05 Dec, 2011 11:44 AM

If Australia is willing to sell uranium to India, it should also sell it to Pakistan, the nation’s high commissioner says.

It comes after Labor changed its policy platform to allow uranium sales to India, despite that nation’s refusal to sign the nuclear non-proliferation treaty.

Meanwhile, the latest Newspoll – taken during the weekend conference – shows Labor catching up to the Coalition in support, but still in a position where they would lose an election badly.

Prime Minister Julia Gillard persuaded Labor’s national conference yesterday to agree to lift the longstanding ban on selling Australian yellowcake to India, saying it was in both countries’ interests to open up the trade.

”We are at the right time in the history of the world to seize a new era of opportunity in this, the Asian century,” Ms Gillard said.

”We need to make sure that across our regions we have the strongest possible relationships we can, including with the world’s largest democracy, India.”

Pakistan’s high commissioner to Australia, Abdul Malik Abdullah, said today that Australia should sell uranium to his country, too.

“To me the position that Australia had taken earlier on had put Australia at a high moral ground. Now if after ALP’s decision if the Australian Government is going to change the policy, all we would like to have is an equitable and non-discriminatory decision,” he told the ABC.

“If Australia is going to lift the ban on a country which has not signed NPT, it is of hoped it will also applied to Pakistan the same way.”