Australia and India signed an administrative arrangement in Melbourne on Thursday clearing the way for long-term Australian uranium exports to India, the most concrete outcome of the third Annual Leaders' Summit between Anthony Albanese and Narendra Modi.
The arrangement sits under the bilateral Nuclear Cooperation Agreement signed in 2014 and in force since 2015, and restricts sales to "exclusively peaceful purposes" under International Atomic Energy Agency safeguards. Neither government announced quantities, dollar values, shipment timelines or the companies that would supply the uranium. The Associated Press reported the leaders "didn't immediately supply details of how much uranium would be sold, or when."
That detail matters because the paperwork has existed for a decade while the trade has not. India is not a signatory to the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty, and exports stalled after the 2014 agreement over concerns about weapons use, with the safeguards regime relying on IAEA oversight and the separation of India's civilian and military programs. Modi said the arrangement would "give our clean energy objectives fresh momentum."
The summit also produced a new Joint Declaration on Defence and Security Cooperation, the successor to the 2009 declaration, establishing an annual defence ministers' dialogue and a maritime security roadmap, alongside a memorandum of understanding between Maritime Border Command and the Indian Coast Guard. A separate MoU covering the supply of defence articles and services is still in development, not signed. "Australia values India as a top-tier security partner," Albanese said.
On education, India approved a Flinders University campus in Bengaluru and Victoria University received approval for a campus in Gurugram, taking to eight the number of Australian universities with a presence in India, which sent Australia more than 140,000 students last year. AustralianSuper committed a further $500 million to India's National Investment and Infrastructure Fund, and a joint statement on energy security committed Australia to continued LNG and coal supply.
The document that did not land is the big one. The Comprehensive Economic Cooperation Agreement remains unfinished four years after the interim trade deal, with the joint statement recording only that both sides are "progressing" it. "We have now decided to work at a fast pace on a Comprehensive Economic Cooperation Agreement," Modi said. "An agreement that will be balanced, ambitious and win-win for both countries."
Thursday night belonged to the stadium. About 30,000 people attended the Marvel Stadium event, by SBS's count, though with more empty seats than his 2023 Sydney arena appearance. Outside, human rights protesters led by the Alliance Against Islamophobia demonstrated over the treatment of minorities in India, while a separate far-right group called for Modi and Indian migrants to leave Australia. Khalistan movement supporters had earlier gathered outside the Government House event.
Modi departs for New Zealand on Friday, his first visit to the country. The uranium arrangement is signed. What it is worth, in tonnes and in dollars, is the part neither government has yet put on paper.
