Pauline Hanson accuses Anthony Albanese of major double standard after landmark deal with India: 'It makes no sense'

Published: 01:46, 10 July 2026 | Updated: 01:50, 10 July 2026 Pauline Hanson has accused the Albanese government of hypocrisy following the announcement it had signed a nuclear export deal with India worth billions of dollars. In a social media statement, the One Nation leader declared 'Labor's energy hypocrisy knows no bounds'. 'They are shutting down our coal power plants while exporting it to other countries. We're facing gas shortages and Labor is banning gas appliances, yet we export huge amounts of it. 'In the meantime, Labor is destroying rainforests and native habitats in Queensland – and invading farms in Victoria – to build giant wind turbines and thousands of kilometres of new transmission lines.' Recently, calls have been growing for Australia to adopt a nuclear-based approach to energy. Nuclear energy is currently banned in Australia under the Environment Protection and Biodiversity Conservation Act 1999, and the Australian Radiation Protection and Nuclear Safety Act 1998. Instead, it has relied primarily on coal, oil, and natural gas for its energy grid. This is despite boasting one third of the planet's uranium reserves. South Australia's Olympic Dam mine sits on the world's largest known deposit of uranium, which is the primary fuel for nuclear power. Pauline Hanson has accused Labor of 'hypocrisy' when it comes to nuclear energy 'It makes no sense for Australia ... to ban uranium mining in three states and ban nuclear energy altogether,' Hanson said. 'We're even supposed to be buying nuclear-powered submarines, but we can't have nuclear-powered cities, towns and critical industries.' The nuclear deal comes in the midst of Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi's three-day tour of Australia. 'Today we can confirm the signing of the administrative arrangement to enable uranium exports to India for peaceful purposes under the 2015 Australia–India nuclear co-operation agreement,' Albanese told reporters in a joint press conference with Modi on Thursday. 'The arrangement facilitates Australian uranium exports to India to help increase the share of non-fossil fuel power capacity, providing an additional market for the Australian resources sector.' Despite Albanese's upbeat tone, Modi's remarks drew further attention to Labor's nuclear-negative policy; he noted that access to Australia's uranium presented a 'historic opportunity' that would give India's clean energy initiatives 'fresh momentum'. 'Australia's huge uranium reserves are directly connected to India's nuclear journey,' he said. Further drawing Hanson's ire, Modi also confirmed that with the aid of Australian uranium, India was aiming to produce 100 gigawatts of nuclear energy by 2047 to power the country's development. The Olympic Dam mine in South Australia, which sits on one of the world's largest deposits of uranium 'India plans to produce three or four-times Australia's entire electricity output from nuclear technology alone, splitting Australian uranium atoms to achieve this goal,' Hanson said. She confirmed that if elected, One Nation would lift the ban on nuclear energy and build a 1400MW advanced pressurised water nuclear reactor in New South Wales.  'Our demands for reliable, affordable baseload energy are only going to increase,' she said.  'Renewables cannot possibly meet this demand. Nuclear power is used safely at more than 450 sites in 28 countries, and more reactors are being built around the world as we speak. 'We cannot afford to be nuclear hypocrites any longer.'