Newly elected Labor leader of Western Australia, Mark McGowan announced a major policy change on uranium mining. The opposition party had previously claimed that it would shut down any approved uranium project if it was elected next year.
However within hours of becoming the opposition leader Mark McGowan said that while they remained opposed to uranium mining, he recognized that they had to deal with the hand that they were dealt with if they came to government in 2013. He added that under no circumstances would he lead a government that in any way opens the state up to compensation claims from mining companies.
It seems that applications that are only part of the way through gaining approvals will not be allowed to continue and no new applications will be entertained by the Labor government. At the same time a couple of miners who are well advanced in the approval process and will begin development before the elections in March next year will be allowed to proceed.
One such miner is Toro Energy. Greg Hall the managing director of the South Australia based miner said that he was confident the company would receive final state and federal approvals for its Northern Goldfields deposit by the middle of this year.
Reg Howard-Smith, the chief executive of the Western Australia Chamber of Minerals and Energy reacted to Mark Mc Gowan’s announcement by saying that the policy revision was continuing to ignore the potential of the uranium industry. He added that the uranium industry would broaden the state's resource export base, create jobs and opportunities for West Australians, and importantly, help reduce global carbon emissions.
Scott Ludlam, the Greens nuclear affairs spokesman and Senator for Western Australia was upset with Mark McGowan’s policy ‘backflip’. He said that Labor could not have it both ways on uranium. He added that it was a dangerous, toxic industry that operates to provide fuel to the dangerous, toxic nuclear energy sector. If Labor is opposed to uranium mining they should make their position clear.
Mark McGowan also included allowing Sunday trading in the Perth metropolitan area. He said that they supported the Liberals on allowing all shops to be open on Sunday if their operators wished to do so. Presently the law only allows shops in the Perth CBD or tourist areas to be open on Sundays.