Australian nuclear is being boosted this week with the re-animation of Queensland’s uranium industry, and some encouraging words from a former Prime Minister.

The Newman government in Queensland is restarting uranium mining after a thirty year ban, re-launching the Mary Kathleen mine near Mount Isa, which closed in 1982.

The Queensland government is accepting applications for access to the state’s uranium reserves, worth about $10 billion.

Mines Minister Andrew Cripps said it would only be exported for peaceful purposes, and not for nuclear energy production or weapon-making.

Former Prime Minister Bob Hawke has repeated his call for a nuclear waste storage site to help Aboriginal communities.

Speaking at the Garma Festival in north-east Arnhem Land, Mr Hawke said a nuclear waste storage industry would help “close the gap” for Aboriginal people, bringing new facilities, services and financial opportunities.

Hawke has long been a supporter of nuclear power as an essential method to combat climate change.

Given that Australia holds an estimated 30 per cent of the world’s uranium resources, he says it has “a responsibility and an obligation” to take care of the waste too.

Hawke said a report he undertaken late in his term found the “safest remote geological formations for this purpose... were in the Northern Territory and to some extent in Western Australia”.

“In creating a safer energy cycle in a world facing a threat of global warming, we would not only be doing good for the rest of the world, we would be doing enormously well for Australia, as the world would pay handsomely for this service,” Mr Hawke said.

“And we would do particularly well for Aboriginal Australians.”

Hawke says it would be in the public interest for such an enterprise to be owned and controlled by the Government, but “none of this should happen without full discussion with and the consent of Aboriginal leaders”.

“We can revolutionise the economics of Australia if we did this,” he said, assign that income would be directed to environmental issues in such as water salinity and access.

Hawke says NT Chief Minister Adam Giles backs the idea too.

“Mr Giles] tells me he's been approached by a number of elders who, like himself, are keenly supportive of this proposal,” Hawke said.

Recently, moves have been made to link the United States’ and Russia’s nuclear programs in a joint effort to build a weapon capable of saving the Earth from asteroids, reducing pollutant emissions and enhance nuclear medicine.

Conflict in Ukraine has stalled these talks too.