Greg Hunt (Flinders, Liberal Party, Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister for the Environment and Heritage) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I want to respond to a report by the Australia Institute which was promulgated in the last few days with regard to sites for possible nuclear reactors. The Australia Institute’s report was obviously set up as a provocative hoax. It set out the most unlikely and most provocative sites intentionally. In many ways, I think it has backfired. I want to lay down principles and then deal with myths in the report.

The principles are these. With regard to the concept of nuclear energy more generally globally and more specifically in Australia, I clearly and fully support that concept. I believe it will have an important role over the coming century in acting as a bridge to fully renewable technologies. There are numerous examples of reactors around the world operating safely, and the move to fourth-generation reactors, which consume almost the entire fuel waste themselves and are built in a way which makes them compact and modular, is an extremely important step. But what are the principles for applying them? If it were to happen in Australia, (1) you would need an area which is geologically stable; (2) you would need a situation which was economically viable; and (3) you would of course have to have community support. It would be unthinkable to try to impose something such as this.

Let us see how this applies in the context of the Australia Institute’s report. There are three great myths in the report. First, the institute set out to identify those places which will be least likely to receive community support. They did it as an act of provocation and as a hoax, not as a sensible proposal, in that they have of course included the Hastings-Westernport region on the Mornington Peninsula. The reason they did that, of course, is that as it is on the doorstep of Melbourne it would create outrage and response. There is a simple answer here. This institute is a group of people who are not scientists but have put on the white coats and pretended to be scientists. They have ignored the fact that this region has the Selwyn fault, the Tyabb fault and the Lang Lang fault. It is one of the most geologically unstable areas in Australia. It was done intentionally to pick a site which is most unsuitable.

On the other hand, the second myth is that they claim to have knowledge that you require massive amounts of water. The fourth generation reactors today, as outlined by Professor Leslie Kemeny, do not require massive amounts of water. This fact opens up the field and leads to the question of community support. There is an assertion that you would never get community support. Yet, today we see that 19 mayors from around Australia have already indicated that they would be interested in such a thing. So there are possibilities; there are people who are interested. Let’s look over a long period at what is feasible and let’s have no more hoaxes. (Time expired)