Victorian Schools’
State Constitutional Convention
Parliamentary Debates (Hansard)
10 September 2007
Victorian School’s Constitutional Convention Program
Ninety-seven senior student delegates from the three education sectors, representing 27
secondary colleges, assembled at Parliament House on Monday, 10 September to participate
in the 2007 Victorian Schools’ State Constitutional Convention. Rural/regional delegates
represented 21% of total participation.
Now in its 14th year, the convention continues to provide a practical opportunity for senior
secondary students to explore topical and community issues within the context of the
Australian Constitution.
The topic for the 2007 Convention was ‘Future Victorian power generation plans should
include a nuclear energy option’.
The Program opened with an keynote presentation by Sir Gustav Nossal, followed by debate
involving Martin Sevior and Amit Golder (speaking for the nuclear option), and Tilman A. Ruff
and Tom O’Connor (speaking against the nuclear option). Following student discussion
groups, Rod Espie (Parliament of Victoria) conducted a vote which concluded in a 67:27
result against the motion. Student participation was facilitated through debate, discussion,
feedback, soap-box session and vote.
Jaspreet Singh from Taylors Lakes Secondary College and Mark Holmes from Lalor Secondary
College, briefed delegates about their experiences at the 2007 National Convention held in
Canberra in March this year.
Stephanie Coulston and Dylan Elliot, student reporters from Thornbury High School (Class
TV), conducted interviews and filmed activities during the day under the direction of their
teachers, Colin Thompson (Producer) and Bill Smith (AV technician).
Twenty-five delegates from the State Convention will be selected to represent Victoria at
the National Convention to be held in Canberra in March 2008.
The State Convention was administered by a Planning Committee comprising:
Sue Nilsen
Rosemary Darwinkle
Greg Whiley
Rod Espie
Rachel Laurie
Christine Pinto
Gary Shaw
Sonya Velo
Association of Independent Schools of Victoria
Australian Electoral Commission
Catholic Education Office, Melbourne
Parliament of Victoria
Department of Education and Early Childhood Development
Department of Education and Early Childhood Development
Department of Education and Early Childhood Development
Department of Education and Early Childhood Development
VICTORIAN SCHOOLS’ STATE
CONSTITUTIONAL CONVENTION
Future Victorian power generation plans
should include a nuclear energy option
Legislative Assembly Chamber
Parliament House, Melbourne
10 September 2007
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PRESENTERS
Chair:
Ms Judy Maddigan, MP, Member of Essendon
Welcome:
Mr Steve Herbert, MLA, Parliamentary Secretary for Education
Speakers:
Sir Gustav Nossal, Professor Emeritus (Pathology), University of Melbourne
Dr Martin Sevior, Associate Professor (Experimental Particle Physics), University of Melbourne
Dr Tilman A. Ruff, Associate Professor, Nossal Institute, University of Melbourne
Mr Amit Golder, Arts/Law student, Monash University Debating Society
Mr Tom O’Connor, Victorian Director, Oaktree Foundation; 2007 Young Victorian of the Year
Ms Jaspreet Singh, Year 12 student, Taylors Lakes Secondary College
Mr Mark Holmes, Year 12 student, Lalor Secondary College.
Closing remarks: Mr Martin Dixon, MLA, Opposition Spokesperson for Education.
STUDENT DELEGATES:
Blossom Ah Ket, Northcote High School
Eric Allilomou, Melbourne High School
Mouhamed Assafiri, Lalor Secondary College
Iara Balo, Elwood College
Richard Bauer, St Patrick's College
Sonia Borghetti, Taylors Lakes Secondary College
Shannon Bourke, Terang College
Tyler Brady, University High School
Sarah Bubb, Brauer College
Maximilian Buchanan, Elwood College
Shelley Burns-Williamson, Northcote High School
Marissa Buttera, Northcote High School
Petek Cagrier, Taylors Lakes Secondary College
Simone Caligiuri, Lalor Secondary College
Christine Cannon, Baimbridge College
Patrick Clearwater, Melbourne High School
Richard Cole, University High School
Stephanie Coulston, Thornbury High School
Shannon Davies, Thomastown Secondary College
Terry Dehghani, Lalor Secondary College
Brittney Duckett, Tallangatta Secondary College
Johnny El Halabi, Antonine College
Dylan Elliot, Thornbury High School
Sam Farfoud, Antonine College
Jack Ferguson, St Patrick's College
Elizabeth Forrest, University High School
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Mascha Ghiradini, Elwood College
Sahika Goker, University High School
Daniel Gonsalves, Mazenod College
Joseph Gould, Flora Hill Secondary College
Ben Graham, Eaglehawk Secondary College
Callan Green, University High School
Ruby Han, Northcote High School
Cal Hannan, University High School
Sam Harrison, St Patrick's College
Samuel Hearne, University High School
Emma Hogg,
The Hamilton & Alexandra College
Mark Holmes, Lalor Secondary College
Jack Howes, University High School
Mary Ioannidis, Northcote High School
Marti Kaiser, University High School
Simone Karmis, University High School
Louis Karp, Elwood College
Varun Khatter, Northcote High School
Rishi Kher, Melbourne High School
Olivia Kidman,
Eaglehawk Secondary College
Olivia Koh, University High School
Zara La Roche,
Bairnsdale Secondary College
Denholm Lappas, Elwood College
AnaBia Leite, Elwood College
Marie Lenartowicz, University High School
Emma Lewis, Eaglehawk Secondary College
Caleb Lim, Elwood College
Freya List, University High School
Felix Lofgren, Elwood College
Mara Mathieson, Northcote High School
Danielle McDonald,
Orbost Secondary College
Lyle McLeman, Cann River P-12 College
Oscar McLoughlin-Ning,
University High School
Caitlin McNamara,
Strathcona Baptist Girls' Grammar
Benjamin Mobilio, University High School
Brwa Mohammed,
Thomastown Secondary College
10 September 2007
Vincent Moore, Mazenod College
Paula Muir, Baimbridge College
Elena Mujkic,
Strathcona Baptist Girls' Grammar
Charbel Nehme, Antonine College
Siobhan Neyland, University High School
Katja Novakovic, Northcote High School
Miriam Nowak, University High School
BJ Oakford, Notre Dame College
Adriana Ochoa, Elwood College
Meghan O'Connor,
Bairnsdale Secondary College
Peter O'Keefe, Notre Dame College
Peta-Pearl Politis, Methodist Ladies' College
Liam Power, Elwood College
Vaughan Quinn, University High School
