Barry Haase (Kalgoorlie, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I rise this morning to point out some of the nonsense behind the solutions to global warming. I am very concerned that the populace generally are focusing on sustainable energy in the form of wind and solar as being the solution to the creation of greenhouse gases in Australia as a result of energy production. I point out that 80 per cent of our power generation today is derived from the burning of coal. This government presently has leveraged some $6 billion worth of development into the cleaning up of coal-burning emissions so as to develop a technology that is not only affordable but saleable overseas with this coal resource that we have in abundance in Australia. This 80 per cent baseload power generated by coal seems to be ignored by the green lobby, who would suggest that we can solve greenhouse gas problems and therefore global warming by concentrating on solar energy production and wind energy production. It is simply not so.

The same people miraculously seem to ignore the elephant in the room around which we all dance, which of course is nuclear. Nuclear energy has the ability to provide cheap, non-polluting baseload power, at the same time as being the perfect medium to provide energy for desalination of sea water to solve our water supply problems around this nation. Why is nuclear energy being ignored? Unfortunately I cannot tell this chamber, but it is being ignored most definitely.

The other thing that concerns me especially is the fact that in the northern regions of Western Australia—the Kimberley—we have enough energy to supply all of the energy needs of Australia and it is being ignored by governments and by departments behind governments. I refer, of course, to tidal energy which, wherever there is a tide in excess of a five-metre rise and fall, can produce renewable energy with no pollution whatsoever. Using that electricity to extract hydrogen from water would give us an energy source to power up mobility in our cities and have a future with absolutely pollution-free environments. It is something that must be addressed. There is every reason for addressing it, but there are so many hurdles in the way. A major hurdle of course is the intransigent position of the Western Australian government, which not only ignores the foregoing information but insists, for political expediency, that nuclear energy is out because it will not even allow the mining of uranium. (Time expired)