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MEDIA RELEASE "  ' Â«m sm ? PR No 88/421   Canberra  1 December 1988

T H E  S E N A T E - —  ------ '

SANDERS: GOVERNMENT IS COMPLACENT ABOUT U.S. MILITARY USE OF AUSTRALIAN URANIUM

Senator Norm Sanders, Australian Democrats spokesperson on   Nuclear Issues, today accused the Government of displaying   dangerous complacency in claiming that the United States would   not violate its uranium ’safeguards agreement with Australia if

its stocks of nuclear bomb fuel ran down.

In the Senate, Senator Sanders asked the Mininster for Foreign   Affairs, Gareth Evans, about the situation in the US concerning   an Executive Order issued by President Reagan on 18 November. The   Order gives the US Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) the right

to seize uranium and plutonium from civilian plants for use in   bombs.

Senator Sanders said, "The Government's reply showed a criminal   ignorance of the present crisis. The US military nuclear

industry is in chaos. The main reactors which make bomb fuel   have been shut down because they are ancient and u n s a f e , and   there are no funds available for a new military reactor.

"The only alternative source of bomb fuel is the civilian nuclear   program", Senator Sanders said. "This is the reason for Reagan's   Order.

"It is fatuous to suggest that the U.S. would not seize

Australian-origin plutonium for bomb production if it believed   that a plutonium shortage was jeopardising national security."

Senator Sanders said that the Government had denied that the   Order threatened the distinction between military and civilian   uses of Australian uranium, but its confidence was not shared by

Dr Glenn Seaborg, who was Chairman of the Atomic Energy

Commission (now the NRC) from 1961 to 1971. ,

"Dr Seaborg has been quoted as saying: 'If plans are prepared and actually u s e d , ... it would

obliterate the line between peaceful uses of atomic energy   and military uses.'

"This year, the Government was forced to admit that it could not   safeguard the actual uranium exported by Australia, but only   equivalent quantities of unknown origin.

"Now, it c a n ’t even claim to be able to safeguard the equivalent   quantities", Senator Sanders concluded.

For further information, including copies of the Executive Order:

Senator Sanders 062-77 3770 Richard Bolt 03-614 3792 w; 03-429 4060 h