Michael Raju,
Lalor North Secondary College
Kristina Ricketts, University High School
Daniela Rocha, Elwood College
Amy Roulston, Orbost Secondary College
Tom Scott, Elwood College
Nathan Segal, Koonung Secondary College
Michael Serratore, Mazenod College
Sarah Shafik, Lalor Secondary College
Jaspreet Singh,
Taylors Lakes Secondary College
Josie Smart, Northcote High School
Maria Stranieri,
Thomastown Secondary College
Ethan Tunstall,
Bairnsdale Secondary College
Jake Twohig, University High School
Gaetano Vangeli,
Lalor North Secondary College
Carla Ward, Baimbridge College
Vaibhav Wardhen, Melbourne High School
Ben Warner, Notre Dame College
Cherie Wasa, Lalor Secondary College
Ashlee Weidenbach, Notre Dame College
Nicholas Whan,
Flora Hill Secondary College
Katrina Williams, University High School
Victorian Schools’ State Constitutional Convention
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Welcome and introduction
The CHAIR (Mrs Maddigan) — Good morning and welcome to the Legislative Assembly of the
Victorian Parliament. My name is Judy Maddigan and I am the member for Essendon. It is great to have you all
here today. This is a bit awe-inspiring, I think, when you come in here for the first time. Parliament House was
actually built 151 years ago. The stonemasons who built it — you can see it more on the outside — were one of the
first unions to get the eight-hour day because they went on strike while they were building this chamber, which I
think was very sensible of them because the government of the day had already said when it wanted Parliament to
open, which was in November, so they did very well. It is a great building which you will be able to have a look at
later on this morning.
We have a number of guest speakers this morning, but I will introduce them to you as they get to speak rather than
all at the beginning. I welcome you all very much. If there is anything else you need to know or anything like that,
please feel free to go out and ask the attendants in the vestibule. Today is being recorded by our Hansard reporters,
who are the very elegant people sitting over here on my left. We also have standards of what is allowed to be said
in Parliament, but I am sure we will not have to refer to any of them this morning. Our first speaker this morning to
open our activities and the debate on whether future Victorian power generation plans should include a nuclear
energy option is the Parliamentary Secretary for Education, Mr Steven Herbert, who of course is a member of the
government, a member of the Labor Party.
Mr HERBERT (Parliamentary Secretary for Education) — To Judy Maddigan, the member for Essendon
and former Speaker — Judy was the Speaker in the 55th Parliament and it is good to see her back in that chair; I
can tell you she is a harsh taskmaster so make sure you abide by the rules of Parliament — my parliamentary
colleague Martin Dixon, who will be here later today, Sir Gustav Nossal, our distinguished guest speakers and
students, it is a pleasure to be here today to open this Schools State Constitutional Convention. I would like to begin
by acknowledging the traditional owners of the land on which we stand, the Wurundjeri people. I acknowledge
their culture and the important role indigenous people have played in this region.
Today over 20 schools are represented here at the Schools State Constitutional Convention, which is a major event
in Victoria’s civics and citizenship education calendar for schools across the state. It is very important, as the Chair
said, that we are here in this very special place, because the Parliament of Victoria — where you sit — is in fact
one of the historical icons of this nation. This Parliament House is the only building in Australia that has been the
host to a colonial Parliament, to a state Parliament and to a federal Parliament. Many of you may not know that the
federal Parliament was held in this building for more than 20 years — from 1901 to 1927 — before the first federal
Parliament House was built in Canberra. Back then federal members of Parliament would have sat in the seats you
are occupying right now and made decisions that created Australia as the nation we know today. Hansard reporters
will be recording each and every word that is spoken here, as happens in the normal Parliament, and that will be
part of the formal records of the Parliament of Victoria for evermore.
The theme of this constitutional convention is ‘Future Victorian power generation plans should include a nuclear
energy option’, which is a current and controversial topic. The nuclear energy debate is complex, but it is one
which governments around the world are starting to engage in as part of the response to the major concern that
governments and people have about global warming and the growth worldwide in the demand for energy. The
Victorian government has taken a proactive stance on climate change. In fact up until two months ago I was the
Parliamentary Secretary for the Environment. I shifted across to become the education parliamentary secretary
when the new Premier took office not that long ago. We have a major emphasis on trying to reduce emissions,
trying to reduce consumption and trying to produce cleaner energy. We do this through a range of mechanisms, but
primarily through the Victorian renewable energy target scheme. That is a scheme that has triggered new
investment in renewable energy projects, including wind power, geothermal and major solar power stations.
It is interesting to note that today the government released figures which show that something like
228 000 Victorian households have switched from coal generation to clean power generation. That is over 40 per
cent of the national total and puts Victoria in the leading light in terms of ordinary people switching and trying to
do their bit for climate change and to take up the use of renewable energy. However, the Victorian government is
not a supporter of nuclear power — I am sure many of you will know this — and under the Nuclear Activities
(Prohibitions) Act 1983, state Parliament legislation, nuclear power stations and waste dumps are banned in
Victoria. This is in stark contrast to the commonwealth government, who have put nuclear energy back on the
national agenda and are currently investigating the proposition of starting up a nuclear power industry in Australia.
