Dennis Jensen (Tangney, Liberal Party) Share this | Hansard source

Mr Speaker, I add my congratulations to those that have already been offered on your elevation to high office. This bill amends the Australian Radiation Protection and Nuclear Safety Act 1998 to ensure that Australia's regulation of radiation activities remains at the forefront of international best practice. Drawing on the recommendations of various reviews and the experience of ARPANSA, this bill makes changes to the legislation to provide greater clarity regarding the reach of the legislation so that it improves risk management of radiation activities undertaken by Commonwealth entities and provides greater capacity for ARPANSA to act in the event of an emergency or noncompliance with the legislation.

It would be remiss of me to pass up this opportunity to discuss nuclear power in the main. I led the debate on nuclear power with a speech to parliament in March 2005. Nuclear power is cheap, clean, safe and sustainable. The challenges are as real as the opportunities are great. Having led the charge on the nuclear issue in this place in the past, I know that support for nuclear is not limited by party ties. There are real fears in the community about nuclear power, but let this not rule out or reduce the scope of our imagination or possibilities.

In 2005 I tried to ignite a national conversation regarding the use of nuclear power for domestic applications. In latter times I have spoken extensively about the incomparable benefits of adopting and/or just allowing a nuclear choice in terms of the potential submarine mix. Post Collins class, we all need to look at performance and value for money and an ability to protect Australia and our people. So, on whatever front one chooses to look—be it domestic energy generation, national defence or even nuclear waste storage—having a mature, reasoned and real debate can only be in Australia's interest. I welcome the royal commission in South Australia into nuclear.

It is well known that former Prime Minister Hawke is a strong supporter of using our vast desert interior for nuclear waste storage. This type of bravery and imagination is what will get Australia firing again. Australia stands to gain from lower electricity costs, increased competitiveness, greater national security independence and massive and sustainable employment for thousands. This new industry is so obvious and so possible. To those opposing the proposed debate, I say that now is the time to stop stopping and start starting—a new perspective, a new opportunity. George Bernard Shaw is often quoted as saying, 'I see things that never were and say, "Why not?"' Today the debate on nuclear is at the same turning point of history. The challenges of the future will only be greater.

The fact is there are things in the environment we all want—clean air, clean water, good food and reducing birth rates. Look at the countries in the world with the cleanest air, cleanest water, lowest birth rates and best food. They are all affluent. McNair Ingenuity Research showed that, between 1979 and 2009, those in favour of the construction of nuclear power stations increased from 34 per cent to 49 per cent, with around 10 per cent undecided. More people are in favour of nuclear power than are opposed. It is not the will of the people to take nuclear energy off the table. If the Greens and Labor do not embrace nuclear power as a possibility, then they are not serious in their assertions about reducing CO2 emissions. They also cannot continue to argue that we should have a nuclear ban as it is economically too expensive.

It is time to repeal section 10 of the ARPANSA Act 1998. It would remove a prohibition on a Commonwealth body operating a power reactor and would allow nuclear energy to be one of the options explored for most efficiently conserving and producing cleaner energy for Australia in the longer term. In the national interest, it is time to move past the politics of fear.

There has been a growing realisation in Europe and Asia that, for a variety of reasons, nuclear is the future. Poland is planning on having its first nuclear plant by 2020, and Britain has decided to replace its ageing reactors and create new sites. France, which is the nation most dependent on nuclear energy, with about 75 to 80 per cent of France's energy nuclear generated, has ordered its 61st nuclear generator. China's nuclear generation capacity is on track to go from nine gigawatts to 70 gigawatts by 2020—an enormous increase. An MIT report said that China may have to add as many as 200 nuclear power plants by 2050 to meet its energy demands. There is also a huge market in India, which has been a contentious issue that Australia cannot ignore. This new economic giant has 15 operating nuclear power plants and seven under construction. India knows that the only way to enhance the lives of its people is via access to power. Currently, an estimated 400 million Indians still have no access to electricity. Nuclear power can change that dramatically.

