Ian Macdonald (Queensland, Liberal Party, Shadow Parliamentary Secretary Assisting the Leader of the Opposition in the Senate) Share this | Hansard source

Perhaps I should say for Hansard’s benefit that I intend great irony when I say that, because Senator Milne suggests that none of us has a view that is worth having; she is the expert. I hear her and her colleagues in the Greens talking all the time about greenhouse gas emissions and the carbon exuded into the climate. One way that you could seriously address that is by nuclear power, which has no carbon problems, yet for some reason Senator Milne, who tells us the world is about to come to an end, does not want to even consider a source of power that is clean of carbon emissions. Senator Milne prefers to shut Australia down. I just think of what might happen to all those working families that the government spoke so much about if they are captives of the Greens’ position on these issues. I wonder what will happen to all the miners up in the Bowen Basin coalfields, up where I come from, if the government are forced into a position by the Greens in this chamber. It could cause huge problems for working families and, indeed, for our whole economy. I wish that Senator Milne and her colleagues in the Greens could explain to me why uranium is not worth looking at. I am not saying we should do it, but it should be part of the consideration of the problems we are having with greenhouse gases.

I know the Labor Party has been all over the ship with uranium, and I know the leader of the AWU in Queensland, Mr Bill Ludwig, has been very vocal in calling for some sensible policy on uranium. I see some of my colleagues from the Labor Party in the chamber, and they might be able to explain to me exactly what the government’s position is on uranium, because I know that some of the very powerful unions, particularly in my state, have a view that is contrary to that of the government. We all know that this government is where it is through that massive campaign of the unions at the last election. What was it that they spent on supporting the government—about $40 million?