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Ultimately the level of public support for and against nuclear energy will have major implications for the direction
of government policy. It is a controversial topic, and I doubt that any government would take it on or reject it unless
they were sure that the public would come along with that decision. I understand that you all here have copies of
papers outlining many arguments for and against the topic. The papers and the presentations of today’s speakers
will put forward the pros and cons and help you weigh the risks and potential benefits of nuclear energy.
I encourage you all to participate fully and ask the important and hard questions, and to challenge your own views
and the views of others. Your participation in this debate affirms our basic ideals of democracy, equality, freedom
of speech and social justice. Today’s convention promises to be a wide-ranging, invigorating and highly productive
forum. You can ensure its success by both contributing to the debate and listening to the views of others. I know
that I, for one, will be looking forward to reading the transcript tomorrow or the next day and actually having a look
at the level of the debate and the outcomes that you have got from this, because — like everybody else — members
of Parliament also have to make up their minds on where they stand on this important issue.
In closing, I would like to thank the state planning committee, the teachers from the host schools for their work in
organising this and regional events across Victoria. I wish you all the best in the challenges that you have today. I
hope it is a productive debate, and I hope it is an enjoyable day for all of you.
Delegates applauding.
The CHAIR — Thank you very much, Steve. To set us up we are very lucky today to have with us today
Sir Gustav Nossal, an emeritus professor of the University of Melbourne. I am sure you all know a great deal about
Sir Gus, but just to help those of you who do not: Sir Gustav Nossal is a dedicated internationalist and has
championed the cause of health in developing nations since 1976, when he took a year’s sabbatical leave to work as
an adviser to the World Health Organisation in Geneva. On returning to Australia he initiated a project to develop a
vaccine against malaria, which had been a major killer of children in tropical nations. He is a leading advocate for
and organiser of global immunisation campaigns to eradicate childhood diseases. When Professor Sir Gus stepped
down in 1996, after 31 years at the helm of Australia’s internationally renowned Walter and Eliza Hall Institute of
Medical Research and as Professor of Medical Biology at the University of Melbourne, he devoted considerable
energy and intellect to the immense task of ridding the planet of two childhood scourges — measles and
poliomyelitis. The University of Melbourne has recognised eminent immunologist Professor Sir Gus’s lifetime
contributions to global health by creating a new global health institute in his honour — the Nossal Institute for
Global Health. Welcome this morning, Sir Gus.
PART A: INTRODUCING THE ISSUE
Future Victorian power generation plans should include a nuclear energy option
Prof. NOSSAL — Chair, the Parliamentary Secretary for Education, ladies and gentlemen, it is a great
pleasure to be here and to give this overview talk. I, too, would like to acknowledge the Wurundjeri people, to pay
my respects to their elders and to remind everyone that we are having this important meeting on their traditional
lands.
My job here is to lay out the key issues on this vital and, as the parliamentary secretary said, controversial topic but
without taking any sides. That job is for later speakers to do and then later on for you too to do. Looming large over
our consideration is climate change. The international panel on climate change has told us that the global warming
that we have been experiencing in the world over the last 10 to 15 years is 90 per cent likely to be due to human
activity. In something as important as this I think humanity would be very foolish to wait for that to turn into
99.9 per cent. Of course amongst the greenhouse gases that are behind the global warming, carbon dioxide is a key
culprit. It is imperative that we lower carbon dioxide emissions. How can we do this?
There are basically four alternatives that you are going to have to consider, and they are not mutually exclusive.
The first is energy conservation — smaller, lighter, more fuel-efficient cars; more use of public transport rather than
private cars; energy conservation in the home — turn down the thermostat and put on a jumper, do not worry about
air conditioning, just put up with a few hot days, energy efficient light bulbs, which you can get now — there are
lots and lots of things that you can do in the home; and also energy efficiency pursued in industry, where much
energy is wasted. All of these options have to be pursued.
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The second set of considerations is to promote the greater use of renewable energy sources, as the parliamentary
secretary told you. Solar — we really should think very seriously about putting solar panels, which are excellent for
domestic hot water systems, on every Victorian roof. Solar energy for the generation of electricity into the grid is
still expensive, but it must be pursued. If history is any guide, as technology improves and as mass production takes
over, costs will come down. I certainly would like to congratulate the Victorian government for the large solar plant
that is going to be built near Mildura.
Wind is a bit controversial. It is certainly a good form of renewable energy but visual pollution has been mentioned
as a big worry, and I am seeing quite a bit of this NIMBY syndrome here — that is, ‘Yes, it is a great thing, but
please do not put it anywhere where it spoils my beautiful view of Bass Strait’.
An interesting one for you to think about is biomass, which essentially means growing plants and deriving ethanol
or diesel from them — sugar cane, canola, corn, even algae. These will take up C02 as they grow. Of course when
you actually then finally burn the ethanol in your car, you will be emitting CO2. You have to think a little bit about
that.
Hydro is a great form of renewable energy. Water is scarce, people clearly do not want more dams, but I will tell
you about one very interesting thing that I heard about recently — that is, mini-hydro plant electricity generation.
Melbourne Water is thinking very seriously of harnessing some of the power. As the water flows from the
catchments into your taps, there is a gradient. Melbourne’s water is virtually all gravity fed — it will not be when
the super-pipe comes over the mountain but at the moment it is. That could be a form of renewable energy, albeit
modest, that is not going to hurt anyone.
Geothermal is a very promising energy source for Australia. Essentially it is pumping water down to hot rocks deep
underground in a closed kind of a circuit, heating the water up and driving the turbines from the steam coming off
the hot water. Tidal is probably further out.
