[Black Wolf]

http://www.heraldsun.news.com.au/common/story_page/0,5478,16941471%255E1702,00.html

!!!!ers. If they could, they'd let 'em in in a second - I just hope that the relevant states aren't stupid enough to give the Liberals (Don't let the name fool you - they're thoroughly conservative) access to state government before we can kick Howard out of the senate at the very least.

Bloody hell - it's no surprise they're unwilling to discuss this publically.

[FireCrack]

Eh? I'm not too on top of Australian politics.

[deep_eyes]

the first person i thought of was howard stern lmao

[mikhael]

I always get a giggle when I see "Liberals" in Australian politics. You lot should forcibly rename them "Conservative" and call Labor Liberal. What I like is that your Democrats and Greens actually have enough backing to have power in the formation of a government, something the US sorely lacks (of course, our straight up vote for the legislature makes it very difficult for those third parties).

[aldo_14]

I though 'Micheal', but there's yer Britcentric viewpoint view for you.

Um... it'd be a massive step backwards to do this.  Australia has one of the highest levels of (potential at least) natural resources per-person, it's not like uranium would be their one honeypot to exploit.

[Rictor]

Austrialia is in a wierd place, geopolitically. They're very much Western, and allied with Western governments, but they have China, Indonesia and the others as their closest neighboors. Which means you guys, like it or not, have to play ball to some extent.

[Black Wolf]

But that doesn't mean we have to let them come in and mine it themselves.

[Kosh]

I am not really seeing the problem with this. China already has nuclear weapons, it has had them for a long time.

[aldo_14]

Originally posted by Kosh
I am not really seeing the problem with this. China already has nuclear weapons, it has had them for a long time.

Would you want to turn a large part of your territory into a nationalised mine run by and for another country?  One that could be potentially hostile (lot of living space & resources in Australia), and is building weapons that could easily destroy your own?

It'd be a bit like allowing Iran to build and run a Uranium mine in the US or UK.

[Mefustae]

Originally posted by aldo_14


Would you want to turn a large part of your territory into a nationalised mine run by and for another country?  One that could be potentially hostile (lot of living space & resources in Australia), and is building weapons that could easily destroy your own?

It'd be a bit like allowing Iran to build and run a Uranium mine in the US or UK.

Bull****, you could make that argument against the US, the UK, India, Pakistan, and every other Nuclear Nation on the planet. Sure, China's percieved as the evil-doer of the global community, but frankly I find the US more threatning to our national security (this isn't a shot at the US, it's just how I feel on the matter)...

[aldo_14]

Originally posted by Mefustae
Bull****, you could make that argument against the US, the UK, India, Pakistan, and every other Nuclear Nation on the planet. Sure, China's percieved as the evil-doer of the global community, but frankly I find the US more threatning to our national security (this isn't a shot at the US, it's just how I feel on the matter)...

Yes, you could.

 Which is why it makes sense not to be effectively gifting them land.

 I'm not even citing China as an 'evil doer' - or Iran as such - I'm just pointing out the obvious stupidity of handing any nation - let alone the potentially hostile ones - your natural resources on a platter.  

Would you be happy to let the US effectively take over a large part of, say, the Northern Territory and mine uranium for their nuclear weapons?  Let's not play dumb, here, after all; the Chinese mining company that sets up shop to mine uranium will be a part of the Chinese government, part of their nationalised industry.

The very least you could do is maintain control over the nuclear material within your own borders.

[Duelron1001]

i am quite willing to agree with Mefustae, the reason the librials are in power is because the people voted them in to make decissions not to have in-party fights like labor has being doing (all right they have being quiet for awhile now, but their recent record speaks from it's self). What i don't understand is why people are so scared of U, to make it ready for use in a civilain nuclear reactor it takes a fair amount of time and we only use a very small amount of it to fuel our singular research reactor. this is a great opportunity for Australia's economy, as the artical says we have 40% of the world's U - that's of it in one country and we only have 3 mines taking advantage of it. if you look at the export figures at the bottom you see that china isn't getting any of it, with their boming economy and rising oil demands it's not suprising that they are seaking more U to fuel their nuclear reactors.
what i find intresting is that you [Black Wolf] assume that this newly proposed mining operation is going to be run purely by chinse... do you relise how much it would cost the chinse to being in their own staff? it would be far cheaper for them to hire local people, after all their wages would be protected by newly introduced work place laws, or are you going to use that as part of your next anti-government post? anti-government threads like this are point less, the Australian people have all ready said that they want them in power and making decissions; might i add that they gained more support from the people in the last election.

