Australia holds some of the world's biggest deposits of uranium and is a major supplier of uranium to Japan, France, the US Australia also has begun doing sales deals with countries like Russia, China and now possibly India. While we should not being doing sales deals with Australian uranium to any country there is deep concerns about the proliferation risk of selling uranium to countries that have a lack of transparency like Russia and China, and to countries which are not signatories to the Non Proliferation Treaty like India.
Depleted uranium and enriched uranium can be used for weapons. Australian uranium ending up as nuclear weapons, or being used to free up domestic uranium for nuclear weapons programs is almost certain.
- There are no Australian inspections of facilities or stockpiles using Australian uranium in Japan, Australia relies on the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) inspections
- International safeguards are limited and operate on very small budgets, meaning that nuclear power reactors and stockpiles go un monitored.
- Australia allows Australian uranium to be enriched which produces weapons usable fissile material
- Accounting for nuclear materials is paramount; with many discrepancies know as Material Unaccounted For (MUF). Discrepancies are commonplace because of the complicated nature of measuring nuclear material. Any discrepancy in the inventory of nuclear material clearly provides a loophole for diversion of nuclear material, rendering IAEA inspections useless. Australia does not require that all nuclear facilities processing Australian Obligated Nuclear Material (AONM) be subject to IAEA safeguards at all. All AONM is supposed to be subject to IAEA safeguards, yet ANSO makes exceptions. ANSO has failed to provide relevant information to inquiry Committees in the past, and is notoriously dishonest and unprofessional. There are unacceptable breakdowns and severe limitations in the organisations that exist to implement safeguards on the nuclear industry.
Find out more about the Atomic Weapons tested in Australia
In the 1950’s the British Weapons testing program in Australia caused extensive trauma and disease among Indigenous communities and veterans at Monte Belo Island in WA and at Maralinga and Emu Fields in SA. For more details on the history of weapons testing in Australia see:
Maralinga Atomic Bomb Test Survivors- Youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=erQRAHmTL9k
Books about Maralinga
Maralinga the Anangu Story http://www.allenandunwin.com/default.aspx?page=94&book=9781741756210
Beyond Belief: The British Bomb Tests: Australia’s Veterans Speak Out, Roger Cross and Avon Hudson http://www.amazon.com/gp/search?index=books&linkCode=qs&keywords=1862546606
For more information on safeguards and the Inquiry into the Nuclear Non-Proliferation and Disarmament http://www.aph.gov.au/house/committee/jsct/nuclearnon_proliferation/inde...
Friends of the Earth – Nuclear Weapons and Fourth Generation Nuclear Reactors
http://www.foe.org.au/anti-nuclear/issues/nfc/power-weapons
