Well, the Chinese are coming to Australia like never before.
You may not have picked up on this today, but a Beijing based mining giant is on the brink of developing a $160 million mine in outback South Australia.
Now we all know that if the economic juggernaut that is China continues its long march to become the world’s most dominant force, they’re going to need power. And they’ve been eyeing off all kinds of resources here: electricity, coal powered generators and uranium, which they would love to have under their own soil, but they don’t. We do.
Now under the former Federal Government, Sinosteel was granted Foreign Investment Review Board approval for this. That was on the basis that they formed a joint venture - but the Chinese has 60% of this company.
So it’s theirs. They’ve just grabbed a smaller player to make up the legal numbers. The Chinese have control.
And the thought of a Chinese company using their trucks to get uranium to the coast, where their ships take it to southern China, for refining and creating uranium power stations, bothers me.
What about we use this incredible resource? What about we power-proof our nation? The safety record of uranium mines worldwide is remarkably good, it’s not like the old 50s technology from Chernobyl.
And as for waste, you can store the stuff a kilometre under the desert. A 747 can crash on the exact site and the lead encasing could never rupture. And again - we power-proof Australia.
We know that John Howard was a backer on this. Kevin Rudd, of course, has to overturn a long-held Labor Party edict that uranium mining is a no-no. But he’s also a tentative supporter.
But are we gonna miss the boat again? Given the Chinese insurgence, given they embracing of uranium as part of their future power requirements, it looks that way.
Yeah we’ll get a huge cut of the exports, it’ll boost the economy and reiterate how lucky we are. But boy, we need to think very carefully about what we’re giving away here… and we need to think about it quick smart.
