When the Commonwealth Radioactive Waste Management Act 2005 was forced through the Senate, Labor accurately described it as, "extreme, arrogant, heavy-handed, draconian, sorry, sordid, extraordinary and profoundly shameful".

Why? Because it wiped out Northern Territory laws prohibiting transport and storage of nuclear waste. The legislation also squashed Aboriginal heritage laws and the Native Title Act, overriding procedural fairness.

Uranium mining is frequently presented as the only solution to a range of economic power security and climate change challenges. In reality, however, the uranium industry creates far more problems than it claims to solve.

In a highly questionable move, the Western Australian Premier-elect has tied the increase in funding for regions, through the Nationals' "royalties for regions" program, to uranium mining. In planning to lift WA's ban on uranium mining - a ban that had been supported by the outgoing Carpenter government - Colin Barnett has named the issue as one of his two key priorities, along with the large-scale release of genetically modified organisms into the environment.