Grant Chapman (SA, Liberal Party) Share this | Hansard source

As I was saying, Labor is totally unfit to govern. Labor’s environment policy is as confused and self-contradictory as this motion from Senator Wong. For example, as far as Labor is concerned, when Professor Tim Flannery warns about climate change he is a prophet and a visionary but when he advocates nuclear power as part of the solution he is a dangerous ratbag. We in government want an open-minded debate founded on the science and the economics, and indeed the sheer commonsense, relating to these issues. In contrast, Labor is about ideology, fear, suspicion and, most of all, the political necessity of appeasing the Greens.

We need to look at the contradictions in this cobbled-together motion that Senator Wong has put up this afternoon; they are plain for all to see. Paragraph (b) calls on the government to reveal any plans for the location of nuclear plants. To be logical, that should be consequent on paragraph (a) which addresses the items being noted. But it is not. There is no logical consequence between paragraph (a) and paragraph (b) of this resolution. The call for details of plans and locations for nuclear reactors and waste storage is not consequent on the economics, on climate change or indeed on any delays in establishing nuclear power. This simply reinforces the fact that this motion is nothing more than scaremongering. Speculation on where nuclear reactors might be located is grossly premature and an obvious tactic to stampede public opinion away from a proper debate on the merits of nuclear power. The good news for Labor members is that the government is not proposing to build a nuclear power station in any Labor electorate. But there is bad news for Labor: after the next election there will be even fewer Labor electorates within which to build them.