Ian Macdonald (Queensland, Liberal Party) Share this | Hansard source

It would be hard to recall better representatives for the Northern Territory than Senator Nigel Scullion and Mr David Tollner. We have had some good representatives from the Country Liberal Party over the years—the representatives from the Labor Party have not always been so hot—but you would go a long way to find better representatives than Senator Scullion and Mr Tollner. They both have the interests of the Northern Territory and Australia at heart in all the decisions that they make—and they do that again in relation to the Commonwealth Radioactive Waste Management Legislation Amendment Bill 2006. They do not act from some left wing ideology like the Labor representatives from the Northern Territory. They act in the interests of their constituents and in the interests of Australia.

I do not want to keep the Senate long, but I do want to indicate that I am in favour of the safe and responsible management of nuclear waste and I am in favour of Aboriginal people being able to make their own decisions about infrastructure development on their own land. Accordingly, I support the amendments.

It seems from the previous speaker’s speech that she and her party are in favour of Aboriginal people being able to make their own decisions only when it is Aboriginal people who happen to have the same view of life as they do. If it happens to be an Aboriginal group such as the Northern Land Council, who have indicated quite clearly that they want something, and it does not accord with the left wing view of the Labor Party, then the Labor Party are not very interested in what Aboriginal people want. Senator Crossin said she was not here to criticise the Northern Land Council but then she spent a fair proportion of her speech doing just that. I hope that the Northern Land Council and other Aboriginal people understand that Senator Crossin and her party are more interested in the Big Brother approach of saying: ‘We will tell Aboriginal people what is good for them. If they happen to have a view that doesn’t accord with ours, then that is not good for them. They don’t understand what is happening. We will tell them what is right.’ I am proud of Senator Scullion and the member for Solomon, Mr Tollner, in standing up for Northern Territorians, standing up for these Aboriginal people who have indicated what they want to do through their land council, and pursuing this particular policy.

Senator Crossin said with some feigned amazement, one would think, that the Australian Conservation Foundation, the ACF, was not invited to peddle their view on life around the Northern Territory. Why would you get the Australian Conservation Foundation in? Everybody knows that, for many a year now, they and the Australian Labor Party have been working very closely together, which is why they have not been treated as a genuine conservation group, as opposed to a political lobby group, for some time now.

As senators have mentioned, this bill provides a discretionary legislative mechanism for the return of land that has been used as a radioactive waste storage facility to the land trust to which it belonged, removes the process of nominating a site for consideration for use as a Commonwealth radioactive waste storage facility from the application of the AD(JR) Act and also removes the mandatory nature of the requirements governing the process for making nomination. I support this bill because it addresses issues that have been raised by the Northern Land Council in relation to the sensitivities for Aboriginal groups that may be considering putting forward their land for nomination to accommodate a Commonwealth radioactive waste management facility.

This debate has ranged far and wide. The general approach from the Labor Party and from some of the other speakers indicates a head-in-the-sand attitude to Australia’s future energy needs. I note that some members of the Labor Party, such as the member for Batman, Mr Martin Ferguson, believe there should be a debate on nuclear energy, as those of us on this side do. I am not saying that is the be-all and end-all of our energy requirements and greenhouse gas questions; I am simply saying that nuclear energy should be part of the mix. It should also include hydro—I am always surprised about this—which the Greens seem to be opposed to. I invite the Greens, as I have previously done, to explain to me why hydro is bad. It would seem to me to be the best energy source that would have the least impact on greenhouse gas emissions. The Greens also seem to be opposed to biomass when it comes to helping reduce greenhouse gas emissions. I think they both need to be looked at and put in the mix. The Greens now say they are all in favour of wind power. However, it was not so long ago the Greens were opposing wind power because of what they class as visual and noise pollution.

This government believes that there should be a wide range of energy sources put into the mix. An interesting one that the member for O’Connor, Mr Wilson Tuckey, and many of his Western Australian colleagues, including Senator Eggleston and Senator Johnston, have long been advocating is the use tidal power in the north-west of Western Australia. I must congratulate those Western Australians who have put a hell of a lot of work into looking at tidal power in the north west. I do not claim any expertise on this but it seems to be a great initiative that deserves further consideration and so, too, the government’s clean coal initiatives.

While the Greens, the Labor Party and the Democrats seem to be totally opposed to nuclear power, they always laud France, Great Britain and Europe, with their greenhouse gas emissions. However, they always forget to mention that those European countries have ‘proportionately’ low greenhouse gas emissions because they have a substantial commitment to, and usage of, nuclear power. When I was in the United Kingdom with a delegation a few months ago, the United Kingdom government was renewing its commitment to the use of nuclear power as part of a mix. One of the reasons used was that nuclear power limited their greenhouse gas emissions. They are the sorts of facts that those opposed to even putting it on the table for debate think about when it comes to the question of whether or not nuclear power should be included in the debate on future energy needs not only for Australia but also for the world.

Time moves on. Issues in this debate have been widely canvassed by all speakers. I commend the bill to the Senate and urge its adoption.