate bilateral and international safeguards;
2. calls on the ALP National Conference to approve the sale of Australian uranium to India;
3. looks forward to the improved trade and security relations with India which will flow from this initiative;
4. recognises the positive contribution nuclear energy makes to reducing greenhouse emissions; and
5. rejects the view that alternative technologies can provide a comparable low-emissions baseload energy source for India.