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House of Assembly - Fifty-Second Parliament, First Session (52-1)
2010-05-11 Daily Xml
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OLYMPIC DAM

Mr WILLIAMS (MacKillop—Deputy Leader of the Opposition) (15:29): I have a supplementary question, Madam Speaker. If the Premier has always believed in this mine and always fought for it, why did he write the book Uranium—Play It Safe, which attempted to stop the Olympic Dam mine from ever starting?

The SPEAKER: It is up to the Premier to reply, but I do not think it is worth responding to.

The Hon. M.D. RANN (Ramsay—Premier, Minister for Economic Development, Minister for Social Inclusion, Minister for the Arts, Minister for Sustainability and Climate Change) (15:29): It was a former Labor government that decided to support the mine to the hilt and it was our Labor government that has been behind the expansion, and it was this Labor Premier who went to the national conference of the Labor Party and, together with my friend the Prime Minister, changed a more than 30-year policy basically to allow more than the existing mines to exist and for more mines to come. I am proud to say—

Members interjecting:

The SPEAKER: Order!

The Hon. M.D. RANN: I know people call me 'Yellowcake Rann' and other things. The fact is that I am also pleased that you read that best seller. It is now a collector's item: there were thousands produced. And it was right: it said that we should not proceed until we got safe international safeguards right. And you know something: I am proud to have been the person who, with the Prime Minister, moved the motion and secured the support of the entire Labor Party conference—well, at least, just over 50 per cent of it. It may have been by about 8 votes, I think.

The Hon. S.W. Key: 15 votes we won by.

The Hon. M.D. RANN: We won by 15 votes, I have been corrected. I do not want to mislead the house. So I am proud to have changed the policy, because it made no sense. It made no sense that we could have the world's biggest uranium mine but we could not have any more with the same strict standards and with the same commitment to improved international safeguards.

Members interjecting:

The SPEAKER: Order! Did they make a movie of the book, Premier? The deputy leader.

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