PETER VAN ONSELEN: Albo's nuclear hypocrisy glows in the dark. Indian PM Narendra Modi's visit expoes it

By PETER VAN ONSELEN, POLITICAL EDITOR, AUSTRALIA Published: 02:31, 10 July 2026 | Updated: 02:31, 10 July 2026 Your browser does not support iframes. Anthony Albanese's nuclear hypocrisy is now glowing in the dark. The Prime Minister has just finalised a major deal to export Australian uranium to India, a nation that, it's worth noting, still refuses to sign the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT). Suddenly, Albo has discovered several forms of nuclear energy he can live with, just so long as it's not used here at home. It's fine when it is dug out of Australian soil to help power another country's energy grid. India plans on dramatically upping its reliance on nuclear power to energise its booming economy. It's also fine when it is buried inside a submarine, crewed by Australian sailors and sent silently through the deep, courtesy of the AUKUS nuclear subs agreement with the US and UK. It's only intolerable when someone suggests it might one day generate electricity for Australian households. That's the absurdity sitting at the heart of Labor's energy policy. The Albanese government wants all the prestige of nuclear respectability abroad without a shred of the domestic political discomfort (on its left flank) that goes with actually embracing it.  Because it isn't even prepared to engage in a mature argument about nuclear power as part of the Australian grid. It's hypocrisy on stilts. Standing beside the Indian PM Narendra Modi, Albo was happy to present the uranium export deal as a serious contribution to energy security. And fair enough, because in isolation it is.  Prime Minister Anthony Albanese gives Indian PM Narendra Modi a hug during an event marking his trip to Australia  Above, an image from the union scare campaign against Peter Dutton's nuclear policy... Labor strikes a very different tune on the national stage India is a rising power trying to reduce its fossil fuel dependence. Nuclear power is part of that ambition, and Australian uranium can play an important role. Our uranium deposits are world-leading, not that using them closer to home is morally acceptable amongst much of the left, even despite their demands for climate change action. If nuclear energy is clean, reliable and legitimate enough to help India decarbonise, why is it too dangerous to even consider at home?  If Australian uranium can be mined, exported, safeguarded and used in Indian reactors, despite Delhi's refusal to sign the NPT, why does Albo's government insist nuclear power in Australia must remain legally off limits? Labor's defenders claim the objection is purely economic. Nuclear, they argue, is too expensive and too slow for a country with abundant renewables. That would be a defensible argument if it was the only argument. Labor doesn't just say the economic case for domestic nuclear power doesn't stack up, it maintains a legal prohibition against it. Keeping laws in place so that we can never know if the private sector would back a dive into nuclear power. A government genuinely opposed to nuclear on moral grounds would not be celebrating uranium exports to India. A government genuinely confident in its economic case would not need a legislative ban to protect it from investors. Yet the moment nuclear technology appears in a defence briefing or an export announcement, the sanctimony vanishes. It's okay to have a floating (and submerging) nuclear reactor roaming the depths of the ocean, but put a civilian power plant on land and that's too risky. Labor's childish memes when Peter Dutton announced his nuclear policy ahead of the last federal election sum up the low quality of the political debate in Australia. Another image from the union campaign against nuclear in Australia Spare us the argument that submarines and power stations are different technologies. Of course they are.  But Labor's political case against nuclear has never confined itself to dry comparisons of generation costs and construction timelines.  It has leaned heavily on fear, safety, waste and morality. That broader case now lies in pieces. If Australia is mature enough to export uranium to a NPT holdout, operate nuclear powered submarines, and manage radioactive submarine waste, it should be mature enough to lift the legal ban on civilian nuclear power.  Let the technology stand or fall on its own merits.