Bipartisan political resolve stiffened yesterday for Australia not to be rushed into ratifying an agreement with Russia for the use of Australian uranium.

Labor's head of the joint parliamentary committee on treaties, Kelvin Thomson, maintained that Australia should delay agreeing to the deal and Liberal committee member Julian McGauran said he remained unconvinced about immediate ratification.

Mr Thomson and Senator McGattran were speaking after the intervention of the Russian ambassador led many committee colleagues to duck for cover.

Ambassador Alexander Blokhin bluntly warned Australia that any delay in ratification would be regarded by Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin as "an obviously politically biased decision".

Foreign Minister Stephen Smith did not speak on the issue yesterday after telling Parliament on Monday that the Government would consider Russian intervention in Georgia when it assessed the uranium agreement.

Special Minister of State John Faulkner, who fielded parliamentary questions on the issue yesterday, said Mr Smith did not intend to get into a public debate with the ambassador.

Mr Smith's original statement, which led to the ambassador's intervention, came after the treaties committee held a public hearing on Monday into the Australia-Russia civil nuclear cooperation agreement, signed during the APEC leaders' summit last September and tabled in Parliament in May.

Mr Thomson said yesterday that his assessment of Mr Putin - whom he has described as "one tough son of a gun" who would not hesitate to renege on the weapons safeguards in the deal - had only been confirmed.

Mr Thomson said the ambassador's intervention highlighted the need for caution and he expected it to feature in his committee's report, due to be presented to Parliament in a fortnight.

Senator McGauran echoed Mr Thomson's concerns about the lack of International Atomic Energy Agency inspections of Russian nuclear facilities over the past seven years.

He said many committee members were "suspicious" about the reasons for this.

"The committee should continue to consider the matter and shouldn't have any plans for a quick decision," he said. "For myself, I'm unconvinced at the moment ...

"Russia's a bully-boy nation and I just wonder what's behind the IAEA's decision not to inspect."

Liberal committee member Russell Trood, a former foreign-relations academic, raised the issue in the Senate yesterday, suggesting that Mr Smith's "posturing" over Georgia was more likely to "damage Australia's international reputation as a reliable supplier of resources" than to have any "discernible impact" on Russia's policy towards Georgia.

"Does this kind of veiled threat serve to establish a bad precedent?" he asked.

"Doesn't it legitimise Russia's outrageous behaviour in cutting off gas supplies to eastern Europe in 2006 and 2007?"

The Greens called for the uranium deal to be torn tip, WA senator Scott Ludlatn saying Mr Sinith had an opportunity to "draw a line under this reckless foreign policy gamble of the Howard era".

Senator Ludlain said, "Russia is actively modernising its nuclear weapons stockpile, transferring nuclear fuel and reactor technology to Iran, and in January this year the Russian chief of the armed forces claimed the right to use nuclear weapons 'preventively'."

Source: Canberra Times