Prime Minister Howard fuels the 'Second Nuclear Age'

Shallhorn said, “The expansion of uranium exports and weakening of Australia's non-proliferation policy is creating conditions The Bulletin of Atomic Scientists has named a "Second Nuclear Age”. Earlier this month Prime Minister John Howard has expanded uranium exports to a fourth nuclear weapon state, in contravention of the NPT, and will soon export to a fifth.

"Greenpeace supports the views expressed by the Bulletin of Atomic Scientists that the world has been brought to a new security crisis because of a range of dangerous developments including: nuclear ambitions in Iran and North Korea, unsecured nuclear materials in Russia and elsewhere, the continuing "launch-ready" status of 2,000 of the 25,000 nuclear weapons held by the U.S. and Russia, escalating terrorism, expanded civilian nuclear power under the guise of solving climate change.

“Australia uranium clients include four nuclear weapons states - USA, France, UK and China - and if the Prime Minister has his way this will soon include India. We should not be exporting to any of these countries because they are in violation of Article 6 of the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty 1970, which requires nuclear weapons states to disarm.

“Renewable energy is safe, clean and ready to plug into the grid so there is no reason to embrace nuclear power or uranium exports. The UN Security Council never had to stop a war over a windmill,” said Mr Shallhorn.