Chamber calls for Western Australia to overturn uranium ban

Yeelirrie: one of four uranium projects excluded from the ban (Image: Cameco Australia)
Restarting uranium mining in Western Australia could create up to 9000 jobs and produce uranium worth more than AUD1 billion a year, a 12-month inquiry by the state's Chamber of Commerce and Industry has found. It recommends that the state overturn its ban on uranium mining to unlock significant economic benefits. 

Western Australia is home to a "considerable share" of Australia's uranium but cannot capitalise on this, due to the state government's 2017 ban on uranium mining, the Chamber of Commerce and Industry of Western Australia (CCIWA) notes in its report. The ban conditionally excludes four uranium projects that had already received ministerial approval from the previous government: Wiluna, Kintyre, Mulga Rock and Yeelirrie.

South Australia and the Northern Territory currently allow uranium to be mined and exported, proving the industry is safe and sustainable, the CCIWA said. Last year South Australia produced around 5,469 tU: Western Australia has capacity to produce an estimated 8,000 tonnes per year, it added.

Other Australian states have been able to capitalise on increasing uranium demand and prices that have "skyrocketed" over the past year or so because of a global shift towards nuclear power in countries like China, France, India, Japan, South Korea, the United States and the UK, CCIWA Chief Economist Aaron Morey said. "WA has the technical skills and know-how to reignite the uranium mining industry as well as the export infrastructure to get it to market," he added.

He also said attitudes were changing thanks to advances in technology and an understanding of the role nuclear energy could play in reducing global emissions. "The ban on new uranium mines in WA was driven by environmental, health and safety concerns, but these concerns are not significantly different to those faced by any mining operation. WA is a mining state with a reputation for safety and world's best practice. We have a strong regulatory framework, existing infrastructure and all the skills needed to safely mine and export uranium," he added, noting that uranium exports are also bound by Australian legislation to ensure they are only used for energy production and not in the development of nuclear weapons. "If South Australia and the Northern Territory can do it, there's no reason why WA can't."

Citing last year's COP28 Summit, where 22 countries signed a ministerial declaration recognising the need to triple global nuclear energy by 2050, Morey said uranium demand will continue to be high, while "supply constraints look set to worsen". Allowing uranium mining in Western Australia would harness an opportunity to supply to countries already using nuclear power, he said, adding "If they don't buy uranium from WA, they'll simply buy it elsewhere".Researched and written by World Nuclear News. Chamber calls for Western Australia to overturn uranium ban : Uranium & Fuel - World Nuclear News
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Petrol, pricing and parking: why so many outer suburban residents are opting for EVs

Until now, you might have thought of electric vehicles as inner suburban toys. Teslas and Polestars are expensive, leaving them as playthings for wealthier Australians and out of reach for the mortgage belt.

But that’s no longer the case. As residents in the outer suburbs reel from price rises seemingly everywhere, more and more are turning to electric vehicles (EVs) to slash their fuel bill.

Last year, EV orders for outer suburban residents (43%) overtook inner suburban residents (39%) for the first time. Rural and regional residents accounted for 18% of orders.

Avoiding petrol costs is one reason. But there are other good reasons, from easier parking and charging, to lower maintenance. And as our research into why people buy EVs has shown, there’s an even more fundamental reason – car buyers now know more about EVs and feel more familiar with the technology.

The suburban garage or driveway works well with charging your EV at home. riopatuca/Shutterstock

Outer suburbs rely on cars

The further you get from the city centre, the more likely you are to have to drive. Distances are longer and public transport drops off. Research from 2020 shows most outer suburban residents who commute have to travel between 10 and 30 kilometres. Every workday return commute costs these workers about A$36 in car running costs, or $180 a week – and this figure will likely have risen since.

So while the initial upfront cost of an EV may put some people off, others run the numbers on how much they spend on petrol – and how much they would save by going electric.

Petrol prices have surged in recent years due to armed conflict in Europe and the Middle East. This affects outer suburban, rural and regional residents the most, given they cover the most distance.

This is a major reason why more outer suburbanites are going electric. Electricity is much cheaper than petrol, especially if you make it yourself with solar. Outer suburban residents are more likely to have solar on their rooftops than inner suburban residents in Sydney and Melbourne.

Outer suburban houses with off-street parking can find it easier to charge their EVs – especially paired with solar. NorCalStockMedia/Shutterstock

Data from the Australian Bureau of Statistics shows the majority of electric vehicle owners live 20 to 60km away from their city’s CBD.

The most popular EVs in Australia last year (Tesla Model Y, Model 3 and BYD’s Atto) can drive between 400 and 500km before needing a recharge. The all-important range has grown substantially in recent years, and now mean suburban residents can commute, shop and go out without worrying about finding a place to charge.

In fact, the outer suburbs are better placed than inner suburbs in terms of charging cheaply. In the inner suburbs, space is at a premium and many houses do not have off-street parking. That makes it hard to recharge your car from your home. But outer suburban homes tend to have off street parking or a garage, which means you can charge cheaply at home.

This is to say nothing of the environmental benefits by avoiding what comes out of the tailpipe of an internal combustion car: carbon dioxide, PM2.5 particles dangerous to our health, and many other nasties.

EVs versus the cost of living

At present, many of us are reining in expenses, cutting back on extracurricular activities and putting off holidays to cope with the surging cost of everything – especially mortgages.

It would make financial sense for many of us to switch to EVs to take advantage of much cheaper running and maintenance costs. But the higher up-front cost of EVs has long been a disincentive.

What’s changing now is that cheaper EVs are arriving from the likes of the world’s second-largest EV manufacturer, China’s BYD and other Chinese brands such as MG. Tesla has cut its prices, too.

