Lyn Allison (Victoria, Australian Democrats) Share this | Hansard source

Mr President, my question is to the Minister for the Environment and Heritage. I refer to the Prime Minister’s announcement that nuclear power might be an answer to reducing greenhouse gas emissions. In fact, he included this as one of his terms of reference for his task force on nuclear energy. If the Prime Minister accepts that emissions need to be reduced, how is it that the government’s own modelling, the ABARE report issued at AP6 in January, shows overall emissions increasing steadily over the next 30 years?

Given that nuclear power is likely to be too slow and too expensive, and given that last month the Centre for Low Emission Technology told the ABC that the government’s contribution to the low emissions technology fund was nowhere near enough, how will the government fund its so-called low emission technology, or nuclear power? Will the government finally concede that relying on not clearing land will not be enough, and that a carbon price signal will be needed to reduce greenhouse emissions significantly?