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Nuclear disarmament push a ‘difficult job’ for Rudd – ABC News (Australian Broadcasting Corporation)

Nuclear disarmament push a ‘difficult job’ for Rudd

ABC News Oct 17, 2008 Prime Minister Kevin Rudd will have difficulty leading the nuclear disarmament debate because of the nation’s expanding uranium industry, the Greens said.

Mr Rudd’s foreign policy initiative – the International Commission on Nuclear Non-proliferation and Disarmament – will hold its first meeting in Sydney next week.

Mr Rudd last month said the commission has a two-year mandate to reinvigorate the global debate on preventing the spread of nuclear weapons and for nuclear disarmament…………………

Greens Senator Scott Ludlum said while the commission was a welcome step, Australia’s role was compromised by its expanding uranium export industry.

“The key thing really is that it’s at risk already of being sabotaged by the nuclear power industry and the uranium mining industry,” he said.

“So the Prime Minister’s got a bit of a difficult job ahead of him walking that line.

“It’s going to be very difficult for Australia as one of the world’s largest uranium suppliers with a very powerful mining lobby to be an honest broker in this case.”…………………..

“This commission’s not going to be successful unless we are able to wind back the civil nuclear power industry because every nuclear power station essentially is just a plutonium factory hooked up to a steam turbine,” he said.

“We can’t have radical expansion of nuclear power capacity without making it dramatically more difficult to prevent weapons from spreading.”

Nuclear disarmament push a ‘difficult job’ for Rudd – ABC News (Australian Broadcasting Corporation)

Tags: nuclear, antinuclear, radioactive, uranium

October 20, 2008 - Posted by Christina Macpherson | weapons and war