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FRAN KELLY: World leaders are gathered at the UN for the regular five-year review of the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty. Since it came into force 40 years ago, Israel, India, Pakistan and North Korea have all acquired a nuclear weapons capability and it's suspected, of course, that Iran is well on the way too.

The nuclear disarmament issue has been pushed further up the global agenda by the US President, Barack Obama. He recently signed a new accord with Russia. Australia's also playing a role, with the International Nuclear Non-Proliferation and Disarmament Commission [ICNND], established by the Prime Minister Kevin Rudd in 2008. That forms the basis of a joint package of measures that Australia and Japan are asking the UN meeting to consider.

Foreign Affairs Minister, Stephen Smith, joins us from New York. Minister, thanks very much for being with us.

STEPHEN SMITH: Good morning Fran.

FRAN KELLY: Now, the last five year review of the NPT was considered a failure, really. It didn't even release a final document, because it couldn't get any kind of agreement. How are things looking this time?

STEPHEN SMITH: Well I think the grim reality is that the 2005 Review Conference was a debacle. We're quietly cautiously optimistic that on this occasion we'll see some forward movement. The Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty has really been, for 40 years, the bulwark of the international community's efforts on non-proliferation, disarmament and also sensible safeguards on the peaceful use, for civil purposes, of nuclear energy.

But there have been some good ‘straws in the wind': the new START agreement between the United States and the Russian Federation, reducing the number of deployable nuclear missiles that those two countries have; the Nuclear Security Summit that was held in Washington recently; and also yesterday, Secretary of State Clinton announcing that the United States would sign and ratify the protocols to the South Pacific Nuclear Free Zone and also the African Nuclear Free Zone. So there are some straws in the wind. And whilst it's early days, I think we're going to see a more successful review conference on this occasion, than in 2005.

FRAN KELLY: You mentioned the US Secretary of State Hilary Clinton. There was a strong exchange between Hilary Clinton and the Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad at the start of the conference. The US is pushing for a fourth round of UN sanctions against Iran. Is a vote by the full Security Council likely by the end of the conference?

STEPHEN SMITH: Iran's nuclear program is one of the proliferation concerns that we have - as is North Korea, and the DPRK. Australia supports, and has fully implemented, all of the UN Security Council resolutions against Iran, for its failure to abide by Security Council and International Atomic Energy Agency resolutions. We strongly support further measures before the Security Council, and we've also indicated that we would look at further autonomous measures.

The exchange yesterday between President Ahmadinejad and the United States was in very, very many respects part of a theatre at the beginning of the Conference. But I'm hopeful that that issue, of itself, won't disturb or deflect the Review Conference from its serious work. Australia's very strong view is that further efforts need to be made before the Security Council on Iran's program. We need to get a change of policy so far as Iran is concerned and we're fully supporting efforts to bring that matter back before the Security Council.

FRAN KELLY: And there's some criticism today, by anti-nuclear campaigners and even the Federal Opposition of the strength, or lack of it, of the Australian Government's response. Australia and Japan submitted a package of disarmament and non-proliferation measures to the conference, which stemmed from the PM's International Commission on Nuclear Non-Proliferation and Disarmament. But Australia stopped short of backing the commission's suggestion that there be mandated a number of - a call for reducing the total number of nuclear weapons to 2000 warheads by 2025. Why didn't you accept that?

STEPHEN SMITH: The Government's policy objective, our long-term objective, is the abolition of nuclear weapons - a world free from nuclear weapons. There are a small number of things in the independent International Commission's report that we haven't attached ourselves to and setting out a detailed timetable and scaling down of nuclear warheads is one of the areas where we haven't associated ourselves with. And that's because we need to see the strategic environment to get to zero nuclear weapons and there will be more than one timetable suggested. And even the Evans report, of itself, does not come to a concluded view about an aspirational time for when that should be achieved.

If I was the Liberal Party, I wouldn't be lecturing the Government about its efforts on non-proliferation and disarmament, because it's done nothing for 12 years. But the Government's efforts, the Australian Government's efforts, the establishment by Australia and Japan of the international commission chaired by Gareth Evans and former Japanese Foreign Minister Kawaguchi has been very widely received as a positive, constructive contribution to the way forward.

Our formal policy position and our formal contribution to the Conference itself has been a 16-point plan that we've put forward with Japan which ranges from adoption of the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty to protection of nuclear materials, physical protection, to the need for a fissile material treaty, plus additional resources to the International Atomic Energy Agency for supervision and verification purposes.

So we are very comfortable with Australia's longstanding contribution in the non-proliferation and disarmament area. But we're also very pleased with the reception that we have received, which is essentially a reception from the international community which says we're very pleased that Australia is back and active and interested on this front because it had been neglected very seriously over the last decade or so.

FRAN KELLY: And Minister, can I go to domestic matters now? Yesterday's Newspoll showed the Coalition leading the Government for the first time in four years. The Premier of your home state of WA, Colin Barnett, is saying that in part because of the new mining profits tax, but just generally anyway, Labor will lose the seat of Hasluck in WA at the next election and it won't pick up a seat like Swan, for instance, that Labor had been counting on. Is he right or wrong?

STEPHEN SMITH: Oh, well, we'll know on election night, or Sunday morning after the election day.

FRAN KELLY: What's your hunch?

STEPHEN SMITH: I said on the night of the last election that I believed that at the next election, the 2010 election, that Labor would win seats in Western Australia and that remains my view.

I've seen, over the years, a lot of people saying that we're about to see the death of the minerals and petroleum resources industry because of any number of policy changes and somewhere in my files I still carry with me the front page of the Financial Review describing the minerals resources industry as an old industry which should be forgotten by Australia. And we see today the minerals and petroleum resources industry being, in very many respects, Australia's most successful industry and that will continue.

It's very important to make this point: we have a resources rent tax of 40 per cent on the petroleum resources industry that's been in place for very many years. That hasn't stopped, in the recent period, the largest liquefied natural gas export contracts that we've seen, including from Gorgon.

And so, when you look at the consequences of a resources rent tax for the minerals industry, you also need to take into account a reduced company tax which will help small mining companies in Western Australia and explorers and also the infrastructure dividend that will go to Western Australia as a consequence of the changed tax arrangements.

But that will be one issue which Western Australians will consider. More generally will be their view of the Government's handling of our economy and in that respect we believe that in very difficult circumstances we've done well to avoid the worst of the adverse consequences of the global financial downturn. Importantly we've seen job losses not increase exponentially as a consequence of our management of the economy.

FRAN KELLY: Okay.

STEPHEN SMITH: So management of the economy will be one issue that people will consider but I remain of the view that we are in the hunt for additional seats in Western Australia and there'll be a long way between now and the election and any number of polls between now and the election. I don't like using clichés on your show in particular, Fran, but there's only one that really counts.

FRAN KELLY: Okay, Stephen Smith, we'll leave it there. Thank you very much for joining us.

STEPHEN SMITH: Thanks, Fran, thanks very much.

FRAN KELLY: Foreign Minister Stephen Smith joining us from New York.

END

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