Dennis Jensen (Tangney, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

The member for Grayndler, in a media release, criticised my ‘off-the-top-of-my-head’ suggestion that if the concern about anthropogenic climate change were correct we should look at potential solutions to reduce the warming, including ‘shadecloth in orbit’, instead of just looking at CO abatement. ‘Wacky’, waxed Don Quixote, also known as the member for Grayndler. I refer to him by this name for his fixation on windmills, along with other renewable electricity generation methods.

Let us have a look at why the idea of reducing solar radiation using an orbital shadecloth, which has been around for 20 years, is so wacky. This is not only my suggestion; it has also been suggested by Edward Teller, Gregory Benford and various other scientists. Not only that,  in April last year NASA funded research into just such a scheme, but with smaller shadecloths, or reflectors, placed at the L1 Lagrange point. I have no doubt that the member for Grayndler would not have a clue what this means, so I will explain. The Lagrange point is about 1.5 million kilometres away, where the sun and the earth have the same gravitational strength. Additionally, the Russians are launching two satellites, AKS1 and AKS2, in May, that will deploy reflectors, one of the reasons being to test shielding the earth from the sun’s radiation.

The member for Grayndler, in similar fashion to Labor itself, would not have any idea about actually thinking through issues or thinking of new ideas. The Labor Party just carry on with the same tired old rhetoric in the hope that it will substitute in the electorate’s mind for good policy. You oppose our ideas but have no solutions of your own. Don Quixote and his colleagues in the Labor Party are utterly unable to think through issues, come up with new ideas or determine the potential consequences of some of their nutty policy ideas.

Let us think about global warming. The Labor Party would have us believe that this is the most significant threat facing not only Australia but mankind. Would you not think that, if that were true, we should evaluate all potential ways to mitigate the effects of global warming? But, no; nuclear power, for example, is expressly ruled out by the Labor Party. It is clear, therefore, that when assessing Labor’s position based on actions, not words, they do not believe that global warming is that serious an issue, as they refuse, for purely ideological reasons, to even contemplate the safest method of generating power. But maybe, to give them their credit, the Labor Party believe that nuclear power is incredibly dangerous, unbelievably dangerous—so dangerous that the dangers relating to nuclear power significantly exceed the dangers inherent in global warming, which they continue to tell us is the greatest threat facing mankind. Wow! Clearly Labor believe that nuclear power—and all elements relating to it—is utterly beyond the pale and we should have nothing to do with it. Surely that is Labor’s position, isn’t it?

But, no; they believe we should export the fuel for this industry, which they believe is so dangerous that it even supersedes the greatest threat facing mankind. This is hypocrisy of the highest order, made even worse by the fact that Labor, believing that nuclear power is so dangerous, have such a lack of ethical and moral fortitude that they are willing to sell this product to supposedly unaware nations that are not as advanced as we are. It is far too dangerous for Australia, a nation that takes pride of place at the very summit of safety on almost any measure, but not too dangerous to foist on others.

So, Don Quixote from Grayndler thought that he would have a shot at me, but all that he has done is to exhibit ineptitude, a lack of critical or logical thinking and a lack of any ethical or moral balance an either nuclear power or global warming. Instead of blowing hot air and exacerbating the problem that Labor believe faces the planet, perhaps they could come up with a consistent policy position on the issues. Global warming is clearly only important to Labor in political point scoring.