F77/ 197 Q
. i,, AUSTRALIA~
FOR PRESS 8 SEPTEMBER 1977
MISREPRESENTATION
The Prime Minister made the followi ng statement in the House
this afternoon:
" With your indulgence, Mr. Deputy Speaker, for the sake of
accuracy, I should like to add to an answer I gave to a question
asked this morning.
This morning the Leader of the Opposition ( Mr. Whitlam)
said that I had used a single line quotation from the Flowers
Report. The single line quotation, as he indicated in his
question, was as follows:
" We are confident that an acceptable solution will be found."
The sentence that the Leader of the Opposition read out this
morning was not in my speech announcing the Government's uranium
decision. It is contained in two background papers. It appears
at page 5 of the paper headed " Health and Safety Aspects of
Nuclear Power Generation" and at page 4 of the document " Uranium-
Your Questions Answered". The Leader of the Opposition indicated
that only one line from the Flowers Report had been quoted and
that the quotation omitted several other sentences. The facts
are quite different.
The quotation con tained in the background papers came from
paragraph 181 of the Flowers Report. The sentences which the
Leader of the Opposition claimed I had omitted came from
paragraph 504 of the Flowers Report 111 pages later. As
I was using a quotation from paragraph 181, it is not surprising
that the quotation that the Leader of the Opposition used, which
came from paragraph 504 111 pages later was not included in
the original quotation. Obviously, the quotation from paragraph
504 was not a part of the quotation contained in the background
documents. As I have indicated, the quotation from the Flowers Report which
was contained in the background papers was not a " single
sentence one line" as the Leader of the Opposition so
misleadingly described it. It was an extensive quotation
from the Flowers Report together with a further sentence
summarising the attitude towards waste isolation which had
been expressed in the Flowers Report. / Let me
-2
Let me read the quotation which appeared in the background.
documents. It was as follows:
" There are various proposals for the permanent storage of
the solidified wastes under the ocean beds or in deep
geological formations where they will be virtually
inaccessible. Much research is needed ( though still on
a very modest scale compared with that on reactors) to
establish the safety and the feasibility of such methods.
We are confident that an acceptable solution will be
found
The. Leader of the Opposition suggested that the only sentence that
had been used was as follows:
" We are confident that an acceptable solution will be
found."
The following additional sentence appears in the background documents:
" The Commission goes on to recommend that there should be no
commitment to fission power on a massive scale until at least
one method for safe isolation has been demonstrated beyond
reasonable doubt."
In other parts of the Flowers * Report a view is indicated very
similar--to--that indicated in the Fox-Report.. The Commission had
indicated that -the pres-efft state of knowledge certainly was not
one which should cause people to put aside the further development
of nuclear power for peaceful purposes. I think that what we have
seen on this occasion is yet one more example of the unparalleled
capacity of the Leader of the opposition for deception, and the
blatant way in which he tries to carry out distortions.
May I conclude Mr. De puty Speaker, by summarising the facts.
As has been mentioned, the quotation used in the background
papers came from paragraph 181 of the Flowers Report. The
sentences which the Leader of the Opposition claimed had been
omitted came from paragraph 504 of the Flowers Report 111 pages
later. I do not think it is surprising, therefore, that the
sentences quoted by the Leader of the opposition were omitted
from the quotation, because obviously they were not part of it.
Mr. Deputy Speaker, I thank you for the indulgence of the Chair.
I am quite certain that all Honourable Members will be able to
understand exactly what the Leader of the Opposition did."