Rachel Siewert (WA, Australian Greens) Share this | Hansard source

The Greens opposition to nuclear power stations is firmly on the record. We will be supporting this motion. However, with the greatest respect to the Labor Party, I am mystified as to how they can take a strong position against nuclear power whilst gearing up to open up uranium mining. I would like someone to explain to me how nuclear power can be too expensive and too unsafe for Australia, but cheap and safe enough for Indonesia, China and India. I hope the ALP do not opt to open up their uranium mining policy. Unfortunately, I believe that, if they do, it will affect the credibility of their stance on issues such as nuclear waste and nuclear power stations.

The government have at least had a consistent position on all these things. They are keen to embrace all things nuclear. The Prime Minister has clearly hitched his political fortunes to this unpredictable industry. The fact is that, despite all the hype about this nuclear renaissance, this is a failed industry. It has never lived up to its promises and its sudden re-emergence as a political issue in Australia signals a total failure of imagination on behalf of the government.

The Prime Minister’s campaign to resurrect the 1950s dream of nuclear power stations should have been pronounced dead in the water of the Switkowski review. This hand-picked, pro-nuclear panel used a highly optimistic set of assumptions favouring nuclear energy and still concluded that public subsidies or carbon taxes would be needed to make the nuclear industry competitive—that is, before realistic estimates of decommissioning, comprehensive insurance, research and development, waste transport, mine rehabilitation and waste are factored in. Of course, the same carbon taxes that potentially could help nuclear industries and energies are very helpful for renewable energies and would help the renewable energy industry take off, as they have in other parts of the world. However, unlike nuclear power stations, they could be installed virtually overnight and they will not leave a legacy of hazardous waste lying around for millions of years all over Australia.