Howard's hypocrisy on non-proliferation

Prime Minister John Howard should be the last national leader to
Lecture the world on the shortcomings of the nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty(NPT) since Australia is set to undermine and weaken it further through exporting uranium to China, Australian Greens Senator Christine Milne said today.

Mr Howard told the United Nations world leaders summit in New York that greater commitment needed to be shown to tackling proliferation of nuclear weapons.

Senator Milne said China had already sent to Pakistan the capacity to
make nuclear weapons and recently China stated that it would not rule
out using nuclear weapons in a conflict with the United States over
Taiwan.

"Whatever Mr Howard or Foreign Minister Downer claim about preventing
leakage of uranium from Australia into a weapons programme, there can
be no guarantees that this would not occur in China," Senator Milne said.

"And if the export of uranium to China is not bad enough, Resources
Minister Macfarlane has already begun talking about exporting uranium
To India, a non-signatory to the NPT and a nuclear weapons state.

"It would be illegal under the NPT for Australia to export uranium to
India.

"At the very time that Prime Minister Howard was flying to New York the Greens in the Senate moved to rule out exporting uranium to India and both Liberal and Labor refused to support it.

"Instead of grandstanding on the world stage, Prime Minister Howard
should commit to the nuclear NPT by refusing to allow the export of
uranium to China and India.

"That would make the world a safer place and would show genuine global leadership."