Roger Price (Chifley, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

My question without notice is to the Prime Minister. I refer to the Prime Minister’s comments in the House yesterday describing those expressing concerns about the siting of nuclear reactors as ‘juvenile and idiotic’. Prime Minister, which of the following members—the members for Flinders, Menzies, Gilmore, Curtin, McMillan and Leichhardt—are (a) juvenile (b) idiots or (c) all of the above?

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

I think my reference was to the nature of the campaign being run by the Labor Party on this issue. But let me take the opportunity afforded to me by the Chief Opposition Whip of reminding the House of what is involved here. If this country decides to go down the nuclear path, it will be some years before—

Julia Gillard (Lalor, Australian Labor Party, Deputy Leader of the Opposition) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Backing away.

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

It will be some years and, in those circumstances, as I said yesterday, there is no point in the government indicating where power stations might be located. I do not intend, as I indicated yesterday, to engage in an exercise of saying, ‘Nuclear power stations won’t be here or won’t be there.’ I repeat what I said yesterday: I do not intend to engage in the game of ruling out the location of nuclear power stations in any particular part of this country, because that will prejudice a sensible debate about this issue. If there is one thing we need, it is a sensible, measured debate. We need to have all of the options properly considered.

Last night on Lateline, Dr Switkowski—appearing in the absence of a positive response to an invitation issued to the member for Kingsford Smith by the Lateline program—made a very important point. It is a point validated by the views of the Chief Scientist, Dr Jim Peacock. Dr Switkowski said that there are really only two workable sources of energy for power stations for baseload power in this country: one of them is fossil fuels; the other is nuclear power. That is a fact. It is scientific knowledge; it is unarguable scientific knowledge.

I am encouraged in the belief that we should have an open debate about this issue and am encouraged to renew my invitation to the Labor Party to have an open debate about this issue by a document that was released today entitled New directions for our schools. It is about establishing a national curriculum to improve our educational outcomes, and it is the document that the Leader of the Opposition and the member for Perth released today. It is a very interesting document, not least for what it has to say on page 17. I invite the House to listen to this. The document says: ‘Young people need a framework of scientific knowledge’—yes, that is right—‘so they can recognise some of the science underlying important contemporary arguments about such matters as nuclear power and global warming.’ In other words, it is all right for the young of this country to be invited to go down the path of scientific inquiry and to open their minds to arguments about nuclear power and climate change, but, when it comes to the political purposes of the Australian Labor Party, nothing gets in the way of a grubby scare campaign.

Let me just say to those who sit opposite that I have stated a view on behalf of the government in relation to this. We believe that nuclear power should be part of the debate. We have established a public inquiry. We will be giving a detailed response to the Switkowski report. But I have already indicated that this government believes that, as the cost of powering power stations in this country rises through the introduction of clean coal technology, nuclear power will become more economic. We would be recreant and doing great damage to our future if we did not consider, in a rational way, nuclear power. Where power stations will be located if we decide to go down that path will depend upon a combination of economic, environmental and regulatory decisions made by both Commonwealth and state governments. I have no intention of responding to the Labor Party’s campaign by saying, ‘We’re not going to have a power station there or there.’ The essence of a rational debate on this issue is not to engage in that sort of exercise.

As Dr Switkowski said in his report, the economics suggest that it will be in the order of 10 to 15 years before nuclear power will be an option. But, unlike the Labor Party, we are not going to turn our back on an option that could provide for future generations a clean source of power generation and a way forward in relation to the replacement of what might loosely be called ‘dirty power’ in the operation of our power stations. This is an important debate and I would only wish that the inquiry and open-mindedness that the Australian Labor Party’s policy wants our children to have would be assumed by the members of the front bench.