Danna Vale (Hughes, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

My question is addressed to the Minister for the Environment and Water Resources. Would the minister outline to the House examples of environmentally sustainable forms of power generation capable of providing baseload power needs to 2050 and beyond? Is the minister aware of any alternative views? What is the government’s response?

Malcolm Turnbull (Wentworth, Liberal Party, Minister for the Environment and Water Resources) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I thank the honourable member. The Lucas Heights reactor is located in her electorate and it makes an important contribution to employment and to the economy there. For the reasons that the Prime Minister has outlined, including the letter from the Chief Scientist, it is quite clear that the only alternative to fossil fuel power for providing the baseload power that a modern economy needs is nuclear power. That is the only alternative, and it is the only alternative which has zero CO emissions. Nuclear power is a proven technology. There are 443 nuclear reactors in 31 countries and nuclear power today contributes 15 per cent of global electricity generation. There can be no sensible, objective consideration of our energy options without having nuclear power on the table, without it being an option.

Every single report, from the Stern review to the recent report by the International Energy Agency, stresses that in meeting the greenhouse challenge all the options have to be on the table—every technological option, including renewables, biomass, hydro, clean coal and nuclear. If you take one of those options off the table for ideological reasons then you constrain your ability to meet the climate change challenge. Australia has 38 per cent of the world’s known low-cost uranium reserves. Between us and Canada, we produce more than 50 per cent of the world’s natural uranium supply. Nuclear power will continue to be a growing part of the world’s energy solution, and it will increase because of its zero-emissions nature.

What is the alternative? We have an ideological position from the Labor Party which says that you cannot have nuclear power in Australia. They say that they will not accept it for environmental reasons. But they go off on their holidays and on their trips to Europe and go round France and are not shaking with horror or trembling with terror at the fact that France generates nearly 80 per cent of its stationary energy from nuclear power. Do they imagine that the French—or the Belgians, who produce 55 per cent of their energy from nuclear power—care less for the environment than they do? The absurdity of the Labor Party’s position is that it is based on nothing more than ideology.

There are serious divisions in the Labor Party. The member for Kingsford Smith does not simply want to stop the expansion of Australia’s coal industry; he is opposed to uranium mining, as he said last year on Triple J:

I am not supporting any uranium mining of any kind, actually. I am not in favour of us expanding the nuclear industry in Australia, uranium mining or nuclear power generation or radioactive waste storage. I can’t be any clearer than that.

Only a few weeks ago he said in the Adelaide Advertiser:

There are serious questions about the ever-onward expansion of uranium mining in Australia.

We have seen the member for Kingsford Smith do his backflip over US bases. It is not so long ago that he wanted to evict the US bases from Australia.

Lindsay Tanner (Melbourne, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Minister for Finance) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

You wanted a republic!

David Hawker (Speaker) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Order! The member for Melbourne is warned!

Malcolm Turnbull (Wentworth, Liberal Party, Minister for the Environment and Water Resources) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

How long will it be before he performs another backflip? The people of Australia know that the member for Kingsford Smith, all his life, has been committed to a number of values that he holds very dear—and one of them is to stop uranium mining in Australia.

Michael Danby (Melbourne Ports, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

What about your views on a republic!

David Hawker (Speaker) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Order! The member for Melbourne Ports is interjecting from out of his seat.

Malcolm Turnbull (Wentworth, Liberal Party, Minister for the Environment and Water Resources) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

He is opposed to uranium mining. He wants to deny the world the cleanest source of baseload power available to it today. He is not prepared to be part of the solution; he simply wants to exacerbate the problem of global warming. He does not care how poor we are, as long as we are, by his lights, pure. Ideology is a poor guide to energy policy and it will not meet the greenhouse challenge.