Greens want rethink on India uranium sales

15 Oct 2012, 9:57 am   -   Source: AAP
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Greens leader Christine Milne wants the government to rethink its plan to sell uranium to India. (AAP)

Greens leader Christine Milne wants the government to rethink its plan to sell uranium to India. (AAP)

Greens leader Christine Milne says a nuclear accident in India is almost certain and Australia should back away from plans to sell uranium there.

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The Australian Greens have called on the federal government to rethink its decision to allow uranium exports to India, warning a nuclear accident there is almost a certainty.

The call comes as Julia Gillard prepares to make her first visit to the subcontinent as prime minister.

Uranium exports are expected to be up for discussion with India's prime minister Manmohan Singh, following a decision by the ALP national conference last year to lift a long-standing ban on sales.

India is not a signatory to the nuclear non-proliferation treaty, something that worries Greens leader Christine Milne.

"But not only that, India's own regulator has said that the industry in India is virtually unregulated in many places," she told reporters in Canberra on Monday.

Safety reports were frequently not done.

"That is almost a guarantee there will be an accident of some kind and Australia will be feeding into that," she said.

Fellow Greens senator Scott Ludlam says Ms Gillard should put human rights and safety before uranium profits.

"Recently at the site of a nuclear reactor in Koodankulam (in India), police have used brutal tactics against tens of thousands of peaceful protesters," he said.

Opposition Senate leader Eric Abetz said the coalition had always backed uranium sales to India.

But Labor did not know whether to follow commonsense or the "extreme Green agenda" and its own left wing.

"That is why the Labor Party has been in this quite bizarre dilemma in relation to uranium," he said.

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Your Comments

re nucables

R Thind - from Merrylands, 8 months ago

With India's current projected C02 output I'd have thought The Greens would be doing cartwheels at the prospect of India replacing coal fired power stations whith renewable nuclear energy.

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