Australian uranium fuelled Fukushima and now fuels global insecurity

Professor Yoshioka Hitoshi, a Kyushu University academic who served on the government's 2011-12 Investigation Committee on the Accident at the Fukushima Nuclear Power Stations, said in October 2015:

Unfortunately, the new regulatory regime is ... inadequate to ensure the safety of Japan's nuclear power facilities. The first problem is that the new safety standards on which the screening and inspection of facilities are to be based are simply too lax.

While it is true that the new rules are based on international standards, the international standards themselves are predicated on the status quo.

They have been set so as to be attainable by most of the reactors already in operation. In essence, the NRA made sure that all Japan's existing reactors would be able to meet the new standards with the help of affordable piecemeal modifications -- back-fitting, in other words.

Fuelling global insecurity

In the aftermath of the Fukushima disaster, UN secretary general Ban Ki Moon called for an independent cost-benefit inquiry into uranium trade. The Australian government failed to act.

Inadequate regulation was a root cause of the Fukushima disaster yet Australia has uranium supply agreements with numerous countries with demonstrably inadequate nuclear regulation, including China, India, Russia, the UnitedStates, Japan, South Korea, and Ukraine.

Likewise, Australian uranium companies and the government turn a blind eye to nuclear corruption scandals in countries with uranium supply agreements: South Korea, India, Russia and Ukraine among others.

Indeed, Australia has signed up to expand its uranium trade to sell into insecure regions.

In 2011 - the same year as the Fukushima disaster - the Australian government agreed to

to allow uranium exports to India. This despite inadequate nuclear regulation in India, and despite India's ongoing expansion of its nuclear weaponry and delivery capabilities.

A uranium supply agreement with the United Arab Emirates was concluded in 2013despite the obvious risks of selling uranium into a politically and militarily volatile region where nuclear facilities have repeatedly been targeted by adversaries intent on stopping covert nuclear weapons programs.Australia was planning uranium sales to the Shah of Iran months before his overthrow in 1979.

A uranium supply agreement with Ukraine was concluded in 2016 despite a host of safety and security concerns, and the inability of the International Atomic Energy Agency to carry out safeguards inspections in regions annexed by Russia. (In 2014, Australia banned uranium sales to Russia, with then Prime Minister Tony Abbott stating: "Australia has no intention of selling uranium to a country which is so obviously in breach of international law as Russia currently is.")

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