Perhaps in the very long term we have to think hard about hydrogen as a fuel. The trouble with hydrogen is it takes
energy to produce, and storage is a real problem. If you turn the hydrogen into liquid hydrogen, you lose energy in
so doing, and if you use hydrogen as a gas, even as a compressed gas, it is still very large in volume, and that is a
problem. But if you want to travel to Perth tomorrow, you can go and ride in three hydrogen-powered buses that
show it can be done. I think that methane from waste is in a minor kind of a way also worth pursuing. That is your
second set of considerations — promoting the greater use of renewable energy.
I want to talk to you quite seriously about more efficient use of fossil fuels — natural gas rather than coal. Natural
gas burns much more cleanly, and Australia has tons of it. What I mean by that is that instead of about 30 per cent
of the energy being captured and turned into electricity, as in a coal-fired electricity generating station, with a
natural gas plant it can be 60 or perhaps even 70 per cent — capturing that embedded energy and not wasting it.
In the same category as natural gas I would put clean coal. That is actually a misnomer — we should be talking
about cleaner coal, not clean coal, because both natural gas and cleaner coal still generate the CO2, still generate the
loss of carbon from the fossil fuel into the atmosphere. Nevertheless, if it is going to be more efficient, we will be
able to use less of it, and that is quite important. I would dearly love to see a future in which Australia becomes the
world’s leading technologist in cleaner coal technology — converting that coal into a liquid and using ways of
burning it that are very efficient. With our immense stores of coal that we have here, that is something that we
could use not only for ourselves but that we could also export as a technology to the rest of the world.
That brings us to the fourth alternative — nuclear energy. What is nuclear energy? I am speaking about nuclear
energy for generating electricity. Highly enriched uranium is used in so-called fuel rods, and what is done is that a
controlled nuclear chain reaction is induced, which generates heat, which then heats up water and generates steam
and electricity through turbines — the end part is quite conventional. Nuclear is particularly good for baseload
electricity — that electricity which, for example, will drive an aluminium smelter down at Portland.
There are 430 nuclear power stations in the world at the moment, most having been operating for 30 years or even
40 years. They supply a bit under 20 per cent — I think it is 19 per cent — of the world’s electricity, and more
nuclear power plants are being built. For the world, as again the parliamentary secretary has said, undoubtedly
nuclear has to be a major option. It is reasonably economic. In the main it is proven and very safe. There have been
two substantial accidents that you will know about. One was at Chernobyl in the Ukraine 20 years ago, where
human error caused a meltdown, and there were 32 deaths. Many of those deaths were among the heroic people
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who isolated the melted down area and surrounded it in concrete. Undoubtedly there would have been more deaths
through some thyroid cancers that the fall-out would have caused.
The second accident of any significance occurred at Three Mile Island. That was fortunately much less disastrous,
but significant amounts of radioactivity were spilt into the surrounding atmosphere. There were no deaths, but
Three Mile Island could have been a lot worse. It has been claimed, and it will be put to you by the speakers, I am
sure, that there have been far fewer deaths caused by nuclear power than through coal mining. Coal mining is a
pretty dangerous occupation. There are, of course, mine collapses, and there are quite frequently methane outbursts
or explosions. Even the release of isotopes from coal as it is burnt is a problem of minimal isotopic load.
Apart from these accidents, the second big downer about nuclear energy is nuclear waste disposal. When these fuel
rods are spent they are still very highly radioactive. They will be radioactive for many, many years. In the initial 30,
40 and 50 years they will have to be kept on site as they cool down. Some of them are in sort of swimming
pool-type arrangements. Many of them are just being stored behind barriers at the site where the power is being
generated. Eventually the long-term solution to spent fuel has to be deep repositories or what you might think of as
a reverse mine in stable geological environments. Australia has been touted as one place that has an admirable
geology, particularly in the centre of Australia, for the long-term storage of nuclear waste. The technical problems
have been essentially solved; the problems of perception have certainly not been solved, and the NIMBY syndrome
remains lurking over this whole field big time.
The other thing that needs to be said is that the nuclear-spent fuel rods and the highly enriched uranium which goes
into the making of the fuel rods provides a fertile place for terrorism to rear its ugly head — the stealing of enriched
uranium and the manufacture of a suitcase bomb. It is really quite likely that this is a bigger problem for the world
than rogue states having nuclear weapons. It is actually also a problem with respect to nuclear weapons either being
manufactured and/or being dismantled. Bear in mind there are still tens of thousands of nuclear weapons, many of
which are in countries of the former USSR, where things are not that great and where really securely locating them
is not the easiest thing in the world.
I personally have no doubt that nuclear power will have to be a part of the solution for the whole world, but need it
be for Victoria where we have these immense amounts of coal and where we have the potential through technology
of making the coal cleaner? That is something for you to determine. I will leave it to those more expert than me to
tell you whether to vote for or against the issue.
Delegates applauding.
The CHAIR — Before I call our guests to speak either for or against the issue, I might briefly put it into
the political context. As you all know, the political journalists suggest the federal election will be called either later
this week or early next week. The political parties have really very different views in relation to nuclear energy.
The federal Liberal government at the moment has a system going ahead where it is investigating the possibility of
sites in Australia for nuclear energy. The Victorian government is totally opposed to them. In actual fact it
attempted to put a bill through this Parliament earlier this year which would have meant there would have to be a
plebiscite, so everyone would vote in Victoria before any nuclear energy plant could be built on commonwealth
land sites. Interestingly enough that was defeated in the upper house where the Liberal Party, The Nationals and the
Greens all voted against it, so that bill did not go through that house. As you can see, there are quite significant and
differing views in the political spectrum. So it is one of the issues possibly as we go towards the federal election
that you will see much more about. However, today we will start off with our first speaker for the motion that
future Victorian power generation plans should include a nuclear energy option.
Our first speaker is Martin Sevior, who is associate professor, experimental particle physics, at the University of
Melbourne. Martin obtained his PhD in the field of nuclear astrophysics from the University of Melbourne in 1984.
