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

and it brings together all of those countries whose inclusion in a future agreement is absolutely essential if that agreement is to have effect. Clearly, the Asia-Pacific partnership points to the future. Clearly, if we can reach an understanding between all of the world’s major emitters and all of the nations of the world, it is possible to have an international emissions trading system. That is a path forward to which this government is committed.

But, in order to achieve that, we have to understand some realities about the energy situation not only of Australia but of the world. We have a situation at the moment where the cheapest source of power generation is what they call in the trade ‘dirty coal’. It is infinitely cheaper than anything else. If we had no problem with greenhouse gas emissions, Australia would be in the most wonderful position in the world because we have these vast reserves of coal—we are the largest coal exporter in the world—but, unfortunately, it is dirty and we have to do something to clean it up. But, as you clean it up, you make its price higher. If you are going to clean it up, no matter how rapid the technology is, the cost of using coal to generate electricity is going to rise. That is where the word that dare not speak its name in the councils of the Australian Labor Party comes into it—and that is ‘nuclear’. On many of the estimates, the cost of using coal rises as you clean it up, so you reach a point where potentially within the foreseeable future nuclear power could be cheaper than the use, in a cleaner fashion, of fossil fuel.

Are we going to say to ourselves, ‘We deny our nation the opportunity of taking advantage of that?’ You will never—and I have no greater authority on this than the member for Batman—be able to replace power stations, dirty or clean, with solar, wind or wave power. It is just not possible. Baseload power can only be generated in the foreseeable future by the use of fossil fuels or nuclear power. You cannot hope to use renewables in order to do that; so, if you are going to reduce greenhouse gas emissions, you inevitably face a comparison on baseload generation between cleaner coal, which will be dearer, and nuclear power. The point at which those two cross each other is, at this stage, impossible to precisely determine. When we have Ziggy Switkowski’s report, we may have a better idea of where the two relate to each other.

In the end, this country may well face a choice, if it is going to make a contribution to reducing greenhouse gas emissions, about whether it does go down the nuclear path as well as the cleaner fossil fuel path—acknowledging all the while that renewables can make a contribution at the margins. I have never argued to not have renewables. All I am saying is that they can assist in peaks and at the margin but they cannot replace baseload power generation, which at the moment is done by dirty coal and in the future will be done either by clean coal or by nuclear. They are the choices. Stripped of all the verbiage, ranting and raving and rhetoric that has come from the other side, they are the choices we face.

We are in favour of reducing greenhouse gas emissions. To do that, we have to clean up coal and, as you clean up coal, you make it dearer and, as you make coal dearer, you make nuclear power economically more feasible. Do not say nuclear power cannot be considered. Sixteen per cent of the world’s electricity is generated through nuclear power. Nuclear power is a given in the nations of Europe. The idea that this country, the holder of the world’s largest reserves of uranium, would set its face against nuclear power is beyond comprehension. It is beyond my comprehension and it is also beyond comprehension to the member for Batman, who brings to this debate the credential of speaking from the heart when it comes to the working men and women of Australia. He knows that there are jobs at stake in this debate. He knows that if a mistake is made on this issue then the people the Labor Party used to represent, but no longer do as effectively as we do, are going to pay a very heavy price.

Let us strip this debate of all the noise and all the talk about who is for the future and who is part of it and who is against it and who believes in it and who does not believe in it and just understand the essence of this debate. This debate is about reducing greenhouse gas emissions in the future. It is about slowing the rate of climate change. It is about getting all of the nations involved because without having all the nations involved we will not get an outcome. That is what Sir Nicholas Stern said. He said a lot of other things, but that is in essence what Sir Nicholas Stern said.

Where does Australia come into that? We enter this debate with this enormous God given endowment of fossil fuels, this great resource that we have been given by providence. Are we going to throw that way? Of course we are not going to throw it away; we are going to sensibly reduce the greenhouse gas emissions and, as we clean up the coal, reduce the emissions and invest in the technology, eventually we are going to reach a point where we are going to have to look at the big N option, because in reality the big N option is part of it.

I simply say yes to an international agreement that includes everybody. That can be the framework for an international emissions-trading system. I say no to the old failed Kyoto because it did not include the world’s major emitters. I certainly would say yes to a new Kyoto because a new Kyoto could only be on the basis that it has everybody in it. If everybody is in, I am prepared to lead Australia in. But I am not going to lead Australia into an agreement that is going to betray the interests of the working men and women of this country and destroy the natural advantage that providence gave us. (Time expired)

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