Going right back to the early history of mankind, each significant advancement in our civilisation has gone hand in hand with new energy sources. There were gradual developments in our civilisations over the following centuries but the next enormous, exponential leap in the development of human society, especially in the West, was the Industrial Revolution. That advance would have been impossible without a quantum leap in the development of energy sources—specifically, using coal to make steam, which literally drove the Industrial Revolution.

Thus energy became, once again, the literal driver of mankind's incredible advances over the last couple of centuries. And now, once again, energy is front and centre in the deliberations of many governments. The economic benefits to Australia of this initial step by the federal government would be huge. The mantra, over the last few weeks, has been the importance of keeping jobs in Australia to try and insulate us as much as possible from the disasters befalling the world economy. New projects, such as the expansion of current mines and the opening of new ones, will provide the very best economic stimulation possible. This means real jobs, real and significant infrastructure, real earnings from real wealth and, most importantly, creating wealth instead of borrowing it from future generations of Australians.

Finally, there is the ultimate flow-on effect from this and other similar arrangements which will surely come in the near future. Although European countries are now expressing renewed interest in nuclear power, there is one principal problem associated with this reawakening. There was flourishing nuclear science going on in parallel with the development of nuclear power in the fifties and sixties. Then, with a realigning of ideology to fit the antiprogressive theology of extreme and almost unquestioned green politics, these nuclear programs became unpopular in some countries. Germany, the UK and others, which had once embraced the new technology, were browbeaten by the disingenuous scare tactics of the Left to start winding back their nuclear programs. They started decommissioning nuclear power stations and basically recanted on their faith in nuclear power, on which they had previously relied to provide non-fossil fuel power for the future. France, of course, was an exception, because it had no natural energy resources of its own. Not surprisingly, France did not want to be beholden to other countries for gas or oil, so the preference for nuclear energy was easy. As the French say about nuclear power: no coal, no gas, no oil—no choice.

Now the other countries are coming around to their previous position and looking once again to nuclear power. They realise that nuclear power can carry them over at least the next century while new energy sources are being investigated and developed. The big problem is that, while their nuclear programs were up and running, they had the expertise to run these programs. With the winding back of nuclear energy programs, there was little or no renewal of this expertise. As the nuclear industry was diminishing, the men and women who were highly trained in this area were getting old and retiring. Thus, just when they are so badly needed, where are the nuclear scientists and technologists who will be needed to back up the increased demand for this energy? We can stick our heads in the sand and pretend we can somehow make do without nuclear energy, as the extreme so-called environmentalists do, or we can admit that energy is the key to the world's future, stop kidding ourselves about pie-in-the-sky energy sources and get real. Let us take this once-in-a-lifetime conjunction of events and make the most of it.

Another thing we should be talking about is putting money into research and development. We need to look at putting money into generation IV reactors, which have significant advantages over conventional reactors because not only, in many cases, can these reactors use the uranium resource for 50 to 60 times longer than conventional reactors but also they can use as fuel depleted fuel from conventional reactors, and the waste form that you are left with is literally safe to handle within a period of about 300 years. We should also be investing in thorium research. Once again, Australia has the largest thorium reserves in the world. Another technology that we should invest in—and this would even be for people who are somewhat paranoid about fission power—is nuclear fusion. At present there is a great international program called ITER—it stands for International Thermonuclear Experimental Reactor—in France. It is one of the largest scientific projects in the world. In effect, it is a preproduction fusion prototype. This is a very clean energy resource, and I think it is foolhardy for Australia not to be involved. If we are not one of the major program partners we should certainly be one of the subpartners in the project, because Australia is one of the world's energy superpowers in terms of nuclear energy, be it fission or fusion. You can talk about uranium, you can talk about thorium and, indeed, you can talk about lithium, which is the feedstock for nuclear fusion. Western Australia has one of the largest resources of lithium in the world.

We should be looking at becoming more energy independent, and getting involved in these sorts of areas would certainly make us more energy independent. It is time for Australia to have a mature conversation about nuclear in the energy mix. It is time to get clear about the legislative context, and this new clear will be an all-clear for nuclear—an all-clear for jobs, growth and opportunity. As I have said many times before, it is time to stop stopping and start starting.

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