Nick Minchin (SA, Liberal Party, Minister for Finance and Administration) Share this | Hansard source

Our position is that nuclear power should be on the table as an alternative energy source for Australia. My statements made in 2005 were perfectly accurate and correct at that time. At that time, in the absence of Australia putting any price on carbon, nuclear power was unlikely to be viable in the foreseeable future, given that electricity produced by nuclear power is so much more expensive.

Since that time, as senators will have noted, the government has decided, by observing what has occurred internationally and examining the failure of the European energy emissions trading scheme, that it will develop an emissions trading scheme of its own. That will involve a cap and trade system which will put a price on carbon. To the extent that we develop that emissions trading scheme and carbon pricing to the point where electricity from nuclear power becomes viable, then nuclear power should be on the table. The rather extraordinary position adopted by the Labor Party—which I think Senator Webber would herself find extraordinary—is that they are the ones saying that Australia must move immediately to put a price on carbon and they are the ones saying that we must cut emissions by some 60 per cent from 1990 levels in 2050, representing a massive difference in Australia’s energy mix. To then suggest that nuclear power—the only known baseload source of power that is emission free—cannot even be contemplated is an utterly idiotic position and speaks of the hollowness of the Labor Party’s position on the question of containing CO emissions. You cannot be serious about containing CO emissions in this country if you are not even prepared to contemplate the use of nuclear power in this country.