Dr Dennis Jensen MP

The politics of fear all too often override good policy and the desire of the majority of the community. The nuclear debate is a classic example of this. I led the debate with a speech to Parliament in March 2005, advocating at the very least for critical examination of the merits of nuclear generated power. This led to an almighty Labor and Greens sponsored fear campaign in the 2007 election, where voters were threatened with a supposed Coalition plan of building a nuclear power station somewhere near you.

In that period I was misrepresented in the media as saying I would be happy to have one built in my electorate of Tangney. This is ludicrous, there is nowhere within my electorate that would meet the requirements of a nuclear power station. I decided not to push for a retraction. Firstly I did not as the foremost proponent want to be seen as running from the issue and secondly, I wanted to gauge public reaction. My local papers repeated the assertions made by The West Australian. The result was less than ten negative communications, and one person who protested outside my office in an anti-nuclear ‘suit’.

In fact McNair Ingenuity research between 1979 and 2009 shows support for nuclear power increasing from 34% to 49 % in favour of the construction of nuclear power stations, with around 10% undecided. More people are in favour of nuclear power than opposed yet Greens support for nuclear power still sits around 22%.

We continue to get fear mongering from Labor and the Greens despite critical power generation infrastructure issues. The generators are loathe to make a decision on what sort of power station to build without knowing the outcome of the carbon dioxide debate. Gillard asserts a carbon price is needed to provide certainty but a decision not to tax carbon would obviously also provide this certainty. There is stasis on the construction of power stations, because a price on carbon would favour gas, whereas no price would favour coal.

Nuclear power would get past this impasse. Nuclear power is the least carbon intensive, not that I am arguing on the basis of carbon dioxide mitigation as a reason for nuclear power, never have and most likely never will. The fact is a nuclear decision can be made regardless of the policy framework on carbon.

Switkowski conducted a study about 4 years ago into the economics of nuclear power. He found nuclear would only be competitive with coal with a $30 per tonne price on carbon. However, power prices have shifted significantly since then, and are now more closely aligned with economic reality. This hurts householders, but the reality is similar to the USA, South Africa and other markets with abundant cheap coal, nuclear is competitive with any other method of power generation. The only thing counting against it is a nonsensical ban on generating power using nuclear energy.

Labor and the Greens cannot continue to say anthropogenic global warming is the most important issue to confront our society, but then say that the one method capable of making a massive dent in carbon emissions should have a legislative ban associated with it.

They also cannot continue to argue for this ban as it is ‘economically too expensive’. If they really believe this, they would allow a repeal of section ten of the Australian Radiation Protection and Nuclear Safety Act 1998, knowing power generators would not build a nuclear power plant if it was economically uncompetitive.

It is time to move past the politics of fear, in the national interest.

It is time for politicians of conviction, with the foresight to look at the national interest and the future of our nation to push for a repeal of this legislation.

It is time for the fear mongering to stop by repealing section ten.

I applaud those in the Labor movement that have had the courage of their convictions to look beyond the petty party politics and declare that the nuclear option should be a tool in our electricity generator’s toolkits. Let’s ensure we do what’s best for the nation and not hamstring one of our most important industries for the simple expedient of gaining votes using the politics of fear.

I am working to streamline some of the legislation governing nuclear issues. At the moment there is a miscellany of State and Federal Government jurisdictions. Each State has an Act that deals with safety of radioactive materials. Victoria, Queensland and New South Wales also have Acts that forbid the construction or operation of nuclear facilities for enrichment, power generation or reprocessing. But this doesn’t prevent the development of a Commonwealth facility on Commonwealth land. An example, the NSW Act, which bans any kind of reactor, explicitly states that this does not prevent the Commonwealth from operating one, in a nod to the existence of the Lucas Heights reactor. But section ten of the Australian Radiation Protection and Nuclear Safety Act 1998 explicitly excludes licences for enrichment, power generation or reprocessing of nuclear fuels, so the only reactors permitted are for research or for making radiological materials. It also prohibits a Commonwealth body from building or operating a nuclear facility without a licence under this Act.
Repealing this section would be a worthwhile step forward. It would remove the prohibition on a Commonwealth body operating a power reactor and allow nuclear energy to be one of the options explored for most efficiently conserving and producing cleaner energy for Australia in the longer term

It is hard to imagine that any such reactor could be built without much of the building standards and operating safeguards being set out in legislation but this is something we will have to look at in the near future.

My reform will only seek remove this impediment to nuclear development and nothing more.

If this jump starts a national debate, then so be it.

To simply keep a ban in place based on old fears is bad policy.