Kim Carr (Victoria, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Minister for Housing and Urban Development) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

My question without notice is to Senator Ian Campbell, Minister for the Environment and Heritage. Can the minister confirm that he believes that the federal government, through its use of the corporations power in the Constitution, can override state governments in mandating sites for nuclear reactors? What legal advice has the minister sought and received on this issue? Does the minister believe that the views of local communities and state and territory governments are irrelevant and have no influence in determining where nuclear reactors might be sited? Does this mean that the Howard government alone will decide where nuclear reactors will be located?

Ian Campbell (WA, Liberal Party, Minister for the Environment and Heritage) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I welcome the question from the Australian Labor Party on the nuclear industry report—I presume it refers to the Switkowski review report. The first part of the question seeks constitutional advice, and I suspect the best way to get that is not by asking the minister for the environment. However, the question refers to a number of very important issues about Australia’s future energy security and about emissions, because nuclear power is one of the technologies that the world is now turning to with significantly renewed enthusiasm.

I might say that at the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change a few days ago in Nairobi I met with a significant number of countries, and most of them, if they are not already pursuing redevelopment of their nuclear power capacity, are certainly well down the path to expanding it. That is because those countries—and I think Mr Switkowski in his review refers to some 32 countries where nuclear power is already a part of their energy mix—know that in the future we will not be able to continue to generate energy the way we have in the past. They know that you will not be able to pump another trillion tonnes of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere and they know that nuclear power will be part of the mix for their countries. It is interesting to note that view even here in Australia: the press today refers to former prime ministers Hawke and Keating both having said that nuclear power will need to be part of the mix.

What we see from the Labor Party is a deeply entrenched position that says no to fossil fuels. They are very anti coal; they are very anti Australia’s traditional energy sources. They are also anti nuclear, but they have a very ‘let’s walk on both sides of the fence’ position on nuclear power. That is, they are going to have a debate at their conference next year on whether they can overturn the stupid policy of some 25 years standing that we are only allowed to have uranium from three mines. In other words, you can have good uranium if it is on the South Australian side of the border but bad uranium if it is from Western Australia. As was so eloquently described in, I think, the Advertiser newspaper this morning by one of their correspondents or opinion writers, Mr Beazley’s policy on nuclear power is akin to letting people grow oranges but not allowing them to be juiced. So, if Mr Beazley gets his way, we are going to have a silly 1970s policy overturned, to allow uranium mining and allow the rest of the world to use it to create low-emission power, which is what the world needs—it needs more power and lower emissions—yet the Labor Party is so constrained, so conflicted and, in typical Mr Beazley fashion, so used to walking both sides of the street—

Chris Evans (WA, Australian Labor Party, Leader of the Opposition in the Senate) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Mr Deputy President, I raise a point of order that goes to relevance. The minister was asked a question about the corporations power, about comments he made as reported in the press and about the location, and the decision about the location, of nuclear reactors. The minister has made no attempt to answer the question. He has given us another travelogue about his recent travels. I would ask you to draw his attention to the question. Questions of a minister at question time are designed to elicit answers on that subject, not a general rave about things he is otherwise interested in.

John Hogg (Queensland, Deputy-President) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

On the point of order: as you know, I cannot instruct the minister on how to answer questions. I draw the minister’s attention to the question. Minister Campbell.

Ian Campbell (WA, Liberal Party, Minister for the Environment and Heritage) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I have finished the answer.

Kim Carr (Victoria, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Minister for Housing and Urban Development) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Mr Deputy President, I ask a supplementary question. Does the minister now dispute the AAP report of 22 November asserting that he is claiming the Commonwealth has the power to solely determine the siting of nuclear power stations? I would further ask the minister if he is aware of his own draft National Code for Wind Farms, where he states:

Consultation with and engagement of the community is seen as a particularly critical issue.

Further, he says:

A … Code would include local communities in the decision-making process and capture their local knowledge about the potential impacts on the landscape, property values and wildlife in their area.

Is the minister seriously now suggesting that these principles should apply to wind farms but not to nuclear reactors?

Ian Campbell (WA, Liberal Party, Minister for the Environment and Heritage) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I think they are very good principles for a national wind farm code, and they are in stark opposition to Senator Carr’s comrades, who want to ensure that you roll over local communities and put wind farms where they do not want them. What the Labor Party need to understand is that if you are serious about climate change you have to be serious about wind energy, solar energy, energy efficiency and fuel switching. You have to be serious about clean coal. You also have to be serious about all the technologies. And you have got to have a policy on nuclear energy and uranium mining that is consistent, not a typical Mr Beazley policy of walking on both sides of the street and hoping you can get away with it—because you cannot. If you do not have a consistent policy on energy security and climate change, you cannot be taken seriously on climate change—and that is why you are not taken seriously on climate change.