As Prime Minister Manmohan Singh prepares to visit Australia in October 2011, an Australian foreign policy analyst and the deputy leader of the Opposition in the Australian Parliament, alike, have argued that the Labour government’s refusal to sell uranium to India cannot be sustained for long.
In an interview to this newspaper in New Delhi, Dr John Lee of the Centre for Independent Studies in Sydney said, “I don’t think anyone doubts that Australia will eventually sell uranium to India. I think it’s a matter of working through the Australian political process such that the focus is more on the benefits of selling uranium to India as opposed to the strict interpretation of our commitments to the non-proliferation treaty.”
Julie Bishop, deputy leader of the Opposition, has reasoned that “the hypocrisy of this decision [not selling uranium to India] is even more glaring in the middle of a debate in Australia about a carbon tax designed to reduce greenhouse emissions in this country, while Labour is refusing to supply the fuel that India needs to reduce its emissions.”
Ms Bishop, who recently visited India, is also the deputy leader of the Liberal party and the shadow minister of foreign affairs. Her party had agreed in principle to allow uranium exports to India when John Howard was the Prime Minister, but Mr Howard’s successor, Kevin Rudd, overturned the decision after the Labour party came to power in 2007.
In a signed piece published by the Sydney Morning Herald newspaper on Wednesday, Ms Bishop wrote, “Labour’s ideological games to satisfy domestic interest groups should not be allowed to impact on our relationship with this valuable and strategic partner.”
“It is difficult for Australia to build closer relations with this important democracy to our northwest when this ban clearly implies that Labour is of the view that India cannot be trusted with Australian uranium, despite its strong record of non-proliferation,” Ms Bishop noted.
The current Labour government headed by Prime Minister Julia Gillard has continued her party’s policy of not selling uranium to a non-NPT signatory such as India.