In 1985 he worked at the TRIUMF cyclotron accelerator in Vancouver, Canada. In 1993 he returned to the
University of Melbourne and is now working in the field of experimental particle physics. He performs
experiments with the world’s highest intensity and energy particle accelerators in Japan and at CERN in
Switzerland. He employs these to investigate the origin of the universal matter-antimatter asymmetry at the KEK
laboratory in Japan and the origin of mass at the Large Hadron Collider at CERN in Switzerland. Both experiments
probe conditions that last existed less than one-billionth of a second after the Big Bang.
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Martin has published over 230 papers in refereed journals and has supervised 11 PhD students to completion. In the
middle of 2005 Martin and some colleagues at the School of Physics decided that they could make a useful
contribution to the nuclear energy debate in Australia. They put together a website, http://nuclearinfo.net,
containing information about the issues relating to nuclear power. The website went live in December 2005. Since
then Martin has made numerous contributions to the discussion of energy futures in Australia, including
presentations to environmental groups, debates, conferences, opinion pieces to newspapers, and many radio and TV
interviews. Welcome, Martin.
Prof. SEVIOR — Thank you very much, Chair. Here at the beginning of the 21st century humans have
built a civilisation that enables around 1 billion people to live their lives in unprecedented comfort. We live in large,
comfortable homes which are warm in winter and cool in summer; food is abundant and cheap; we have access to
cheap transportation that allows us to travel to many different places; and we have access to health care that enables
us to lead good lives to 80 years and beyond. We are regularly bombarded with opportunities for many
entertainments. The base requirement for this civilisation to work is access to large amounts of cheap power.
Without this our civilisation would basically grind to a halt.
A very large fraction of the rest of humanity aspires to these same living standards, and a conservative projection of
current world economic growth implies that world energy consumption will be over twice what it presently is by
2050. However, we face two fundamental limits on the way we conduct our affairs. Over 85 per cent of the power
used by our civilisation comes from the combustion of fossil fuels: oil, natural gas and coal in the atmosphere. The
first of these constraints is the fact that we have a limited amount of oil and natural gas. The second comes from the
ability of the earth’s atmosphere to absorb the carbon dioxide emitted from fossil fuels.
In the discussion of global warming it is usually assumed that fossil fuels are essentially infinite and that business
as usual will enable our consumption of these to grow without limit. That is almost certainly not the case. We have
already consumed about half of our endowment of conventional crude oil. It is rather easy on very general grounds
to show that after this occurs it is not possible to increase the rate of consumption of oil, and in fact the maximum
monthly oil production was recorded in May 2005 — over two years ago now. It appears almost certain that crude
oil production will reach its maximum rates of production in the next 10 years and thereafter decline, never to
surpass this production rate. The result of this is that the price of oil has increased substantially.
To fill the gap, natural gas consumption has increased, but natural gas is also a finite resource and is expected to
reach its maximum production rate within the next 20 years. Taken together, consumption of oil and gas results in
60 per cent of global CO2 emissions. From the point of view of reducing the greenhouse gas effect, the decline in
availability of oil and gas is very helpful. However, we are left with the prospect of finding alternatives to powering
our civilisation without these extremely useful fuels. Globally we have plenty of coal, but if we burn it in the
atmosphere at the rate needed to make up for the shortfall in oil and gas, we will likely cause dangerous global
climate change. This is particularly the case for Australia. The decrease in rainfall observed in Victoria over the last
10 years is exactly what is expected from models of the effects of global warming caused by the emission of CO2.
If we wish to have any influence over the course of world events regarding greenhouse gas emissions, we must
curtail our use of standard coal-fired power stations, which are responsible for over 50 per cent of our CO2
emissions.
The consensus of climate researchers is that globally we must reduce our emissions of greenhouse gases by 60 per
cent from 1990 levels by 2050. At the same time global energy consumption is forecast to rise by at least a factor of
two. Meeting these two is incredibly difficult. The challenge of the next 50 years is to provide wealth for humans
with alternative power sources to fossil fuels, which currently supply 88 per cent of the power requirements of the
world. It is very hard to convey how hard it will be to meet this demand without the increased use of nuclear power.
There are three large-scale energy sources which have the possibility to increase over the next 50 years: coal,
nuclear power and unconventional renewable energy sources. I fully expect non-conventional renewable energy
sources like wind and solar power to greatly expand in the future, but because of their intermittent nature it is very
difficult for solar and wind to provide more than about 20 or 30 per cent of grid requirements.
Nuclear power, which results from the fissioning or breaking apart of uranium nuclei, emits around 10 million
times the energy of chemical reactions like you get when you burn oil. Consequently the amount of fuel needed for
nuclear power is a tiny fraction of that required for a fossil fuel plant, and the amount of waste produced is a tiny
fraction of that from fossil fuels. A 1 gigawatt coal-fired power station burns around 3.5 million tonnes of coal and
emits around 10 million tonnes of carbon dioxide per year. The same size nuclear power plant requires 30 tonnes of
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enriched uranium originating from around 200 tonnes of natural uranium per year. It generates 30 tonnes of
high-level waste. Twenty-years worth of radioactive waste can be stored in an area the size of a suburban car park.
Uranium is not a particularly rare element; it is approximately as common as tin, which has been mined for over
5000 years. Unlike oil, where we have used about half of the earth’s reserves, or gas where we have used about
one-third, we have extracted less than one thousandth of the easily-minable uranium. Of the amount mined, we
have consumed less than 1 per cent of the energy contained within. The price of uranium is about one-tenth to
one-thirtieth of the cost of natural gas for the same delivered electricity, and that is right now, before we have this
peak gas scenario. Like wind and solar power, nuclear power emits some CO2, but it is an order of
magnitude-or-more, less than coal or gas-fired power stations. Unlike solar and wind, nuclear power can be scaled
back to provide all the electricity we need — for example, France uses it to generate about 80 per cent of her
electricity.
