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Australia from 1949 and into the future

By Brendan Nelson - posted Friday, 22 April 2005


Our government inherited from the Keating Government a legacy of debt and asset sales being used to fund recurrent expenditure and essential social infrastructure. But equally crippling was the culture of unsustainable expectation that emerged in terms of what governments could and would provide.

There is evidence that the world’s environment is warming and that human activity is a key contributor. Most of us appreciate that no longer can human existence be sustained on environmental capital. Australia has rightly refused to sign the Kyoto protocol. Exporting thousands of mining and manufacturing jobs alone to less developed countries with less stringent environmental controls serves the interests neither of our nation nor those whose jobs are at risk.

Yet we are one of only a handful of countries on track to meet our Kyoto deadline. We have grown our economy by 47 per cent since 1990 but increased greenhouse gas emissions by only 1.3 per cent.

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The Howard Government has invested $1.8 billion in its climate change strategy. At least a further billion dollars is leveraged from the private sector in low emission technologies, photovoltaics and renewable energies. But in addition to this, is it not time to consider in the longer term the most obvious power source, nuclear power?

For a million years CO2 levels were between 200 and 300 parts per million. They have risen to 380 ppm in 150 years. Although much hysteria surrounds global warming, it pales into insignificance compared to that surrounding nuclear power.

We are a part of the nuclear cycle. About a third of the world’s uranium is at Olympic Dam in South Australia. As Australia’s science minister I have had to deal with parochialism of the South Australian government refusing to allow the safe storage of low level waste at Woomera. Now it is making arrangements to store its own low and medium level waste in South Australia.

Simultaneously the same government enthusiastically eyes the economic potential of its massive uranium deposits. Australia already accounts for 19 per cent of global uranium production earning us $427 million in 2002-03.

Nuclear power generates 16 per cent of the world’s electricity from 440 stations in 31 countries. In doing so the complete nuclear process emits 2-6 grams of carbon equivalent per kilowatt-hour. Coal, oil and natural gas emit 100-360 grams of Carbon per kilowatt. The nuclear power that today generates 16 per cent of the world’s electricity avoids 600 million tonnes of carbon emissions annually. In plain language that’s 8 per cent of current global greenhouse gas emissions.

My Canberra office has its walls adorned by numerous photos. Every one tells a story. The largest hangs  there to remind me that I am privileged to be a member of parliament. Almost twice the size of a door, it is a black and white photograph of the late Neville Bonner. Neville was, of course, the first Aboriginal Australian elected to the federal parliament in 1971 as a Queensland Liberal senator.

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Born into a life of poverty unknown to all but a few of us here, he endured a life of adversity, prejudice, hurtful stereotyping and an education in the university of life. When asked to nominate his greatest achievement, he replied, “It is that I was there. They no longer spoke of Boongs or blacks. They spoke instead of Aboriginal people.”

Life expectancy for Indigenous Australians remains 15 to 20 years below that of non Indigenous Australians. Only 1 in 3 will see age 65 when the rest of the country is concerned about collapsing age dependency rates. Aboriginal infant mortality, despite dramatic improvements, is 3 times higher, unemployment 4 times higher and incarceration rates 16 times higher than non Indigenous Australians.

In remote areas only 1 in 10 Indigenous students remains to year 12, frequently achieving barely a year 10 standard. Achievement in these areas against national literacy and numeracy benchmarks is barely 13 per cent. On a range of health and educational benchmarks however, there has been improvement over the past five years.

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This is an edited version of the Dame Pattie Menzies oration, given by Brendan Nelson on April 18, 2005. The complete speech can be found here.



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About the Author

Hon. Dr Brendan Nelson is a former federal Minister for Education, Science and Training and is the Liberal Member for Bradfield (NSW).

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