The West Australian Government's plan to ban uranium mining has encountered fierce opposition from traditional owners, with a representative describing it as robbery.
In a move welcomed by green groups and attacked by mining companies and the state Opposition, Premier Alan Carpenter has pledged to strengthen his Government's anti-nuclear credentials by legislating to ban uranium mining after the September 6 state election.
Opposition Leader Colin Barnett accused Mr Carpenter of a U-turn, saying the Premier had long maintained that such legislation was unnecessary.
Mr Carpenter denied yesterday he had set out simply to target the Opposition's support of uranium mining. ''I listened to what other people had to say and I was convinced by them that it should go beyond just the whim of the premier of the day,'' he said.
''It should go to the Parliament so that the Parliament says no to mining of uranium.''
He said he had not spoken to the Federal Government about his move, but had told Prime Minister Kevin Rudd at the last ALP national conference that decisions about mining, including uranium mining, were a matter for each state.
Mining companies were joined yesterday in their opposition to the proposed ban by one of the nation's largest incorporated bodies overseeing native title rights.
The Western Desert Land Corporation, which holds native title rights and interests covering 136,000sqkm of land within the Central Western Desert region, said the decision ignored the people it was most likely to affect.
Corporation chief executive Clinton Wolf said the Western Desert area of the Martu people held several of the state's numerous uranium deposits, including the Kintyre deposit, which Rio Tinto recently sold to the Cameco/Mitsubishi consortium for more than $500 million.
The Kintyre prospect is on the western edge of the Great Sandy Desert in the eastern Pilbara region, about 1200km north-east of Perth.
Mr Wolf said the Canadian-Japanese joint venture had already paid out tens of millions of dollars in stamp duty on its acquisition.
''We hear about sovereign risk [the risk to foreign companies operating in Australia] and when it's in relation to investment in WA, there's always a finger pointed at native title. But in this case, it's the WA Government, they're the one presenting a sovereign risk.''
Mr Wolf said that at the same time that government funding to the area had dried up, the state Government was ''robbing one of the most poor and disenfranchised people in this country of the right to earn a living''.
The Association of Mining and Exploration Companies called on Mr Carpenter to urgently reconsider his position. AAP
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