OCEANIA: New Zealand at risk from Aussie nuclear plants

New Zealand's Green Party has attacked moves to expand Australia's nuclear industry, saying an accident could send a toxic plume across the Tasman.

Co-leader of the Green Party Russel Norman said moves in Australia to allow more uranium to be mined and enriched was bad news for New Zealand.



"It is entirely possible that if there was a serious accident on the east coast of Australia that we could cop some of the fallout, like with Chernobyl across Europe," Norman said.

"An accident can have a very large impact," he said.

He said his party also remained opposed to Australia expanding their nuclear industry because of the issue of nuclear waste and the "inevitability" of nuclear material making its way into the weapons trade.

Norman said there was a long timeframe before a nuclear power industry would have an impact on climate change.

"If you want to address climate change the timeframe for getting a nuclear industry up and running in Australia is very substantial ... There are a lot of renewable options that are ready to go now," he said.

He said mining uranium was a water-intensive process and in drought-ridden Australia there were water implications.

"I am quite cynical that this is Howard trying to do wedge politics on the environment movement, like he used race as wedge politics on the working class Labor supporters."

New Zealand's main opposition party, National, was supportive of moves to expand nuclear options in Australia, said party environment spokesman Nick Smith.

"I think there is an unhealthy paranoia that goes with nuclear technologies, but if we are really serious about tackling climate change and CO2 emissions then we need to find economically viable alternatives to coal," he said.

The ALP voted at its national conference on the weekend to abandon its ban on allowing new uranium mines in Australia but remains opposed to using nuclear power or enriching uranium.

But Prime Minister John Howard has said he wants to pave the way to allow a nuclear industry, allowing uranium enrichment, more mining and nuclear power. Australia has the world's largest amount of low-cost uranium, about 39 per cent of the world's reserves.

New Zealand has been nuclear-free since 1987 and bans warships that are nuclear armed or powered from entering its waters.

New Zealand Prime Minister Helen Clark is on Monday in cabinet meetings and was unable to immediately comment on the issue.


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