Ross Lightfoot (WA, Liberal Party) Share this | Hansard source

I will first start by saying that I do not know what Senator Carr has been reading, but this country could not afford to build 25 nuclear reactors. This country does not need 25 nuclear reactors. Nuclear reactors cost billions of dollars each and, multiplied by 25, you could easily see that we do not have that. We do have uranium in this country. We are not, as some people may think, the biggest developer and biggest seller of uranium in the world. Canada holds that position. However Australia does have the biggest reserves of uranium in the world. We export something like 11,000 tonnes of uranium each year now. Canada exports slightly more than that. With the expanding of the UO production, or yellowcake, in Kazakhstan, Kazakhstan will easily become the biggest exporter of uranium in the world, with 18,000 tonnes per annum beginning in 2008.

The point I want to make is this: if Australia does not sell its uranium, with guidelines, to India—the largest democracy in the world—then Kazakhstan will. India is a country with which we have historical ties. It is a country with which we have traded for almost a couple of centuries, if you include our British heritage. Many of India’s citizens live in Australia. India is a country that has shown the world what can happen when a country adopts the democratic process. This government, I know, will not expand its uranium sales unless there is agreement from India to our terms. And it is not just Kazakhstan that will sell uranium to India; there are places in Africa that will sell their uranium to India too. Plutonium is a very special by-product of uranium waste. It is not something that can be taken from used or spent fuel rods and put into a bomb. It takes years, sometimes, to develop enough uranium to make plutonium and enough to make a device that will explode. Also, it takes an immense amount of technology to do it.

If Australia does not use its uranium wisely, someone else will fill the void and Australia will miss out. My home state of Western Australia, for instance, has missed out on tens of billions of dollars over the past 20 years by not developing the known uranium sources in that state, the biggest mining state in the world, the state that has an excellent record for mining. If Australia does not contribute to the reduction of greenhouse gases, when we do have the devices here to do it, we will be left wanting. We will have the finger pointed at us saying: ‘You had the means to stop production of greenhouse gases, particularly carbon dioxide, and you failed to do it. Instead, you have kept on exporting coal.’ There is nothing wrong with exporting coal, particularly if that coal is adapted to the clean coal process.

Other countries in the world that we respect, such as the United States, the United Kingdom, Sweden and France—80 per cent of France’s power is nuclear power—are developing and expanding their nuclear power stations and building new stations. China, our biggest trading partner now, is expanding its nuclear power plants across China. Why shouldn’t China expand its nuclear power plants and buy uranium from Australia? China loses up to 10,000 people a year in its coalmines, largely in small coalmines that are owned by individuals in China. This will obviate the necessity for the rush to coal to create energy for the massive industrialisation of China.

If we do not do that, I think that we would have the finger pointed at us. People from various parts of the world will say to us: ‘You have the means to reduce the deaths in China by exporting your uranium there. You have the means to reduce the occurrence of millions of tonnes of greenhouse gases per year and you’ve failed to do it, you’ve failed to take note.’ We should grasp the opportunity and embrace nuclear power, provided—and only provided—that it is a safe issue for us to embrace. (Time expired)