Labor has been urged to ditch its anti-uranium ideology after signing a massive deal to export the valuable commodity to India.
The Albanese government struck a deal with Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi to export Australian uranium to India for use in the nuclear energy industry.
“Australia’s huge uranium reserves are directly connected to India’s nuclear journey,” Mr Modi said at a business event in Melbourne on Thursday.
The recent announcement sparked calls from Cauldron Energy CEO Jonathon Fisher to overturn mining bans and increase production.
“(We need) less ideology (and) more practicality,” Mr Fisher told Business Weekend.
He said bans in Western Australia, Queensland and New South Wales needed to be overturned to capitalise on Australia’s vast array of uranium.
“Let’s look at the reason why the bans are in place in the first place,” Mr Fisher said.
“‘It can’t be done safely in nuclear weapons’ – well, the South Australians have safely mined uranium for over 40 years, that’s not a problem.
“On nuclear non-proliferation, Australia remains the gold standard for looking after our safeguards.”
Labor has ruled out nuclear energy for the nation’s power mix and has dismissed calls to lift the moratorium on the power supply.
NSW’s upper house has passed legislation that removes the 39-year-long ban on uranium mining, however, this still needs to go through the state’s lower house.
Mr Fisher said there were large prospects for uranium mining the NSW town Broken Hill, which sits near the border of South Australia.
“There is plenty of uranium in New South Wales, although there’s been a long ban and hence it’s been underexplored,” he said.
“We know that around Broken Hill there are vast amounts of uranium. It’s in the same sort of paleo-channel environment as the big deposits in South Australia and I can guarantee you, geology does not respect state borders so the same plumbing system is there.
“And Broken Hill itself already has a uranium mining workforce because they drive in and out to Boss (Energy’s) Honeymoon project.”
Mr Fisher said that investing in uranium mining was also crucial as Australia both strives to reduce emissions and bolster energy security.
“The biggest challenge of our time, I believe, is energy abundance. How do we get a huge amount of energy at a low price?” he asked.
“India is going down the nuclear route. They’ve got a massive data centre built out over there.
“They need that energy, and they have no domestic sources of uranium. They’ve got thorium, but no uranium and they’re looking to one of their closest trading partners.”
Both the Coalition and One Nation have signalled support for nuclear energy.
This comes despite the Coalition losing the 2025 election with a policy for seven publicly-funded plants.