Andrew Bartlett (Queensland, Australian Democrats) Share this | Hansard source

The question before the chair is that this motion be given priority because it was denied formality. I appreciate that Senator Watson was seeking clarification. I do not think any of us know every single detail of every piece of legislation and law that has been passed by this parliament, but I do think it is important to emphasise for the record that nuclear power stations are clearly illegal under current law. Indeed, for the benefit of those who are interested, I specifically refer them to sections 37J and 140A of the Environment Protection and Biodiversity Conservation Act, sections that were put in the legislation specifically as a result of the Democrats’ actions. Those sections quite clearly state:

The Minister must not approve an action consisting of or involving the construction or operation of ...

(a)

a nuclear fuel fabrication plant;

(b)

a nuclear power plant;

(c)

an enrichment plant;

(d)

a reprocessing facility.

That is the law as things stand. It is an important and urgent matter to absolutely clarify this by way of a vote of the Senate precisely because of the confusion, particularly in government ranks, about what exactly the government’s position is on nuclear power stations. Are they just thinking about it? Are they just putting a review forward? Will they allow it down the track, potentially, if all these things stack up? Are they determined to do it and that is their policy? Or is it somewhere in between all those things? Or will it be that a nuclear power plant, reprocessing facility or enrichment plant is only okay if it is in someone else’s place or if we stick it in the Northern Territory like we did with the nuclear waste facility?

We do need to clarify the government’s position on these things beyond simply a reaffirmation of the current law which bans nuclear power stations. It is pleasing the government are at least affirming—or, according to Senator Ellison, endorsing—existing Australian law. It would be a bit of a problem if they did not endorse existing law. They can always put forward a proposal to change the law, and that is the key question mark. That will not be resolved by any vote here today from the government members, because it is quite clear that there is a lot of confusion and uncertainty in government ranks.

There is no confusion or uncertainty on the part of the Democrats, who have opposed this since our inception 30 years ago and have opposed uranium mining as well for 30 years. It has caused no confusion amongst the Labor Party or the Greens party. But this does also highlight an absolutely critical issue for the upcoming federal election, because the federal election is not just about whether Mr Rudd or Mr Howard will become Prime Minister after the election. It is quite clear that Mr Howard is hell-bent on advancing the nuclear industry in Australia and is hell-bent on enabling the construction of nuclear power stations. But the key point which this motion reaffirms and makes clear is that that would require a change in the law. It does not matter if Mr Howard gets back in as Prime Minister. He will still need to change the law to enable that to happen. There is all this talk of overriding the states. That could only happen if the existing law was changed, and the only way the existing law could be changed is if it is passed not just by Mr Howard’s echo chamber in the House of Representatives but by this Senate.

We need a clear indication from the government that they will not try to use their numbers to railroad through a change in the law on this matter before the election. We need the message to get out clearly to the Australian people, even those people in the community who may want to return a Howard government for a range of other reasons, that if they are against a nuclear power station being built in their backyard they have to ensure the Senate is taken off—