Wilson Tuckey (O'Connor, Liberal Party) Share this | Hansard source

I have had a moment to look at the amendment proposed by the Labor Party to the Australian Nuclear Science and Technology Organisation Amendment Bill 2006. Not one paragraph of the amendment is constructive and not one paragraph says, ‘There might be a better way.’ The member for Jagajaga, of course, went as far as to talk about renewable energy. We know what is available there—things such as wind. If you do not mind a cinematographic experience for your eyes, where you read the book as the lights go on and off again, that will work. If you do not want to do anything after dark, then of course solar power will work. I have never heard a word from the Labor Party saying that a resource in your electorate, such as the tides, might be a worthwhile experiment. They have said nothing at all constructive in response to this government’s challenging the people of Australia on the future needs for energy. It is as simple as that. That is not a challenge for the baby boomers of the Y brigade or generation X; that is a challenge for kids who have not been born yet but for whom this parliament might have some responsibility above the Labor Party’s view of their rights individually or as a party to be re-elected.

The member for Jagajaga has served her party well. She is the doomsayer above all doomsayers. I remember her in this place attacking the government’s proposal to duplicate the Keating and Hawke government’s proposal to get a bond off people entering what we now call high-care nursing homes. It was already there for hostels, as we knew them, introduced by the previous government. She created concern among the community and the government withdrew—and what was the outcome of that? We now have people with homes worth $1 million who, for want of a bond, cannot get into a nursing home. That is a big help! These are the sorts of silly things that she constantly promotes. The great pity—because I have some pretty serious things to say—is that it took three pages of notes full of her misleading comments for me to set the record straight.

She wants a guarantee that waste will not be stored at Lucas Heights, considering that ANSTO will be given additional powers to aggregate and manage nuclear waste. But what better organisation within Australia with what better skills—a word we hear constantly in this place—could we give the job to? She wants a guarantee that waste will not be stored at Lucas Heights and then complains about it going to the Northern Territory. She had better make up her mind. She of course runs the usual Labor argument that contractors are all crooks and public officials are always honest. Then she says that no state government is prepared to allow this dreadful stuff within its boundaries. She forgets to tell us that under these arrangements and under what the Commonwealth has been forced to do in the Territory—the people of which rejected statehood—all the states are going to continue to store their nuclear waste in basements around the cities. That is apparently an improvement on having a properly managed and organised storage out in a remote area.

She talks about broken promises. This is a big building, and I guess that is why lightning has never struck her dead, but the first thing that comes to mind when it comes to broken promises is those three letters l-a-w. She talks about arrogance. Who was it who called the Senate ‘unrepresentative swill’? She attacks the government for not nominating where we are likely to build nuclear power stations before we have even decided, on good advice, whether that is an option for Australia. Of course, she is quick to shoot the messenger. Poor old Geoscience Australia, a group of independent people, bothers to put a submission to the committee which, she complains, does not contain her choice of decision makers. I always thought a committee was there to listen to the evidence and report, in this case to the parliament and the government, on that evidence. Is Geoscience Australia a reputable organisation? If it is not she should have said so. Instead, she just casts this throwaway slur. It is the equivalent in modern day history of burning books—‘Do not confuse me with the facts.’ As soon as someone goes before an appropriate committee and says something that she and the Labor Party do not like, they are nasty people. She accuses ANSTO of telling them that there could be three opportunities to have plants in Australia. Why are they to be pilloried for that? They are experts. That is what democracy is all about—get the right advice; do not have street corner meetings where you stir up the uninformed.

I loved the bit about terrorist attacks. I guess, Mr Deputy Speaker Haase, you read recently about or saw the photographs of the Lucas Heights reactor. It is a mini-reactor. I think the walls are six metres thick. What sort of car bomb is going to run into that and make a dent? What a stupid argument! I want to talk further about the development of the nuclear reactor in Iran. It is probably beyond smart bombs. In its early stages of development it was bombed, but what terrorist is going to blow up the shell of a nuclear reactor if it is six-metre, or even six-feet, thick concrete? I have had a look at some of the Nazi submarine facilities in Oslo. The walls are still there. They are about 10 feet thick. There was not a bomb of the period that could blow them up.

