22 Minerals Council of Australia Box 3 Sh ould Australia diversify from mining into the nuclear fuel cycle The Switkowski Report found that expansion was possible if not easy and that there should be no prohibitions on such development The possibility of Australia becoming involved in one or more of the stages of conversion enrichment and fuel fabrication presents both signifcant challenges and some opportunities The integrated nature of the industry worldwide makes entry diffcult While Australia may have the capability to build an enrichment plant any such decision would need to be a commercial one The presumed high returns from enrichment services would need to be balanced against the high barriers to entry and the large technological economic and political investments required There is no case for the Australian Government to subsidise entry into this valueadding industry On the other hand neither is there a strong case to discourage the development of the industry in Australia and hence legal and regulatory prohibitions would need to be removed to enable normal commercial decisionmaking Commonwealth of Australia Uranium Mining Processing and Nuclear Energy Opportunities for Australia Report to the Prime Minister by the Uranium Mining Processing and Nuclear Energy Review T askforce December 2006 It is always very tempting to argue that raw material producers can and should capture more of the value chain Obviously increased uranium production would stimulate increased exploration but more importantly it would stimulate the construction industry Given the current distribution of uranium mining and development that construction will most likely occur in South Australia W estern Australia and the Northern T erritory Increased economic activity will stimulate the fnance sector one of Australias largest and most important service industries The other important service industry that would massively gain from an increase in uranium production is professional scientifc and technical services It is worth noting that the uranium multipliers for the construction industry and fnance industry are larger than those of the coal industry T o use a colloquialism uranium provides more bang for buck in those industries than does coal By restraining and restricting uranium production the Australian economy as a whole is not performing as well as it otherwise could