In Australia, the cheapest EVs now start from A$40,000, though most still cost $60,000–$90,000.

The secondhand market is growing too, as government fleet EVs come up for sale and as early adopters buy new cars and sell their old.

What are governments doing?

Subsidies, tax credits, and local charging infrastructure are making it easier for residents on the outskirts to transition towards greener transport.

Some state governments are trying to accelerate adoption with a range of incentives for EV owners, from subsidies to cheaper registration. The interest was so strong in Victoria and South Australia that these governments have wound back some subsidies. By contrast, Queensland is offering a generous $6,000 rebate for new EV owners.

At a federal level, the proposed new vehicle efficiency standards will encourage carmakers to sell more fuel-efficient vehicles. If these standards come in, they will likely penalise fuel-guzzling cars and make fuel misers cheaper. They will also likely increase the number of EVs and other zero-emissions vehicles in the Australian market.

What’s next?

Outer suburban residents are buying electric vehicles for very good reasons: financial prudence, practicality and a cleaner future.

Petrol is a substantial expense for many who live in car-dependent suburbs. If you can stop buying it and get the same thing you want – transport – with far cheaper running costs, why wouldn’t you? The Conversation

Park Thaichon, Associate Professor of Marketing, University of Southern Queensland

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.

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When it comes to Indigenous affairs, Australian voters’ opinions are complicated

Geoffrey Robinson, Deakin University The academic study of public opinion is a well-developed area. One foundational finding is that while the views of voters often seem contradictory and incoherent, these apparent inconsistencies have a pattern. The views that voters express in opinion polls reveal that many voters, especially those disengaged from politics, understand key concepts such as “equality” and “disadvantage” in a very different way from political elites of both left and right. The fact that public opinion does not align with traditional “left” and “right” viewpoints means that both progressives and conservatives have opportunities to gain majority support. The marriage equality plebiscite dashed conservatives’ dreams of a suburban “silent majority”. The Voice referendum seems likely to be disappointing for the left. The dynamics of both ballots are similar. One key finding from the study of popular ideology is that voters often express loyalty to general principles while also supporting policies that contradict those principles. Often these general principles are conservative. For example, Americans worry about government being too large, but when questioned about specific government programs, will support their extension. Australians have very high levels of patriotism, but most are not aggressive nationalists. There are some left-wing general principles that attract strong majority support, such as equal opportunity and that immigration contributes to cultural enrichment. However, voters’ interpretation of these principles is not a left-wing one: affirmative action for women is very unpopular, and although voters support multiculturalism as an aspiration, they are much more doubtful about immigrant communities receiving government assistance to maintain culture and traditions. Many aspects of the history of public opinion about Indigenous affairs, as chronicled in Murray Goot and Tim Rowse’s 2007 book Divided Nation, are consistent with this pattern. The political right is often more divided on policy than the left, but it has been successful in maintaining a coalition based on an appeal to abstract principles. The success of the “no” campaign is a case in point. In a liberal democracy, “equality” is a powerful idea, but its meaning is contested. From the 19th century, conservatives found to their surprise that formal political equality did not mean the disappearance of the social and economic inequalities they cherished. Conservatives have mostly championed formal political equality. The campaign against the Voice has centred themes of equality against the special treatment of Indigenous people. The theme is almost 50 years old, going back to mining industry campaigns against land rights in the 1970s. However, the idea of equality is also a tool against institutionalised racism. At the 1967 referendum, voters supported the idea of equality, even though the same voters rejected social closeness to Indigenous people and had a low opinion of their character and abilities. Supporters of “yes” have complained of the invocation of racist themes by some “no” campaigners. However, since the 1990s, public attitudes to Indigenous claims have shifted from hostility to mild support. But in an Australia less racist than it has ever been, the Voice now seems destined for defeat. The question is why were progressives unable to propose a convincing counter-narrative? The fact that initially the Voice attracted strong support suggests this was not inevitable. Although “equality” is a deeply popular idea, voters do not understand equality as simple sameness. In other words, they do not support a narrowly libertarian view that past history and current cultural differences have no bearing on the entitlements of contemporary Australians. Australian society is no longer, if it ever was, dominated by a culture of sameness. Voters recognise the claims of identity and difference, but only to a limited extent. As Goot and Rowse show, settlers have recognised the distinctiveness of Indigenous people, but they tend to understand it as applying only to some groups: those defined as “tribal”, remote, distinctive in appearance and so on. They show that public support for land rights was higher when beneficiaries were defined in this sense. Both left and right have cited the disadvantaged position of Indigenous people in arguments for and against the Voice. But voters’ support for Indigenous specific programs is based less of perceptions of disadvantage than Indigenous distinctiveness. Voters are sympathetic to identity claims when they are understood as something innate about individuals. However, they are less sympathetic when they are understood as the assertion of a collective political project. Scott Morrison’s personal religiosity initially contributed to an image of authenticity that voters found attractive. But his attempt to grant legal privileges to religious schools in the form of exemptions from anti-discrimination legislation were unpopular. The campaign for marriage equality appealed powerfully to ideas about the right to love. Conservatives deviate from a libertarian script when they argue that the high number of Indigenous MPs means that that First Nations peoples are already represented, but this expresses the view of Indigeneity as a personal attribute rather than a political force. The settler majority has come to accept Indigenous people as equal individual citizens of the nation-state. In some cases, they have supported special entitlements for some Indigenous people, rejecting a purely libertarian approach. Early support for the Voice reflected this, but the decline in support for the Voice demonstrates settlers are resistant to the idea of Indigenous peoples as a collective subject entitled to a unified Voice. Australian democracy is not colour-blind, but it defines difference within a limited framework. Geoffrey Robinson, Senior Lecturer, School of Humanities and Social Sciences, Deakin University This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.
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