Is ALP’s time call on uranium a mine field? Officials ask why Labor hates mining industry - The African Business Journal: "Can the Western Australian Labour Party rule out uranium mining and disregard existing permits in the process? The Liberal government has answered with an outright no, and said that should the party win, it will face paying out millions in compensation in the process.
“To suggest that anybody who's got a uranium mine or a mining lease, that could simply be taken away from them without any compensation completely ignores the rule of law,” Mines Minister, Norman Moore told press.
“It adds a sovereign risk issue in Western Australia we've never had before; when you add that to Labor's carbon tax and Gillard's mining tax, you wonder what the Labor Party's got against the mining industry.”
“If they go down this path they'll be up for significant compensation in my view, they'll spend a lot of time in court.”
Mirroring Moore’s words, the Australian Association of Mining & Exploration Companies (AMEC) called the decision, “disappointing, short sighted and out of date.”
Another factor to surface and cause great distress, should WA Labour headed by Eric Ripper take charge, is the potential job losses and infrastructure projects that would abandoned. According to statements made by AMEC, this would be far into the thousands.
