Macfarlane fails to get story straight: Varying lines thrown from Resources Minister Ian Macfarlane were seized on by Democrats leader Lyn Allison, who said the government was in disarray. Macfarlane said on 22 May that the move to "value-add uranium [was] probably half a decade, maybe even a decade away". Then he did a back-flip on the midday ABC bulletin and joined Senator Minchin to say enrichment plans were still decades away, she said. "It’s like having a group of Homer Simpson clones running Australia’s energy policies."
Left united on waste front: Introducing enrichment into the debate has brought the issue of intractable waste to centre stage, with green groups, and Labor, united against enrichment. On waste, Howard said the states had been "utterly opportunistic". "We are never going to solve these big problems if we get overwhelmed, particularly on something like this," he said
The Canberra Times, 23/5/2006, p. 1
Source: Erisk Net