Ian Macfarlane (Groom, Liberal Party, Shadow Minister for Trade) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Yesterday, I drew attention to significant flaws in the Rudd-Wong emissions trading scheme and the danger it poses to our economy and jobs. I would like to add to that comments by Geoff Carmody, the co-founder of Access Economics, who said that the Rudd-Wong ETS was simply ‘an exercise in cosmetics’. He asked us to ‘imagine the uproar if John Howard had proposed a GST that hit exports and exempted imports’, which is essentially the concept at the heart of the Rudd government’s ETS proposal. This is only one of the many concerns now being expressed in relation to the job losses and economic impact that will come from the implementation of the Rudd government’s ETS.

It is essential that Australia has a careful and well thought out approach to lowering greenhouse gas emissions that does not drive our economy into the ground or make our exports less competitive. In pursuing clean energy options and safeguarding the Australian economy through the biggest economic reform in history, we must consider all clean energy options. We need more clean energy capacity than can be reasonably expected to come from wind, solar, biomass, geothermal and wave technology in the next five years. These energy sources, while important, have not progressed far enough to deliver soon enough the reductions needed to bring about dramatic cuts in greenhouse gas emissions by 2010. Clean and zero-emission coal is definitely a long-term solution, although I note the resources minister is pessimistic about a breakthrough in clean coal technology within the next decade or perhaps two decades. Remember that a 10 per cent cut in 2000 emissions by 2020 means that gas generation must triple and wind generation must increase sixfold, and of course there are calls from the green movement for cuts of double that. This creates a problem. To implement the Rudd-Wong emissions trading scheme without the technology and the replacement installed, clean energy generation capacity is both foolish and reckless, but it is even more reckless to do it without the one proven zero-emissions baseload technology—nuclear power.

Nuclear power accounts for 16 per cent of global energy generation and will save 25 billion tonnes of CO2 globally over the three decades to 2030. Labor is being hypocritical by allowing sales of our uranium to overseas nuclear power stations, saving 395 million tonnes of CO2 every year, yet refusing to consider nuclear power in Australia under any circumstances. Yvo de Boer, Executive Secretary of the United Nation’s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, stated:

I have never seen a credible scenario for reducing emissions that did not include nuclear energy.

The next generation of nuclear reactors also has the ability to produce hydrogen, the future clean transport fuel for cars and trucks.

The nuclear route will not be easy, but it is a path I am comfortable to walk, openly and honestly. Nuclear opponents regularly cite high-profile incidents such as Chernobyl in an attempt to make a connection between danger and nuclear energy, but it is an association that does not hold up under closer scrutiny, particularly in the 21st century. A report published in 1998 shows that in generating electricity there were 342 deaths per terawatt year from coal, while from nuclear there were just eight. The House of Representatives Standing Committee on Primary Industries and Resources stated that since 1997 there have been 6,500 deaths from coal-fired power stations, 1,200 deaths from natural gas, 4,000 from hydro power and 31 from the nuclear industry.

For nuclear power to be part of Australia’s low-emissions future there needs to be a bipartisan approach. But, if it takes the Labor Party 50 years to agree on an impotent, contradictory and chaotic uranium policy that still bans uranium mining in five states, do Labor have the courage and leadership to face this inconvenient nuclear truth? What contortions will the Labor Party inflict upon Australia by the implementation of their ETS without nuclear in the mix and what irreparable damage will they do to Australia’s economy and the future of our children?

I know that those who sit opposite do not want a debate. I do not have time to do it tonight, but I seek leave to present the JK Lecture I gave to the AusIMM group in Brisbane last week.

Leave granted.