Ian Macdonald (Queensland, Liberal Party, Shadow Parliamentary Secretary for Northern and Remote Australia) Share this | Hansard source

And we support ARENA, Senator Milne, but I am saying let us hope that when it is set up the Labor government minister will appoint appropriate people, people with commercial experience and not just some Labor hacks or some former state or federal Labor ministers who need a job paying a couple of hundred thousand dollars a year. Let us hope that when the board is appointed it will be an appropriate board with the required experience.

The coalition is a great supporter, as I think Senator Milne has just acknowledged, of renewable energies. I remind the Senate that the Mandatory Renewable Energy Target—the first such proposal, scheme, project anywhere in the world—was established by a Liberal and National Party federal government. It was also a federal coalition government that established photovoltaic industries in Australia. The first wind projects in Australia were established by a coalition government. It was also a coalition government that funded the first large-scale photovoltaic generation programs. Indeed, it was a coalition government that put money into the first solar thermal projects. It was a coalition government that continued to ensure that we had projects that actually worked, and I am proud of that.

I think we do have to move, hand in hand with the coal industry, into clean energy options. I do think that the time will come when Australia will be required to take the cheapest and the cleanest form of energy—that is, nuclear energy. If we are worried about carbon emissions, we know that you do not get any carbon emissions out of nuclear. Why the Greens continue to oppose it, I cannot— (Time expired)