Kim Carr (Victoria, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Minister for Housing and Urban Development) Share this | Hansard source

The minister has told us that he suddenly has a new interest in dealing with this whole issue of greenhouse gas emissions. We are now going to embark upon the magical mystery tour of nuclear power for Australia. This is in the context of what the Minister for Industry, Tourism and Resources, Mr Macfarlane, said when he said, ‘We could do this in 10 to 15 years.’ The Minister for Finance and Administration has indicated to this chamber that, given his extensive ministerial experience and his understanding of the Australian economy, particularly given his experience in the resources sector, he is an expert on the whole issue of nuclear power. He said that it would take 100 years to have viable nuclear power in this country as an alternative source of baseload supply.

At the estimates hearings I asked the minister some simple questions, given his commitment to these new issues, as this is the answer to the government’s problem, its failure to deal with the whole issue of greenhouse emissions and its failure to develop a climate change trigger within its legislation. I was thinking of proposing these amendments, and I asked the government: if this is the new answer to our problems, what advice has the government sought from its own greenhouse gas office in regard to the questions on nuclear power? Minister, perhaps you could tell me now: what advice have you sought? I acknowledge that the minister may well have had an opportunity to get advice since that time, but when he was asked this question at the estimates hearings he advised the estimates committee that he had not sought the advice of his own greenhouse gas office experts on the question of nuclear power. In fact, he went on to advise us that he had not even sought to have advice from his department on the environmental impacts of nuclear power. My recollection is that the department had not made a formal submission to Dr Switkowski’s inquiry. It had made some statements about the formal processes of approvals but no other statement.