John Howard (Bennelong, Liberal Party, Prime Minister) Share this | Hansard source

And the important option that the Labor Party has already closed its mind to is of course nuclear power. I am not saying that nuclear power is one solution to this; I do not believe that for a moment. Nor do I believe that solar and wind power represent the sole solution to this problem. You need, in my view, a contribution from renewables, and last week the Treasurer and the Minister for Industry, Tourism and Resources announced a major project that could represent one of the biggest investments in solar power generation in the world. This was announced in concert with the Victorian government, and today in Queensland the minister announced a number of other projects funded by the federal government that are investing in new technologies which are designed to reduce the greenhouse gas impact of the use of fossil fuels. At the moment it is undoubtedly the case that the cheapest source of energy is what is colloquially called ‘dirty coal’. If we just went on using that, we would win the economic debate—

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