Simon Birmingham (SA, Liberal Party) Share this | Hansard source

I too wish to take note of the quarterly report of the Chief Executive Officer of the Australian Radiation Protection and Nuclear Safety Agency, ARPANSA. This, of course, is one of Australia’s key nuclear safety bodies. It has responsibility for the sound management of our nuclear industry. Another key body is the Australian Nuclear Science and Technology Organisation, which is chaired by Mr Ziggy Switkowski, who I note is widely quoted in today and yesterday’s newspapers in relation to a speech on nuclear energy he gave in my home town of Adelaide. That speech is one of great import for this house, for this parliament and indeed for our country because it highlights once again the failure of the Labor Party to have an open mind and consider the full spectrum of potential solutions and responses to our climate change problems. Instead, this government is hell-bent on its own narrow-minded approach to addressing climate change issues rather than considering the nuclear response as one part of a fulsome response to the climate change challenges that Australia faces.

As a senator from South Australia, a state that is very dependent upon the mining industry and the mining resources of uranium, I believe that Australia needs to be doing much more to look at how we could make use, in a responsible, safe and appropriate manner, of those resources to provide us with lower cost, stable energy and baseload power into the future and simultaneously reduce our greenhouse gas emissions.

In his comments yesterday, Mr Switkowski was, firstly, quite damning of the government’s approach, which seems to be wholly and solely targeted at the emissions trading scheme. He said:

… the emissions trading scheme is a very complex path to no place significant …

Instead, he talked about the potential and the opportunity for nuclear energy. He said:

… nuclear energy is too important and effective a source of clean energy to be ignored.

Unfortunately, that is what this government is doing—ignoring this important potential source of clean energy. He went on to say:

If we were serious about reducing emissions then we would put most of our resources into developing the technologies that would give us cleaner energy, driving more productive use of electricity by our appliances and certainly introducing nuclear power.

I hope one day to see a situation where Australia can rely wholly and solely on totally renewable energy sources. That would be a wonderful situation and I urge and encourage the government, as I have done in this place many times before, to continue to support and invest in the solar industry. I had representations just this week from Origin Energy about their new SLIVER solar photovoltaic cell product, which they hope to receive additional support to roll out to thousands of homes potentially. I urge the government to continue to go down the path of encouraging geothermal, wind and tidal power and all those other alternatives.

But, for today, nuclear is a known source of energy. The rest of the world uses it extensively. We export it to the rest of the world for them to use it extensively and yet we choose to ignore the potential that it has here in our own country. Mr Switkowski said that under certain scenarios that potential could see an 18 per cent reduction in the use of fossil fuels in Australia, which of course would represent a significant reduction in our greenhouse gas emissions.

This government needs a clear and consistent policy on nuclear energy. It fails to have one. It fails to have one in relation to trade issues, where at present we see bizarre negotiations in situations where we are happy to consider selling uranium to China, we are not happy to sell it to India and yet we are keeping Russia—the chairman of whose upper house has been in the country recently posing questions on this matter—in a state of limbo, uncertain whether we are going to sell it to them or not. We need consistency from this government on climate change responses, which should include the potential of nuclear energy, and consistency on the trade of uranium. I urge the government to change its position. I seek leave to continue my remarks later.

Leave granted; debate adjourned.