Introduction: Australia's uranium trade in domestic and international context

This chapter summarizes Australia's nuclear grand bargain and how this was expressed in policy terms. It notes that the grand bargain was based on a shared understanding of the strategic and diplomatic benefits that accrued to Australia through its principled uranium export policy. The new Australian Labor Party (ALP) government of Julia Gillard for its part maintained that Australia would continue to export uranium subject to strict safeguards and under the conditioned that the recipient was a signatory to the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT). The chapter focuses on the post-2001 period and explores the clear disjuncture between the approaches of the Howard government and its Labor successor under Kevin Rudd. The Howard governments post-september 11 direction on the security issue came to resemble that of the Bush Administrations, which questioned the effectiveness of the existing international non-proliferation regime. The chapter concludes the major options for Australia's uranium export policy appear to be in the post-2010 federal election political landscape.