Many countries around the world have examined the constraints on fossil fuel consumption due to their availability,
which is their price, and CO2 emissions. Nuclear power works at large scale, is potentially cheap, is greenhouse
friendly, and its fuel is abundant to needlessly stockpile. These are the reasons it is under serious consideration for
an expanded role in many countries. Third-generation nuclear power plants currently under construction are
estimated to be 10 to 100 times as safe as the plants built in the 1980s, as well as being one-half to one-third of the
price. Vendors market nuclear power plants are designed with costs in the range of $1.5 billion to $2 billion per
gigawatt. At that price Australia could replace its current coal-fired power stations with nuclear over 20 years at a
cost of less than 0.15 per cent of GDP per year; and this would reduce our CO2 emissions by 50 per cent.
In making this speech, I am very aware that I have only given you some guidelines for deliberations. I urge you to
do your own independent research, and to crosscheck the numbers and opinions you find in your investigations.
There are plenty of people who have opinions on this, and all of you are capable of addressing those opinions and
doing the numbers. It is basically VCE maths; it is nothing particularly complicated. Do your own research, do
your own investigations, and see what you see.
Delegates applauding.
The CHAIR — Thank you very much. I am sure the speakers will have noticed that noise which tells you
that you have got 1 minute to go.
Our next speaker is the first speaker against the proposition that future nuclear Victorian power generation plants
should include a nuclear energy option. I introduce Tilman Ruff, who is associate professor in the Nossal Institute
for Global Health at the University of Melbourne. He is also an infectious diseases and public health physician;
medical adviser for the International Department of Australian Red Cross; technical adviser on immunisation in
Pacific island countries for UNICEF and AusAID; president of the Medical Association for Prevention of War
(Australia); member of the board of directors of International Physicians for the Prevention of Nuclear War
(IPPNW, Nobel Peace prize 1985); and chair of the Australian Management Committee for the International
Campaign to Abolish Nuclear Weapons, supported by Poola Foundation. I welcome Tilman Ruff.
Prof. RUFF — Thank you, Chair. I am here because of my responsibility as a doctor to protect life and to
provide the conditions for health without fear or favour, and because of the profound responsibility I feel as a
parent. I am honoured to speak to you on something of critical importance not only to your future and all of our
futures, but the future of all living things on the planet. In 1945 everything changed. With near misses repeatedly
threatening to unleash nuclear devastation, we are all here 62 years later, more by good luck than good planning.
Arundhati Roy wrote:
The nuclear bomb is the most antidemocratic, antinational, antihuman, outright evil thing that man has ever made.
If you are religious, then remember that this bomb is man’s challenge to God. It is worded quite simply, ‘We have the power to destroy
everything that You have created’.
If you are not religious then look at it this way. This world of ours is 4600 million years old. It could end in an afternoon.
Albert Einstein warned:
The splitting of the atom has changed everything except our way of thinking, and thus we drift towards unparalleled catastrophe.
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Just one of today’s 27 000 nuclear weapons, 5000 of which are on hair-trigger alert, can unleash more explosive
power than was used throughout the whole of the Second World War. One hundred Hiroshima-sized nuclear
bombs, less than 0.1 per cent of the global nuclear arsenal, could not only kill immediately tens of millions of
people, but cause climatic consequences that would impair food production across the world and persist for over a
decade.
Why am I talking about nuclear weapons, you might ask — the world’s worst weapons of terror? Because the same
process that fuels the bomb fuels nuclear reactors. Nuclear technology works through ionising radiation, causing
cancer and genetic damage through disrupting our most precious legacy — the DNA blueprint we receive from our
parents and pass on to future generations through our children. A dose of radiation containing about the same
energy as the heat in a cup of coffee can be lethal to a human being. The risks are proportional to the dose; there is
no level of radiation where there is no risk.
When it comes out of a nuclear reactor, uranium can only end up as one of two things: weapons or waste. The
radioactivity is not the same as it was in the uranium that came out of the ground. It is increased about a
million-fold. After 50 years of nuclear power the world has produced more than 250 million tonnes of radioactive
waste; 10 000 tonnes of it is highly radioactive. The time frames are hard to comprehend. This most toxic of all
wastes must be kept in absolute security for at least half a million years.
One of the most important constituents, plutonium-239, has a half life of 24 400 years. Plutonium created today
will be declined to one thousandth of its original level in a quarter of a million years. Neanderthals were around
30 000 years ago; 12 000 years ago there was no settled agriculture; human writing was invented about 6000 years
ago. Not only is no permanent radioactive waste repository likely to be operating for at least another decade, but we
will only know in retrospect whether it has worked. We can have no idea what social institutions will be around in
1000 years, let alone a quarter of a million years; what language will be spoken, nor whether people will even know
where the repository is, or what is in it, in 10 000 generations time.
These geological time frames make our preoccupation with the current complexion of human affairs largely
irrelevant. Just 30 years ago, a blink in geological time, Australia was ready to sell uranium to Iran — unthinkable
now. The toxic and potentially weapons-usable material we have created will still be around long after current
safeguards, agreements, governments and political leaders are long gone. There are no failsafe systems designed or
operated by humans. A former US nuclear regulatory commissioner said:
The abiding lesson that Three Mile Island taught Wall Street was that a group of NRC-licensed reactor operators, as good as any others,
could turn a $2 billion asset into a $1 billion clean-up job in about 90 minutes.
I heard the Soviet Minister of Atomic Energy say that the risk of a catastrophic reactor accident was remote,
negligible, way under 1 in 1 million. That was the year before Chernobyl, caused not by bad design but by human
error and wilful behaviour. The world’s worst industrial catastrophe spread radioactive fallout across Europe. The
International Agency for Research on Cancer conservatively estimates 16 000 thyroid cancers, 25 000 other
cancers and 16 000 excess cancer deaths across Europe by 2065. Over 330 000 people were permanently
evacuated, 600 000 were involved in the clean-up, 6 million live in areas with significant contamination, and
almost 1 million hectares of land have been removed from agricultural production.
