Mineweb reported that Mr Mark McGowan new Leader of the Australian Labor Party in Western Australia put the cat among the political pigeons in his acceptance speech by agreeing to allow already approved uranium projects in the State to proceed.

However, he said that the party would not support any later uranium projects in Western Australia which holds some of the nation's largest deposits, though at this stage no mine.

His statement on this and liberalizing weekend retail trade in Western Australia were seen as sweeping issues that may not necessarily be warmly received by the party rump, which had adopted a flat ban on uranium mining under the outgoing leadership. However, the party sees the relatively young McGowan as a panacea after the woeful ratings of previous leader Eric Ripper who has been relegated to the back bench.

At this stage, political observers are saying the ALP is well behind Liberal Premier Mr Colin Barnett, who has a strong development stance and is firmly against the increased Federal Government tax on iron ore, magnetite and coal mining and also its unpopular carbon tax.

While Mr McGowan is expected to pull back some ground lost in the past two years his biggest millstone will be the unpopularity of Federal Labor in Canberra led by Prime Minister Ms Julia Gillard whose ratings were only slightly better than Eric Ripper.

Mr McGowan's partial change on uranium will rile the Labor left and it is clear he will be distancing himself from the anti development Green Party which has some influence in Western Australia's Upper House.

The view of the Association of Mining & Exploration Companies was that Mr McGowan was really not going to resolve much as the industry needed precise decisions.

Federal Labor changed its restricted uranium mining policy about 4 years ago at a national party convention after Kevin Rudd was swept into power and after he was dethroned, new Prime Minister Gillard maintained the policy.

(Sourced from www.mineweb.com)