email from summit resources

QUEENSLAND PREMIER PETER BEATTIE U TURNS ON URANIUM


UNIONS AND COAL INDUSTRY COME OUT IN SUPPORT OF SUMMIT


FEDERAL TREASURER PETER COSTELLO HINTS THAT THE FEDERAL GOVERNMENT COULD OVERRIDE THE LABOR STATES IF THEY DO NOT APPROVE NEW URANIUM MINES

FEDERAL RESOURCES MINISTER IAN MACFARLANE SAYS SUMMIT COULD BE SHIPPING URANIUM TO CHINA WITHIN FOUR YEARS IF THE LABOR POLICY WAS TO CHANGE


See today's Courier Mail report below.


ALAN J EGGERS

SUMMIT RESOURCES LIMITED

PERTH 5 APRIL 2006

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Beattie's uranium U-turn


Matthew Franklin and Emma Chalmers

April 05, 2006

THE Beattie Government has softened its opposition to uranium mining amid fresh Commonwealth threats of a legal challenge to override its long-standing ban.

Premier Peter Beattie yesterday ordered bureaucrats to study whether mining uranium would damage Queensland's coal industry.

His move represents a significant shift from his previous outright hostility to uranium mining on the basis of party policy obliging Labor governments to block all new mine proposals.

The change is after the clinching of a deal on Monday for uranium exports to China and threats by Prime Minister John Howard to seek legal means to
sideline state governments from the approval process.

It also came as Labor federal vice-president and Australian Workers Union leader Bill Ludwig called his party's no-new-mines uranium policy unsustainable and predicted it would be scotched at next year's Labor
national conference.

Mr Beattie refused to state his personal position, but said he would support any change in federal Labor policy.

"I'll be asking my department to do some work on that prior to the ALP national conference and my position on the floor . . . will be determined on
the outcome of that," he said.

He added that he might support uranium mining in Queensland if it was demonstrated there would be sufficient demand from China and India to
sustain uranium and coal exports.

"I need to be satisfied, in terms of my position, just leaving aside the environmental debates, that the capacity for expansion of the coal industry
in Queensland . . . is not going to be diminished by the expansion of the uranium market," Mr Beattie said.

Mr Ludwig said the no-new-mines policy was no longer sustainable because the international community had applied stringent safety requirements to the
operation of nuclear power plants.

"There's 450 plants around the world now and another 120 planned in South-East Asia in the next 15 years," Mr Ludwig said. "That can't be ignored. We are in a good position economically and geographically to
provide this resource."

Labor trade spokesman Kevin Rudd also appeared to back pedal, telling a press conference there was room to expand exports in a manner consistent with the Non-Proliferation Treaty.

But Opposition Leader Kim Beazley continued to urge caution, triggering accusations of weakness from the Government.

Mr Beazley said there was enough uranium to meet demand in existing mines in South Australia and the Northern Territory and that Labor should be more
concerned about proliferation of nuclear weapons.

"We have the time and the opportunity to hasten slowly and get it right," he said. "I will not be pressured by John Howard's fake urgency on this."

Treasurer Peter Costello ridiculed Mr Beazley as unable to show leadership.

"Uranium is either all bad, in which case there should be no mines, or it's acceptable, in which case there should be such number of mines as are commercial. But there's no logic in saying it's good at three mines and bad
everywhere else."

Mr Costello refused to explain the detailed process by which the Commonwealth might launch a constitutional challenge to state governments.

But he said: "It may be argued that under our trade and commerce power, and it may be argued under our external affairs power, that the Commonwealth has
the ability to facilitate the trade and commerce of uranium and the export of uranium."

Junior uranium explorers have surged more than 50 per cent higher on the back of speculative buying over the past few months - heightening analysts' fears that the boom has now become an unsustainable bubble.

Fuelling the mania has been speculation about the potential impact of a yellowcake sales agreement with China, despite the fact that resource majors
like Rio Tinto and BHP Billiton are clearly the best placed to benefit from any lift in demand.

Neverless Federal Resources Minister Ian Macfarlane believes companies such as Summit Resources, which owns the Valhalla uranium tenements near Mount
Isa, could be shipping uranium to China within four years if there was a change in the ALP's three mines policy.

Queensland Resources Council chief executive Michael Roche yesterday welcomed Mr Beattie's U-turn, saying: "With global energy demand forecast to
double over the next 30 years, there is strong potential to increase Queensland's exports of all energy fuels, including coal, petroleum and uranium."

The State Government's current ban on uranium mining has been difficult to fathom, when the coal sector itself rejects the argument that keeping Queensland's uranium in the ground is protecting the state's coal industry.

"The message from the Queensland coal industry is that there is room for the full energy source mix and any proposal to mine Queensland's uranium deposits should be considered on the objective merits of a full economic and environmental appraisal," Mr Roche said.

Mr Roche said that in the interests of encouraging uranium and related minerals exploration in Queensland, it was incumbent on the 2007 ALP national conference to deliver policy certainty.

"Our members want a binding ALP policy that supports uranium mining and the maintenance of appropriate international safeguards, and that's the message
we are continuing to hear from leading party figures," Mr Roche said.

Additional reporting Richard Owen






OPPOSITION to uranium softening ... Premier Peter Beattie. Picture: Graeme
Parkes


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