Chance for uranium diplomacy

Such actions would not be without basis.

In 2006, Australia and China signed a bilateral agreement on the peaceful use of nuclear energy and current negotiations with the United Arab Emirates are heavily focused on a similar outcome.

Similar arrangements can also promote safety and standards on nuclear power.

This is something the Foreign Minister Kevin Rudd understands writing recently that "We should use what we have learned from promoting (proliferation) safeguards to also promote safety in viable ways."

Present arrangements between a country and the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) are not sufficient lacking any means of enforcement. But a bilateral agreement on the supply of uranium to a reactor, contingent on IAEA safety standards being upheld, would add a measurable safeguard beyond current practise.

But the immaturity with which our domestic political discourse views nuclear power – unable to grow out of a nappy like approach that considers even the debate of the topic politically toxic – has infected our wider foreign policy and risks overshadowing these possibilities.

For far too long, Australia's foreign policy elite have either overlooked or completely misunderstood the diplomacy of uranium.

It would be completely ridiculous to think that nuclear power or arms proliferation will not continue in the wake of the Japanese crisis.

It will, and as it does, we have a real opportunity to leverage our uranium reserves to not only usher greater safety standards in the nuclear power industry but to redouble our efforts on non-proliferation.