Martin Ferguson (Batman, Australian Labor Party, Minister for Resources and Energy) Share this | Hansard source

I have not seen the comments of the CEO, in whom I have confidence.

Mr Ian Macfarlane interjecting—

I might have had other issues to attend to over the weekend. The total Australian government funding for the institute is $315 million to 2016-17. You will find that, since the institute was first established through normal budget processes, I as the minister have been part of the process of winding back, in my opinion, the institute's allocation of funding to what we believed was appropriate. I was part of that process. The initial figure raised is no longer the figure, as the honourable member appreciates.

The current funding allocation enables us to pull our weight internationally as the major coal-exporting nation in the world, to participate in other countries in terms of the research and learning processes potentially related to how we reduce the cost of carbon capture and storage. The technology is not proven; the issue is how to reduce the cost to commercialisation. In the same way we have to work out how we reduce the cost of every other form of clean energy, be it nuclear, wind, solar, geothermal or whatever. Our responsibility as a nation is to invest in R&D in these alternative forms of clean energy with one exception. We are not investing in nuclear because, frankly, we do not have to. If Australia at some point decides to go nuclear, there are further technological advances being made by other countries, who are responsible for this technology, which we will buy off the shelf at a point in the future if the community so decides. For other forms of clean energy such as carbon capture and storage, we have to pull our weight.

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