Ian Campbell (WA, Liberal Party, Minister for the Environment and Heritage) Share this | Hansard source

I thank Senator Ronaldson for his question. I think Senator Minchin has made quite clear in a previous answer to Senator Allison that those of us who care about ensuring we do not see global warming create dangerous climate change will explore every option Australia has available to it to contribute to international action, as well as pursue the $2 billion in domestic programs to ensure we do not see global warming contribute to climate change, which can damage biodiversity and ecosystems and put human settlements at risk through storm surges, increases in cyclone intensity and a range of other natural disasters.

It is incredibly important that we pursue all of these options. It is useful to add to the debate, at a time when the discussion about enhancing Australia’s uranium exports is in the press, that we understand the greenhouse benefits of that. For example, the uranium that is currently mined in Australia produces enough energy—around 400,000 megawatt hours—to substitute for fossil fuel produced energy, which is the major baseload alternative in the world, that would produce 400 million tonnes of carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gas emissions a year. Australia’s current uranium sales are producing a massive and measurable benefit in abating and constraining greenhouse gas emissions.

To put another important statistic on the record, the uranium oxide that comes from that single mine expansion that Senator Allison referred to earlier in relation to Roxby Downs, which is being expanded by BHP Billiton, will substitute for the fossil fuel equivalent of the entirety of Australia’s greenhouse gas emissions on an annual basis for decades into the future—550 million tonnes of greenhouse gas emissions saved because Australia is expanding uranium oxide mining at Roxby Downs.

It underscores the importance, the credibility and the honesty of the response that Premier Mike Rann made yesterday on national television when he said that the Australian Labor Party’s policy to stop the expansion of uranium mines in Australia—the antiquated three-mines uranium policy, which is pursued by the Western Australian government, the Queensland government and every other government with the notable exception of South Australia—is, to use his words, ‘antiquated and out of date’. It was a policy that was designed in an era when global warming was not an issue for the world.

Mr Beazley should understand that if he wants to talk the talk in relation to greenhouse gases he should immediately change the Labor Party’s policy to one which leads the world to a clean energy future. We know that within the Australian Labor Party there are some substantial opponents to the Beazley weakness on this issue. Martin Ferguson has said that the policy is anachronistic. It is. It is madness. It is bad for the environment and it is bad for the Australian economy, and Mr Beazley should get away from his 10-year record of weakness and vacillation on these policies and support a sensible policy that is good for the Australian economy and very good for the global environment.