Claire Moore (Queensland, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Minister for Women) Share this | Hansard source

I know, Senator Abetz, that you yearn to hear what I have to say!

As I was saying, that remains a major issue within the community in terms of any acceptance of a change to the current position that we have in the country around nuclear power. Senator Macdonald did allude to the 'issue' or 'incident'—I should have written it down—of Fukushima. His dismissal of the significant issues around what happened at Fukushima was, I think, indicative of the lack of genuine understanding of the concerns in the community around this issue. Certainly over a long period of time one of the clear issues that has been raised within the community about anything around the further development of nuclear energy in our country has been a concern around a guarantee for safety and that there not be the kind of environmental, social and serious damage that occurred as a result of a series of nuclear incidents over many years. The most recent of those was in Fukushima, but the Chernobyl situation, of which we've just passed a significant anniversary, caused immense damage all across northern Europe and into the Arctic. In parts of Europe and the UK—I know that the UK are probably not referring to themselves as part of Europe any longer—there is still monitoring being done of ongoing issues around environmental damage in that area as a result of an incident that happened well over 20 years ago.

We've had Chernobyl identified and national and international reviews of what occurred at Three Mile Island and the significant safety issues that occurred. When something goes wrong in a nuclear energy facility, the resultant impact is much more serious than we see when things go wrong with other forms of power in the power industry. Certainly no-one can ever offer a guarantee. It doesn't matter what form of energy we're talking about, there's a possibility that there can be problems and that dangerous and destructive things can occur. However, our international experience at this point in time is that the resultant impact of a disaster, if something goes wrong with nuclear power, is significantly greater than what has occurred with other forms of energy problems. That has a major impact for the community and also for security in our nation. If anyone heard the number of submissions that Senator Ludlam made on the issue of post-Fukushima Japan from his many visits there and his interactions with community, parliamentarians and scientists, they would understand that the lessons to be learned by what happened in Fukushima must continue to be part of the ongoing debate on this issue.

I know that Senator Bernardi alluded to the very significant issue of nuclear waste that continues to bedevil our community even with the nuclear processes that we have, particularly in the medical field, already in Australia. Coming to an effective, agreed process for how we should operate the increasing amount of waste has proven to be a major obstacle already in our society. I'm not sure whether Senator Bernardi has been involved in any of the discussions around this issue, but I have. I know there are other speakers, so I'll end my contribution there.