no new mines policy eased

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...."Mike Rann has been at the vanguard for change. At this stage the only certainty is that South Australian has the welcome mat out for new mines. Its bureaucracy has a sound undertaking of the mining, environmental and safety regulations required, as it has BHP Billiton's Olympic Dam copper-uranium mine (it holds about one third of the world's uranium reserves) and Heathgate Resources' in situ leach (ISL) mine at Beverley. A mining licence has also been granted to SXR Uranium One for an ISL mine at Honeymoon.".....


NO NEW MINES POLICY EASED

Australian Labor Party lifts ban on new uranium mines, but how far?

Although Australia's opposition ALP has lifted its opposition to development of new uranium mines, it may be up to the States to set their own policies and most State governments are still opposed.

Author: Ross Louthean
Posted: Saturday , 28 Apr 2007

PERTH -

The anticipated win for Federal Australian Labor Party (ALP) Leader Kevin Rudd to end the party's rigid ‘No New Mines' policy for uranium happened today at the ALP national convention, but by a narrow margin.

Two prominent anti-uranium members of Federal Parliament, Tony Albanese and Shadow Environment Minister Peter Garrett - known to many as lead singer of rock band Midnight Oil - had proposed keeping the status quo. That was lost and a motion from Kevin Rudd, supported by South Australian Premier Mike Rann, to lift the ban and allow more uranium mining was won by 205 votes to 190.

A condition for allowing new mines under ALP policy will be that the buyer must be from a country that has signed the nuclear non proliferation accord.

However, while the initial media response has been that it has opened the doors, it will take some time to find out how far that would occur under Labor should it win the next federal election -- expected to occur at the end of this year.

Why?

Rudd left the states with a door handle by saying it would be up to them and to the Northern Territory to decide whether they would grant mining licences for new mines.

This tends to echo issues raised by Mineweb earlier this month that Rudd may concede that the states (all Australian states and the NT are ALP governed) should have discretionary powers.

Mike Rann has been at the vanguard for change. At this stage the only certainty is that South Australian has the welcome mat out for new mines. Its bureaucracy has a sound undertaking of the mining, environmental and safety regulations required, as it has BHP Billiton's Olympic Dam copper-uranium mine (it holds about one third of the world's uranium reserves) and Heathgate Resources' in situ leach (ISL) mine at Beverley. A mining licence has also been granted to SXR Uranium One for an ISL mine at Honeymoon.

Counter to this Western Australian Premier Allan Carpenter has a firm anti-uranium stance and said there would be no uranium mines in WA during his time, irrespective of today's conference debate outcome.

Queensland Premier Peter Beattie seems to be on the fence. He has said he personally did not want uranium mining in his state but conceded he would abide by the Federal Leader's policy wish. However, if it now seems that Rudd will allow discretionary powers then Beattie may jump that way.

Chief Minister of the Northern Territory, Clare Martin, is an ex journalist known for her anti-uranium stance, a point she made on her re-election for a second term. However, the Liberal coalition government told her Canberra was paying most of the NT's bills and she would abide by their requirement to open up more mines. Australia's third, and longest serving uranium mine, Energy Resources of Australia's Ranger, is in the NT and so are many advanced projects.

A mining industry observer told Mineweb today that he believed the Chief Minister had made undertakings to the Federal Government that, in turn, related to international trade agreements being drawn up, and the observer believes Martin will be obliged to honour some pacts with Canberra.

The industry observer said Beattie, unlike Carpenter, was more of a pragmatist on project developments and he may find the rump of the ALP in Queensland is supporting these developments, particularly with countries like China and Japan who buy Queensland's high quality coals and have a thirst for nuclear energy. Coal is still Australia's biggest export earner.

The uranium question does not involve Tasmania or Victoria for simple geological reasons (a poor uranium environment) while New South Wales has for decades disallowed exploration for uranium, and any change of heart would still see NSW out of contention in the race to develop new mines.

Australia came to prominence in the 1960s and early 1970s when uranium exploration built up and the country relatively quickly found 26% of world reserves. But governments into the 1970s and early 1980s put political and bureaucratic shackles on developing more mines, including timid Liberal coalition governments.

This allowed Canada to become the dominant supplier.

The anticipated public and political changes have seen an enormous uranium boom in Australia and there are now more than 140 listed explorers with many operating in WA despite the highly publicised stance by Carpenter.

In the last few days of this week uranium stocks generally went for a run, with some explorers reaching new peaks. All this was in anticipation of Rudd succeeding in killing the ‘No New Mines' policy.

However, outside of South Australia and perhaps the NT it will be interesting to see whether the fervour for uranium stocks will be general or more geographic when trading resumes on the Australian Stock Exchange on Monday.

Prime Minister John Howard thought he might put a spanner in the works for Kevin Rudd today with the uranium debate by announcing his government will remove all "excessive" restrictions on mining, processing and exporting Australian uranium as a possible step to starting domestic nuclear power generation.

Howard reportedly said expert advice clearly showed Australia was giving up a major economic opportunity through excessive barriers on uranium mining and exports.

In a statement he said: ‘In light of the significance of global climate change and as the world's largest holder of uranium reserves, Australia has a clear responsibility to develop its uranium resources in a sustainable way - irrespective of whether or not we end up using nuclear power."

Nuclear energy was a fact of life and a key source of clean energy in 30 countries across Europe, Asia and North America.

He said Canberra will remove unnecessary constraints on expansion of uranium mining, such as overlapping and cumbersome regulations relating to the mining and transport of uranium ore.



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