Then the member for Jagajaga gives us an economic lecture. When I want some advice from an economist, I will not ask her. She says that someone said we might not need them for 20 years. That might be true, but is that a reason to not debate it now? When she talked about who might contribute, she raised the issue of whether it might cost the government some money. My recollection is the government paid 100 per cent for the Snowy Hydro facility, and the other day there was a big campaign to make sure we never sold it. Of all of the things she has to say, she is worried for the people. But she is not worried for the people of Iran. I have never heard a word from her in this place about whether or not there is a threat to the people of Iran because they are building a nuclear facility and going into the enrichment. She seems to be highly selective about who might get fried and who might not. You have to be consistent about these issues. We know why the world is worried about Iran. It is because, with their hydrocarbon resources, we cannot see their need to generate electricity with nuclear materials. We think they have an ulterior motive. I have never heard her complain about that in this place.

She tells us that there are 2.3 million cubic metres of nuclear waste in the UK and then she wants to put a financial figure on that. What I would put on it is that it is there and I have not heard of a person from the general community in the UK who has become impotent or has suffered cancer or anything else as result of that waste in an area about the size of my electorate. Is it proof there is something wrong or there is something right? Then, of course, she worries about there not being a Green on the expert committee. I had a longish period as Minister for Forestry and Conservation, and I tried to get an approved standard for the management of forests. To get that past the standards association all community interests had to be involved or consulted. It was the Greens who refused to be involved in that also. What was the purpose of it? To create a standard by which people might manage our forests. The last thing in the world they wanted was for the problem to go away. And you wonder why they do not want to be there judging a nuclear power investigation. Are they going to give evidence? As I have said previously, the people you put on these committees should be people who are able to analyse the evidence and give good advice to the people of Australia through their parliament. But their idea is that you put people on so that you know the answer before you commence the inquiry. We know all about that from when they were in government.

I have 10 minutes left. I have had to spend half my time pointing out the stupidity. Let me repeat again: I have read the amendments and not one of them is constructive—negative, negative, negative. If you wonder why people distrust the Labor opposition it is because they never offer a solution. They want to live with the problem and gain political advantage. As I have said, there are people now who are unable to find a high-care nursing home position because of one of the member of Jagajaga’s campaigns in Labor’s early period in opposition.

ANSTO will have additional powers to manage the disposal of waste. We have had the courage to select a highly remote area, with ANSTO’s additional supervision, to place nuclear waste. Please remember that when a medical practitioner injects radioactive isotopes into a human body—prepared and manufactured, of course, at Lucas Heights—the person receiving the injection does not die. They are allowed to go home and sleep with their wife without any fear of contamination. But the rubber gloves that the physician used are low-level radioactive waste, and we have to find somewhere to put that. The state public hospitals keep it in the basement—or possibly chuck a bit of it away when no-one is looking. That is where we start.

In my early days in this place, I once said to a person of great knowledge on this: ‘When this radioactive waste has to be stored, what sort of protection do we need? How many feet of concrete? How many feet of lead?’ He said: ‘What about a sheet of cardboard.’ Let us put it into perspective. Nobody, including the Labor Party, is suggesting for a minute that we cease exporting uranium oxide, as long as it comes from their nominated holes in the ground. Yet they seem quite comfortable with a piece of paper that a country signs saying: ‘Take our word for it. We’ll look after this stuff. Even when it is useless to us, we’ll guarantee that no terrorist group will get hold of it. We’ll guarantee we won’t have a change of government and then send you a little bit back on the end of a rocket.’ They want to mount an argument that we should not, firstly, enrich and then monitor that product all the way back to Australia. It would seem to me that, on that practical argument, that is the best place for it.

Someone who has had a bit of courage in the Labor Party to argue a long way down this road said to me: ‘Wilson, don’t go that last step. The people will not accept it.’ Why? Because we have the member for Jagajaga saying that you will be infertile tomorrow. But apparently 2.3 million tonnes of the stuff has not created that problem in the United Kingdom—and it is a pretty small place. These are the sorts of issues.

Let me put something on the record, more particularly because the Parliamentary Secretary to the Prime Minister, who advises the Prime Minister on water, is here. He will probably be terrified to hear my remarks. Years ago, I lived in a town that had a river that could fill Sydney Harbour in four hours, and most of the time it was a dry riverbed. It did not have a dam site.

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