Craig Kelly (Hughes, Liberal Party) Share this | Hansard source

I'd like to commend the member for Macarthur for his speech on the Australian Nuclear Science and Technology Organisation Amendment Bill 2017. To have such an educated medical man give such convincing, thorough and detailed approval of the work ANSTO does is truly refreshing, especially when we hear in parliament some of the nonsense that is peddled by Greens members. I say that as the only member in this parliament who actually has a nuclear reactor in his electorate, and I say that with great pride, because ANSTO truly does world-leading research that plays a valuable, important role in the health of all Australians.

As my good friend the member for Macarthur noted, on average every single Australian can expect to have a nuclear medicine procedure that uses radioisotopes for diagnostic or therapeutic purposes at some stage in their life. On average, we'll all need those vital, lifesaving nuclear medicines that Lucas Heights provides. Yet we have some misguided Greens who sit in this parliament and want to close it down. What a tragedy that we see such misguided people who fail to look at the evidence and fail to look at the science.

But getting back to the specifics of the bill, the Australian Nuclear Science and Technology Organisation Amendment Bill 2017 will provide Australia's nuclear science and research agency, known as ANSTO, with the flexibility required to successfully establish an innovation precinct adjacent to Lucas Heights campus in southern Sydney, in my electorate of Hughes, and will potentially establish additional precincts in association with other campuses. This is fantastic news for my electorate. Having that innovation hub, that innovation precinct, next to ANSTO will enable hundreds if not thousands of high-paying research jobs in the southern part of Sydney, in the electorate of Hughes. I am very, very excited about the future for nuclear medicine and the work ANSTO will do in the future.

We know that one-third of all procedures in modern hospitals involve radiation or radioactivity. The science tells us that these procedures are safe, effective and don't require anaesthetic, and they are useful for a broad spectrum of medical specialities—from paediatrics, which I note the member for Macarthur was very much involved and has great expertise in—to cardiology and psychiatry. This is something that we as a nation should be proud of. In fact, I note that one of Canada's large nuclear facilities is closing down. This will enable Lucas Heights to increase its isotope production from about 550,000 a year to around 10 million. A quarter of the world's demand will come out of the ANSTO reactor at Lucas Heights in my electorate, something that I am immensely proud of. Everyone who is involved in ANSTO should also be immensely proud.

The issue we have had over the years is that we simply haven't had the nuclear research technology that we should have, despite the great work that ANSTO has done. Australia, with our deposits of uranium, should have been one of the global leaders in nuclear technology across the board. But the sad thing was that, when we constructed the new OPAL reactor at Lucas Heights, the country that had the technology to build it for us was Argentina. In fact, we didn't have the technology or the scientists here in Australia. We had to go to Argentina in South America to get the technology that we needed. That was because of the misguided scare campaigns we had against the nuclear industry in the 1960s, 1970s and 1980s that prevented the development of a nuclear industry in Australia.

A very interesting article in today's Australiantalked about the future for nuclear power. This was written by a gentleman called Michael Shellenberger. He is a former renewables advocate and adviser to Barack Obama and was awarded TIME magazine's Hero of the Environment in 2008. He said:

Like most people, I started out pretty anti-nuclear … I changed my mind as I realised you can't power a modern economy on solar and wind.

He said:

Wind and solar are only useful for leveraging the fossil fuel mix … They have to have back-up, they are doubling the cost of electricity and they have big environmental impacts …

He said:

All existing renewable technologies do is make the electricity system chaotic and provide greenwash for fossil fuels.

He went on and said that opposition to nuclear was 'like a superstitious religious belief'. He said:

In what other issue does the science say one thing so clearly but such a vocal group—

referring to the Greens—

refuses to accept the evidence …

That is where we are. He concluded:

Nuclear is the only technology that can lift everyone out of poverty and reverse human impact.

Yet we, for some unknown or illogical reasons, have simply banned the development of nuclear power in this country.

If we are going to be serious about reducing carbon dioxide emissions, we simply cannot, as Mr Shellenberger notes, run a modern economy on solar and wind. This is the mistaken ideology that we have had behind the renewable energy target. I think we are now starting to see the results of that policy. I think by the time the history of this century is written, and someone sits down to look at all the policy decisions that have been made throughout this entire century, they will say one of the greatest policy mistakes this nation ever made was Kevin Rudd's Renewable Energy Target. It has caused absolute chaos in our electricity market. It has been the main thing responsible for lifting the price of electricity in this nation, taking what was once our nation's greatest competitive advantage—that of low-cost energy—and turning it into a competitive disadvantage. That is what it has done.

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