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

I thank the member for Oxley for his question. As I indicated in answer to the Leader of the Opposition, the report that was released today indicated a number of things, including some of the things referred to by both the member for Oxley and the Leader of the Opposition. It is true that this country faces significant environmental challenges. That is why it is absolutely fundamental that we have a proper debate with every idea and every response on the table, not a debate that ideologically rejects out of blind prejudice and ignorance consideration of one source of environmentally clean energy generation—namely, nuclear power. Anybody who understands anything about this debate would have to acknowledge, politics aside, that the way forward for this country, if we are to maintain our economic growth, is to have power generation based on cleaner use of coal and other clean environmentally friendly alternatives, and that has to include nuclear power. The member for Batman knows that, and I invite the member for Batman to talk to the member for Oxley and to educate him on some of the relevant issues.

See this speech in context