It is pretty clear that Australia’s negotiators have had a tough time striking this agreement.
Nagasaki was doubly unlucky. The second city to suffer nuclear attack, it was not even the primary target.

The bombers had aimed at the nearby city of Kokura on that day in 1945, yet bad weather forced the plane away. Nagasaki was almost spared too, but for a brief break in the clouds, just enough time to make fatal history.

The devastation wrought by the bomb is never far from any talk about nuclear energy. But the fear of weapons has not prevented the embrace of civilian power. The deep psychological scars of Japan’s wartime experience did not stop the country building nuclear generators, and even now, after the accident at Fukushima, some want the atomic switch back on.

Nuclear power has not been Australia’s choice. But Australia has made the decision to be a nuclear supplier, exporting uranium around the world for use in civilian power plants. Those exports have been highly regulated, for good reason. Successive governments have always taken great care to ensure Australian uranium does not end up in nuclear bombs.

Prime Minister Tony Abbott signed such a deal with India last month, a ‘‘treaty for co-operation in the peaceful uses of nuclear energy’’. But there is a worry that this difficult agreement, years in the making, might not have the same careful protections as Australia’s other arrangements.

This concern hardly comes from a usual left-of-field suspect, stridently opposed to anything nuclear. Instead, the alarm is from the former chief of Australia’s atomic watchdog and, in assessing the India deal, he used words like  vague and meaningless.

John Carlson headed the Australian Safeguards and Non-Proliferation office for more than two decades until 2010. He copped a fair amount of flak in his time from anti-nuclear campaigners after his organisation duly ticked off on Australia’s agreements to supply uranium. But his deep experience made him aware of the potential pitfalls in striking nuclear safeguards. Carlson sounded a warning on the Lowy Institute’s blog last week, one that is worth noting in detail and should be taken seriously.

‘‘Now that the text of the [India] agreement has been quietly made public, some substantial departures from Australia’s current safeguards conditions are evident,’’ Carlson wrote. ‘‘These suggest, disturbingly, that Australia may be unable to keep track of what happens to uranium supplied to India.’’

Carlson sees several problems with the deal as it stands. India is not required to get Australia’s ongoing consent for use of plutonium from reprocessing spent fuel. Australia’s usual demand that any breach of the agreement will automatically invoke a right to have the nuclear material returned is missing. There is no mechanism in place for resolving a deadlock should the parties end up in a spat; and besides, much of the arrangement is being kept secret.

The question of keeping track of uranium is especially important in India’s case because the country has gone it alone in developing the bomb. Despite assurances of India’s ‘‘impeccable’’ nuclear record, the fact remains that India is among only a handful of countries not signed on to global nuclear treaties and it has yet to fully separate its civil and military nuclear facilities. So, as Carlson noted, the deal with Australia was always contentious.

When John Howard first proposed the agreement in 2007, the proposal bounced back and forth in the bureaucracy over months before the right form of words could be found. Then the newly elected Kevin Rudd threw the whole deal out, causing genuine anger in Delhi.

Julia Gillard took a calculated political risk within the Labor Party by reviving the deal in 2011, rightly understanding it had become a major obstacle to improving relations with India. After much angst, Labor acquiesced, so the deal was back on.

But Carlson is worried these old wounds could be opened, stressing ties with India all over again.
‘‘It is short-sighted and self-defeating to make the agreement even more contentious by compromising Australia’s safeguards standards,’’ he wrote. Legal challenges are possible, but just as importantly, political fissures could open.‘‘

This will jeopardise bipartisan support for the agreement, raising the prospect of future governments suspending exports under it.’’In other words, when Labor eventually gets back into office, the treaty could be junked – again.

Enthusiasts for stronger ties with India, including former diplomat Rory Medcalf, have argued that safeguards on the sale of uranium should discriminate neither against India nor for it, and this is a sensible approach. The deal with India was always do-able, provided the right safeguards were  in place.

Yet it is pretty clear that Australia’s negotiators have had a tough time striking this agreement. India’s Prime Minister,  Narendra Modi, is expected in Australia in November but that should not become a reason to rush through ratification of an imperfect deal.

The proposed agreement is now before the Parliament’s treaties committee; ironically enough, a body set up by the Howard government because of concern that the executive wielded too much power in Australia’s foreign relations. Carlson also makes the point the committee could closely examine the secret aspects of the deal.

But perhaps the best advice is to listen to Modi. In an entirely different context, writing in The Wall Street Journal  last week, he observed a favourite old saying, that ‘‘doing the thing right is as important as doing the right thing’’.

No one wants to be unlucky twice.

Daniel Flitton is a senior correspondent.