MCGRATH:
Prime Minister, good morning.
PRIME MINISTER:
Morning.
MCGRATH:
How would you rate the chances of Australia embracing nuclear power in the next 20, 30 years?
PRIME MINISTER:
Oh, I am not going to get into those silly games of percentages. We need to be open minded and forward looking enough to at least examine it. And this negative attitude that sets its mind against even talking about or examining the subject is not good for Australia's future. I think it's a possibility, but I'm not an expert, I'm not a nuclear physicist and what I would like is an examination. It's not something that we've talked about much over the last 25 years. There has been some change in public opinion.
I want us to look at the nuclear option as well as continuing what we're doing in areas like renewables and trying to get cleaner coal and gas technology. People seem to forget that only a couple of years ago we established a Low Emissions Technology Fund of $1.5 billion to investigate ways of using both coal and gas in a way that didn't produce as many Greenhouse gas emissions. You can, in this area, walk and chew gum at the same time and I think the people who are reacting negatively just should calm down and understand that if we're to have a secure energy future we should look at all of the options.
MCGRATH:
On the subject of a secure energy future, many in the mining industry are saying that the real economic fortune is in enriching uranium and storage of waste?
PRIME MINISTER:
Well we should look at uranium enrichment, of course we should. We as a nation for generations have lamented the fact that we had the finest wool in the world but we sent it overseas to be processed. I don't want, if there's a viable, economic, safe alternative, I don't want the same thing to be said in future generations about our uranium. Surely...
MCGRATH:
But do you see this...
PRIME MINISTER:
No well I think, Catherine, what I see is an opportunity for this nation to think about its future in the longer term. Now Mr Beazley and others can run a short term fear campaign, and they will, and they'll say there's going to be a nuclear reactor just around the corner. Of course they will do all of that. You can do that on everything. He did that on the GST, he's done that on industrial relations, he always does that.
But I think the Australian people understand that we live in a world where energy costs are very volatile. We live in a world where there's a growing demand for energy from countries like China and India and they look at Australia and say gee, we've got 40 per cent of the world's high grade uranium reserves, we've got all this coal, we've got all this gas and we've also got a lot of sunlight and we ought to be looking at all of these things and we are, and we have done a lot of work in relation to renewables. I keep hearing people saying let's look at renewables. We have in the past. We've brought down incentives, that have brought forth about $3.5 billion of investment in renewables and there are a lot of people, of course, who don't get too excited about renewables when it means that there's a wind farm in their district.
MCGRATH:
Well looking again if we can at the enrichment and storage issue. I mean, do you see Australia as having perhaps a special role or a special economic strength or a power status if we do control that in the future?
PRIME MINISTER:
Well it's not a question of controlling, it's a question of sensibly using the resources that providence has given us. We are very greatly endowed with uranium, with natural gas and with coal and we also have a lot of sunlight. We're probably as well endowed, if not more endowed, than any other nation in the world and what I am saying to the Australian people is let us calmly and sensibly examine what our options are. Let's not set our faces against examining all of those options and when all the facts are in we can then make judgements. But I don't think all the facts are in in relation to nuclear because we've had very little debate on this issue over the last 25 or 30 years because everybody said oh well you can't possibly even think about it. Now that's changed a lot.
MCGRATH:
Well it has changed a lot hasn't it? I mean effectively the goal posts have changed haven't they, because now it's a question of if nuclear power is rejected, then enrichment becomes a feasible argument in Australia and that wasn't the case three to six months ago?
PRIME MINISTER:
Well I think all of these things have got to be examined. I hear people saying it's all about a smoke screen for this or that development. It's not. It's about being honest enough about our opportunities and confident enough about our future to look at all of these options and when we get the information in, we make judgements.
MCGRATH:
All right. What about the waste? I mean there was such an outcry in Australia about low level waste that finally is going to go to the Northern Territory. What will we do with all this waste?
PRIME MINISTER:
Well when you say all this waste, we haven't decided to have this waste yet.
MCGRATH:
But if it were to happen, it's a question that needs an answer.
PRIME MINISTER:
Well Catherine, I understand, look we're not going to put carts before horses. First of all we have to establish the circumstances, if any, in which any of these activities would be feasible and that's really what the inquiry is all about.
MCGRATH:
But doesn't the credibility of an examination depend on the feasibility of putting the waste somewhere in this country?
PRIME MINISTER:
No, no, the credibility of the examination depends upon the quality of the people carrying out the examination. So you start with people who know something about it, like nuclear physicists, and the analysis that that examination produces. And when that analysis has been produced, we then, as a community, examine what the findings are and we make judgements about all of these things. It's easy to kill something like this off if you want to be negative and backward looking, like Mr Beazley, you can kill it off right at the beginning. Well I am not going to do that and I have sufficient confidence that the Australian people want their Government to think about their future in the medium to longer term, and not just take this incredibly short term, negative approach.
MCGRATH:
You're opening yourself possibly to Australia's biggest not in my own backyard campaign.
PRIME MINISTER:
Well there are not in my backyard campaigns about everything. People talk generally about renewable energy, but I know a lot of people in coastal areas of Victoria for example, who don't like wind farms. I don't know that anybody confronted with a question, do you want a coal fired power station in your district, that they would say yes. That is a natural reaction.
What I am trying to do with this debate is to broaden it out so that we can look at what the potential is, and it would be negligent of me as Prime Minister not to set up the circumstances where we can sensibly examine all of the opportunities that this country has.
Because we do have a changed environment, we do have a lot of people in the green movement now, even people like James Lovelock, the founder of Greenpeace and Tim Flannery, saying we've got to look at the nuclear option.
Now this is an enormous change over a very short period of time and all I am wanting is this country to be open minded enough to have a look at the alternatives and then in the fullness of time; and we're not talking about the next two or three years, we're talking about a longer time frame than that, a look at all of the alternatives and see where we go. And I can't for the life of me understand why people are being so short sighted and narrow minded, and backward looking.
MCGRATH:
Prime Minister just finally on another issue quickly if we can, your plans to scuttle the ACT's civil marriage, civil union rights for gay marriages?
PRIME MINISTER:
Yes, we have decided to do that because the Bill is plainly an attempt to mimic marriage under the misleading title of civil unions. We are not anti-homosexual people, or gay and lesbian people. It is not a question of discriminating against them. It is a question of preserving as an institution in our society marriage as having a special character and if you look at the legislation, what if effectively says, a civil union is not a marriage, but it will be treated for all purposes as being equivalent to a marriage.
Now that is a piece of legislative hypocrisy of the first order and that, in a sense out of the words of the legislation itself, is an explanation as to why we are taking the action we are.
MCGRATH:
Prime Minister, thanks for your time this morning.
PRIME MINISTER:
Thank you.
[ends]