Aus Oppn party supports ‘Indo-US N-deal’

The US-India nuclear agreement is good for India and Australia believes Australia’s opposition spokesman Andrew Robb.

Australia’s opposition foreign affairs spokesman Andrew Robb said that Australian government’s backtracking on uranium export to India would hurt its long-term interests and critical engagement with “the emerging economic powerhouse” of South Asia.

“The bottom line on all this is that reversing Australia’s commitment to sell uranium to India will do substantial damage to the Australia-India relationship. It makes absolutely no sense to sell uranium to China and Russia, and not to India,” Robb told the Sydney Institute. “If (the ruling) Labour is committed to all it has said about global warming, then refusing to sell uranium to India while supporting new uranium sales to China and Russia is totally irrational and hypocritical, ” he said while backing the Indo-US civil nuclear deal.

The US-India nuclear agreement “is good for India, good for Australia, good for the region, good for climate change and good for nuclear non-proliferation. In this regard Labour is standing against a critical new engagement in Asia,” he was quoted as saying in the Australian media. “The national interest was not considered. Climate change was ignored. Nuclear non-proliferation was sidelined. A bias towards China was implied. Constructive US policy towards Asia was opposed. India’s feelings were trampled on,” he said.

In August 2007 the previous John Howard government agreed to export uranium to India for the sole purpose of peaceful and clean power generation. “It marked a huge stride for Australia in forging an enduring strategic partnership with India,” he said while describing Prime Minister Kevin Rudd government’s decision to overturn Howard administration’s plan as “wrong and unsustainable.”