ALP's stupid nuclear snub

THE Rudd Labor government faced the first test of its diplomatic skills last week and flunked.

No, that's not a reference to its failure to stop acts of piracy in the Southern Ocean, it's a clear reference to its inability to confront the more demanding issue of uranium sales to the largest English-speaking democracy in the world, and one of the biggest nations, India. Foreign Minister Stephen Smith snubbed India's nuclear envoy Shyam Saran when he was in Perth for talks, telling the Indian that "party politics'' prevented the Rudd government from fulfilling a deal negotiated by the former Coalition government to supply India with nuclear fuel for power generation. These are the same "party politics'' which propelled Prime Minister Kevin Rudd into making such a big thing about signing up to the next-to-useless Kyoto Protocols as one of his government's first acts (though he did flee the Bali conference when the bureaucrats got bogged in discussion about future limits on emissions. He was also forced to gag Environment Minister Peter Garrett in an act of mercy designed to prevent the former pop star from making an even bigger goose of himself). If Prime Minister Rudd and the ALP really cared for the environmental future of the world and were not just concerned with trawling for votes from the environmental fringes, the Australian government would ensure that nations with a desperate need for clean energy were given priority access to Australian uranium. India, with an impeccable nuclear non-proliferation record, and a population of 1.2 billion in need of energy to drive its huge economy, needs vast increases in its energy resources, and it makes obvious sense that its future energy supplies are as clean as possible. Instead, the blinkered ALP has fallen back on its antiquated, ideologically driven policies to deny Australia an opportunity to do something of real consequence in reducing carbon emissions and in assisting an entirely deserving neighbour. It doesn't take a pair of umpires and a video to determine that this is not cricket. India, not a signatory to the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty, is in the throes of negotiating an agreement with the International Atomic Energy Agency on "India-specific safeguards'' to govern its use of nuclear fuel. This is not good enough for the Rudd Labor government, however, which has its eyes fixed on the inner-urban ALP branches which dictate so much of its environmental and social agenda. Trade Minister Simon Crean, who was in New Delhi to open Australia's new chancery at the High Commission, defended his government's stance but seemed to leave open the possibility that Australia might, oddly, agree to a new position being developed within the 45-member Nuclear Suppliers Group of nations which would see India being given a waiver from the Non-Proliferation Treaty. India, in talks with the former Coalition government, gave undertakings that would have permitted Australian nuclear inspectors to ensure that any Australian uranium sold to India was used only for peaceful purposes. Labor is telling the world that it believes in a global response to human-induced climate change but it is not prepared to take the logical practical steps necessary to help India do its bit to reduce reliance on dirty technologies. In a stinging editorial, The Indian Express said the Australian Left, "much like our own communists and peaceniks'', regarded the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty as a "mantra''. In a region that is reeling with instability, India is a rock, largely due to the legacy of British imperialism, a common language and a common law, both shared to a great degree by Australia. While much of the Third World is a terrorist training camp, India is a bulwark against bin Laden and his adherents, and its economic success contributes strength to that struggle. The ALP's uranium policy is a towering example of the monumental stupidity and short-sightedness that bedevils politicians when they turn their backs on the world to curry favour (no pun intended) in their own little bailiwicks. The old Trotskyites and Marxists who found their way into the environmental movement when the last vestiges of the Soviet empire crumbled to dust are still actively directing aspects of the ALP's policy and smart members of the Rudd Cabinet know it. For all the Ruddites' talk of clean, green energy, they know that only nuclear-fuelled generators can deliver the base-load power necessary to keep the global economy in operation while trying to cut greenhouse gas emissions. Future generations, here as well as in India and other nations, will wonder why the Australian Government refused to allow exports to nations which desperately wanted to help their people economically and do so in an environmentally friendly way. Condemning India to seek nuclear fuel elsewhere in its bid to clean-up the planet while we hold huge uranium stocks is a real no-brainer fit for a Bollywood comedy. Sadly, however, this is not a film script. This hypocrisy is the reality of Labor's policy.