*sigh* looking back over this post and all i can say that i am just adding fuel to this flamebat political disscussion, alas what HLP is famous for.

[karajorma]

Originally posted by Kosh
I am not really seeing the problem with this. China already has nuclear weapons, it has had them for a long time.

Did they brainwash you the second you got off the plane or did they at least wait until the middle of the night to haul you off

Seriously though I wouldn't trust China to mine uranium safely in their own country. I certainly wouldn't trust them to care about long term problems in someone else's country.

[aldo_14]

Thinking about it....the Chinese don't exactly have the best safety record for this sort of thing, do they?

[Black Wolf]

I'm only partly pissed about it being Uranium, and barely at all that it's china specifically. My big beefs are with the fact that they're considering this to begin with as a mining project. We should be mining our own stuff - we should be paying Australian workers for it and then selling it to them, not effectively giving it to them for what would probably be pittance royalties (and that would apply no matter what country was trying to do it).

The Uranium makes it a lot worse, of course, especially with China trying to take it - considering their attitudes towards places like Tibet and Taiwan, I'm against exporting Uranium to them at all, but just letting them take it is vastly worse.

what i find intresting is that you [Black Wolf] assume that this newly proposed mining operation is going to be run purely by chinse... do you relise how much it would cost the chinse to being in their own staff?

I'm studying Geology - I know how the mining industry works, it's one of the things they teach us. They'll be bringing in experts at the very least, quite possibly workers as well. We send people to Saudi Arabia all the time to work the oil rigs, same with South America and various other places around the world. Moreover, the Chinese can bring their people over and pay them Chinese wages if they want to, rather than Australian wages. That would easily cover the cost of transport.

the Australian people have all ready said that they want them in power and making decissions; might i add that they gained more support from the people in the last election.

Come off it - they didn't gain support, Labor lost it.

[Kosh]

Originally posted by karajorma


Did they brainwash you the second you got off the plane or did they at least wait until the middle of the night to haul you off

Seriously though I wouldn't trust China to mine uranium safely in their own country. I certainly wouldn't trust them to care about long term problems in someone else's country.

No comrade Karajorma.


I see your point. Chinese coal mines aren't exactly the safest places in the world.


But that isn't what I was referring to. The "concern" is that China would use it for it's military. That is what I was reffering to.

[Rictor]

Well it's all fine and dandy in theory Kosh, but China and The West (of which Australia is more or less a part) are what's reffered to as rivals, both economic and otherwise (meaning ideological, military and broadly just rivals). China is no longer the enemy, but they're not friends either. They're the competition. And it's not good to go around helping the competition.

Personally, I like it that way, it keeps a balance of power. Hell, I'm already frightened by the power China might/will aquire in a few decades time, at least this way there is a counter-force. The problem is not, I think, that anyone afraid that China is going to attack Australia or any other country, but rather that China is seen as a rising giant, one that potentially threatens to eclipse the West, and no one is in any particular hurry to help them along.

[Kosh]

Canada doesn't seem to mind

http://www.vivelecanada.ca/article.php/20050415173650302


It isn't "the west" that has such a big problem, but mostly it is just the US. The US does have the most to lose.

There are lots of other examples, but from what I have been seeing over the past few years the US has been outmanuevered and isolated on several major issues.

[karajorma]

Originally posted by Kosh
But that isn't what I was referring to. The "concern" is that China would use it for it's military. That is what I was reffering to.

That is of course pretty foolish. China already has nukes. If it has more it is not a huge worry. What is the worry is that it (and any other nuclear power for that matter) has them at all.

[Turnsky]

it'd make more economic sense to sell the uranium to China, but eh, nobody ever accused howard of being smart.. the only reason i voted for him 'cuz latham was the bigger moron.