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

I think it is a good point that Senator Milne makes about the policy processes within the government of the United Kingdom led by Prime Minister Blair. They have done some substantial work on global impacts, both on ecosystems and, importantly, under the Stern review, on the economics of responding to climate change and the costs and benefits over the next 100 years. On receiving that information the Blair government and their new Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, David Miliband, both came out and changed their policy—for example, in relation to the role of nuclear energy in Great Britain.

As Professor Socolo has said with his Princeton University study, he believes that, of the seven billion tonnes of abatement you need to find over the next 35-odd years, about one billion needs to be from an expansion of the nuclear industry. It is to the credit of the Blair government and to the credit of the Howard government in Australia that they have looked at the science and there will be a debate about what is a dangerous level of carbon concentrations in the atmosphere that will go on for some time.

But I broadly accept what Nicholas Stern has said. I believe that the stabilisation range needs to be somewhere between 450 and 550 parts per million and that you need to be sensible and diligent when you know that you are playing with the potential scenarios that Senator Milne has outlined, that you could and are likely to get events that I think were dramatically exposed in parts of Al Gore’s movie and that the climate is not likely to be in a steady state—it is not likely to get a little bit worse, a little bit worse, a little bit worse; it is more likely that we will see some major weather events that could cause substantial actions. People call that the tipping point or they refer to what Senator Milne has said. So it is far better to be risk averse.

Again, to make the point, Mr Blair and David Miliband and the cabinet of the government of the United Kingdom have looked at all of that information and they have realised, although it is politically tough for them to do so, that part of their response must be to overturn the policy of turning away from nuclear. They have made the politically tough call for a party of the Left or Centre Left that they will move towards an expansion of nuclear power in Great Britain. I think they are to be commended for having a practical approach.

The problem for the Labor Party and the Greens in Australia is that they will quote all of the same figures and science that Mr Blair relies upon to make his decisions within his cabinet—the same decisions that many other governments around the world are making—but they will say no to one of the technologies that we need to at least stabilise greenhouse gas emissions. They will stand in the way of a liquefied natural gas project on the North West Shelf which can help stabilise greenhouse gas emissions. A senior member of the Labor opposition, Carmen Lawrence, the member for Fremantle, is now opposing the export of natural gas from the Burrup Peninsula and wants to close down that project which will make a substantial contribution. The Greens and some elements of the Labor Party are opposing carbon geosequestration. The Princeton University study looks at seven different technologies, each of which can contribute about a billion tonnes of abatement annually. The Greens and the Labor Party are saying no to about three of seven billion tonnes a year of abatement because of ideological problems with abatement methods.

I say ‘hear, hear’ to Mr Blair’s government. It has looked at the science and said, ‘Let’s take practical action.’ If you look at the policies of the Howard government, you will see that we are doing the same thing. We have brought on a debate about what will supply baseload power in Australia and the world in the future that is politically very tough for us. The Labor Party and other parties are creating a scare campaign around the location of a facility for low-level nuclear waste that fundamentally comes from the use of radioactive isotopes to save human lives through radiation therapy. When they are trying to score cheap political points on the location of a low-level nuclear waste facility with material that is primarily used for the treatment of life-threatening cancers in this country, you realise that the Left in Australia is ideologically bereft or ideologically handcuffed to a position that will not allow it to come to a practical and sensible position on climate change. If that is how they deal with low-level waste from the treatment of life-threatening cancers in this country, no wonder they cannot come to a sensible policy on Australia’s environment.