A new multi-billion dollar structure to contain the damaged reactor for just the next 100 years is urgently needed
and comprehensive planning to deal with the waste and decommission the reactor fully is still missing. The cost is
already hundreds of billions of dollars. Mikhail Gorbachev said:
Chernobyl opened my eyes like nothing else; it showed the horrible consequences of nuclear power, even when it is used for
non-military purposes.
There has not been just one accident but there have been seven accidents involving damage to reactor cores with
release of radioactivity — different types of reactors in four countries, including four such accidents in the US. Just
in the last year we have seen significant nuclear accidents in Sweden, Germany and Japan. Accidents do not
happen only in reactors. In 2004, eight months before it was discovered a leak at the Sellafield’s reprocessing plant
in the United Kingdom leaked half an Olympic swimming pool, or 83 000 litres, of highly radioactive material
containing enough plutonium for more than 30 nuclear weapons.
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Nuclear reactors are probably the most attractive terrorist targets. The clean-up just in the United Kingdom for
decommissioning its first generation of nuclear reactors is estimated to cost more than £90 billion. But the most
serious problems related to nuclear power relate to its link with weapons. Countries such as South Africa and
Pakistan have used highly enriched uranium for weapons, and others, like India, Israel and North Korea, have used
plutonium.
Let us keep the most hazardous way to boil water 130 kilometres away, safely in the sun. Let us end nuclear
technology and let us not add to the immorality of burdening the next 10 000 generations with the waste of the last
two generations. A sustainable future is possible. It needs all hands on deck now. We can all be proud to help make
it happen.
Delegates applauding.
The CHAIR — Our next speaker for the proposition is Amit Golder. Amit is a 20-year-old arts/law
student at Monash University. In 2006 he was named the best speaker at the Australian national debating
championships and in the same year was winner of the Australian British Parliamentary Debating Championships.
Earlier this year Amit was a semifinalist and the third best speaker at the Australasian Debating Championships. He
has conducted debating training with Sudanese migrants, teenagers from regional New South Wales and nearly
everyone in between, as part of his work with the not-for-profit organisation, Free Debate. Amit currently works at
the Melbourne Assessment Prison.
Mr GOLDER — What I will be looking at in my speech is the need for nuclear power in the
medium-to-long term. Before I do, I want to assess some of the risks that were offered to us by the opposition. I
want to assess them on three levels. Firstly, the concept of a radiation risk: what we heard was that radiation of any
form poses a risk and as such we should abandon nuclear power as an option.
Our response is threefold. Firstly, many materials in our life — in fact, most — emit some form of radiation; we
exist in a radiation environment. We would point to the fact that table salt emits radiation because it is made of
potassium. Heaven forbid — those in this chamber who use mobile phones are also exposed to radiation! We do
not think that the threshold for abolishing something with massive amounts of power generation, especially cleaner
and not CO2-emitting power generation, should be whether there is some risk of radiation.
Secondly, even if we do accept that there is some radiation risk inherent in nuclear power, our response is that the
way you deal with that is with competent storage methods, methods that are improving every year as technology
improves, methods that will improve only if Victoria improves its own and undertakes a nuclear power alternative.
If Victoria were to undertake nuclear power as part of its power generation, it would not be unreasonable to expect
the very storage methods involved to improve to meet those needs and challenges as the market demands them.
Regarding the accidents that we heard mentioned, what we would say quite simply is that those accidents, like at
Chernobyl and Three Mile Island, occurred something like 20 or 30 years ago, depending on which one you are
talking about. Technology has significantly advanced since then and the human capacity to avoid these things is
significant as well. What we would suggest is that the seven accidents that the opposition mentioned in this debate
are not notable because they were terrible, catastrophic accidents but are notable because for many people, today
was the first time you heard that there had been seven accidents. These were not accidents involving leaking of
fissile material, these were not accidents involving deaths or deformities. These were accidents that occur in every
walk of life that were managed and dealt with. There is no reason to believe that this would not happen in the
future.
Regarding the idea that nuclear power could be a terrorist target, we would submit that anything can be a terrorist
target, that the threat of something being a terrorist target should not militate against it being used, especially when,
as my first speaker outlined, there is such a significant capacity for benefit, for power generation for millions of
people in Victoria and for clean power generation not just for those people but for everyone in the future. We think
that a slight risk of terrorism which exists in every walk of life should not be a preventive measure here.
We think that in the objection relating to the link that nuclear power has to nuclear weapons the link is not clear.
We on this side of the house would love nuclear weapons to be abrogated and abolished as well, but we think that
the context in which this debate occurs is a question of whether Victoria should have nuclear power. We do not
think Victoria is going to have nuclear weapons, as much as we would like to invade Tasmania.
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With that in mind, I want to have a look at two points. I want to have a look at Victoria’s long-term economic needs
and why they need stable, cheap, accessible power, and how that power can come from nuclear. Martin has already
told you that civilisations, especially competent, functional civilisations, are based on cheap, accessible power —
the way we operate now. What I think is that Victoria’s long-term economic needs demand a sustainable and
accessible power that nuclear power can provide. We have to put these power needs, and long-term power needs, in
the context of radically approaching peak oil, in the context of global warming with rising temperatures, rising sea
levels and the dangers that they pose. Specifically we look at something like Victorian commerce and Victorian
business and we say that Victorian business needs power. That is pretty basic, but what kind of power do they need,
though? We think Victorian business needs cheap power and guaranteed power. Cheap power to ensure a plurality
of businesses exist so there is competition, and so that even those corporations which are not as large and which are
not as able to deal with expensive power generation are able to compete in a market. But importantly we need
guaranteed power sources, because all actions of commerce and all actions in our economy involve a degree of risk.
