Howard sets up nuclear inquiry

John Howard

CANBERRA - Prime Minister John Howard will return to Australia from an overseas trip this week to drive a new debate pushing Australia closer to expanded uranium mining and a possible nuclear power programme.

He has set up a committee to investigate a call by United States President George W. Bush for a global nuclear energy partnership, a proposal that fired new enthusiasm in Howard when the leaders met in Washington last week.

The new committee will join another internal Government group already looking at the future of the Australian uranium industry, and a parliamentary committee examining Australia's nuclear options.

"It is a different world from a few years ago, if not only because of the price of oil," Howard said.

"Nuclear power is cleaner and greener and it's governed by the laws of arithmetic and economics."

The Government has already been stepping up its campaign to swing attitudes away from long-standing opposition to increased uranium production, atomic generation, and the storage of waste on the continent.

Australia produces and exports more than 11,000 tonnes of uranium oxide a year to 11 countries, with sales worth more than A$2 billion over the past five years.

But the nation has only one research reactor, at Lucas Heights in Sydney, and previously rejected nuclear-generated electricity on economic and environmental grounds.

South Australia has broken ranks with other Labor states and federal Labor policy by supporting a huge new mine north of Adelaide, which when it comes on line will make Australia the world's largest uranium producer.

Australia holds about 40 per cent of the world's known uranium reserves.

Senior Labor figures, including Opposition leader Kim Beazley, have also called for a new debate on nuclear energy, in effect supporting Howard's determination to put the subject firmly on the political agenda when he returns from an overseas trip.