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Greens should have little impact: Hall
Tania Winter
Wednesday, 8 September 2010

THE Australian uranium industry should have nothing to fear, given the deal cut with the Greens party by the new Gillard Government, according to Toro Energy managing director Greg Hall.
Toro Energy managing director Greg Hall
He says if anything, the Australian Greens party is out of touch with the rest of the country, and the world for that matter, and that its extreme views are not even reflected in the policies of its Green counterparts in the United Kingdom.
Greens Peace in the UK now has no mandate for stopping nuclear power, he told MiningNews.net.

Here in Australia, to approve a new uranium mine it does not require parliamentary or senate approval.

Lets be clear on that. It is through a process that has already been set up in the public service.

There is no vote taken as to whether to approve a mine. In essence, the federal department of environment makes the recommendation to the Environment Minister who makes the ultimate decision.

There is no question the Greens are an anti-uranium mining group, but it depends on whether they get to vote on this and what influence they have, but at the moment approvals do not require an act of parliament.

In the case of Labor, its environment minister Peter Garrett has already approved one uranium mine expansion and a new mine development.

He said the process for approving a new uranium mine in Australia was two-fold.

Firstly, a company must work through the Environmental, Biodiversity Protection Conservation Act and all the various state, Environmental Protection Authority and mines departments.

Normally this is a bilateral process run in parallel on both a state and federal level.

Then the federal department of environment makes its recommendation to the environment minister, who ultimately makes the decision.

The other thing to keep in mind is that the Greens got between 15 and 18 percent of the votes in Australia, so that means 83 percent of the people in Australia have voted for uranium mining, so really what rights do the Greens have to stop it? Hall quipped.

Lets be realistic about this. They are a minority group and have extreme views that are not even reflected in their Green counterparts in the UK.

He also takes comfort in the fact that Federal Resources Minister Martin Ferguson confirmed in writing to the Australian Uranium Association that uranium would be exempt from the proposed Minerals Resource Rent Tax.

While it is unclear yet as to how the government will proceed with the MRRT, Hall is happy for now to sit and wait for the outcome.

We can only go by what is current knowledge at the moment, he concluded.