It involves potentially losing money. People do not undertake that risk if they are not confident that that risk will be
rewarded to some extent. What we think is that when power is not guaranteed people and businesses become less
likely to take those risks because factories cannot expand and small businesses cannot expand. They are not able to
guarantee their long-term future and take those same kinds of risks. We think if power is not guaranteed, business
activity stagnates. This also applies to foreign investment in Victoria. We think for foreign corporations to invest in
Victoria is likewise a large risk — a risk that will not be taken if Victorian might be very expensive or might not
exist at all in the future.
Nuclear power offers the kind of power guarantees that encourage business to take risk, that encourage the
proliferation of economies and the growth of our Victorian economy. That is the kind of thing that helps every
single person on the ground — when your products become cheaper, when you and your family can get jobs. We
think if guaranteed long-term power is essential, then we should try to guarantee that power the best way we can.
We submit the best way we can guarantee that power is using a constellation of power-producing methods
including nuclear power, because unlike other alternatives it is able to provide consistent baseload power and,
unlike coal, it is able to do so without mortgaging the environment for it.
Lastly, I want to look at the long-term social needs at play in this debate. It is our submission that power, as my first
speaker mentioned, is necessary for a functioning civil society. Moreover the absence of accessible power has
serious implications for real people on the ground. What we think is that if nuclear power is flatly denied, as the
opposition would like, the scarcity of power, or importantly an anticipated scarcity in power, results in a spike —
an increase — in power prices. We think that is basic economics, so basic that even an arts student like me can get
it. We think that those rising power prices are the kinds of things that are going to hurt people, hurt those people
who can afford it least — people from lower socioeconomic backgrounds who cannot afford spikes in power, who
need to be able to, you know, switch on their televisions and have their air conditioning on even the hottest days of
summer if they are not able to endure them as Sir Gus can. We would submit that it hurts those who are vulnerable,
but more importantly those who are least able to afford alternative energy alternatives — things like buying
energy-efficient homes, things like buying into optional renewable energy sources like with Red Energy or like
installing a solar panel in your roof. That is not to mention the non-financial costs to individuals of relying on coal
for the next 20 years, the non-financial costs of mortgaging our environment. We submit that the long-term needs,
in concert with the needs put forward by my first speaker, justify nuclear power in Victoria.
Delegates applauding.
The CHAIR — Our second speaker against the proposition is Tom O’Connor. At 20 years of age Tom
O’Connor is the Victorian director of the Oaktree Foundation, Australia’s first youth-run aid and development
organisation. He was recently named Young Victorian of the Year for 2007. Through campaigns like the Zero
Seven Road Trip, the Make Poverty History concert and the Schools 4 Schools program Oaktree has mobilised
3000 volunteers all over Australia to stand up against poverty. Since 2003 Oaktree has improved access to
education for over 25 000 young people in the developing world. Tom completed the International Baccalaureate at
Pembroke School in South Australia, and was awarded a national scholarship to the University of Melbourne in
2005. Tom also represented Australia at the 2005 International Model United Nations in the Netherlands. Tom is a
full-time student studying law, politics and philosophy at the University of Melbourne.
Mr O’CONNOR — The context of today’s debate and the central question we are addressing here today
is how do we achieve intergenerational justice and equity in the context of climate change. Because if we are really
honest the really bad impacts of climate change will only occur in about 2100 and beyond — they are not going to
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occur now. The key issue for us here today is how do we leave future generations with a planet and a world that is
as stable and beautiful as the one we are currently living in. Furthermore, as young people here today, I think
intergenerational justice is particularly relevant because we are the ones who will have to deal with the world that is
left behind.
In this context we on the negative side of the house reject the nuclear solution as the worst possible option that we
could take. With nuclear power we place enormous economic and health burdens on future generations that are
unjustifiable in the context of our current decisions. Uranium has a half-life of millions of years and we do not have
a good or safe way of storing it, paying for it and keeping people safe from it. We think that we cannot justify
leaving the next 10 000 generations with the responsibility of dealing with it.
My first speaker, Tilman Ruff, spoke about the health and proliferation risks of nuclear power. I am going to speak
about the economic and environmental risks. I first want to address, though, the question of the baseload fallacy.
Can renewable energy provide a baseload power generation capacity or, as the affirmative team has proposed, can
only nuclear power do that? The basic point here is that the right mix of renewable energies, as determined by
market pressures and by experimentation, can supply baseload power. The basic fact is there is no such thing as a
perfectly reliable power station or electricity generation system.
The coal, oil and gas power that we are currently using is not perfectly reliable, and we would argue that that varies
with demand and supply. We think we need to have three types of power supply: baseload, intermediate load and
peak load. We think there are some renewable sources — like bioenergy, geothermal and solar thermal electricity
that stores solar energy — that can actually provide baseload capacity, because they are not intermittent
electricity-generating sources. Wind power that is geographically dispersed can provide near-to-baseload electricity
generation capacity.
Furthermore, solar without storage and hydropower can supply peak-load power where power needs increase in the
summer and certain times of the winter. Studies in Australia show that by 2040 renewable energy could account for
over 50 per cent of Australia’s energy supply, thereby supplying our baseload capacity. We argue that the argument
made by the first and second speakers in favour — that is, that nuclear energy is the only option for supplying the
baseload — is a fallacy.
The second key point made today was that nuclear energy is safer due to better technologies. We would argue,
however, that although Chernobyl and Three Mile Island occurred 20 or 30 years ago, they were the result of
human error, and human error has not changed. We would argue that even if the technology is getting better,
human error and human fallibility still exists. We would need to build nuclear power plant close to major cities to
be able to justify the economic cost of them — near Sydney, Melbourne and Adelaide. We would argue that the
risks that Tilman has talked about — the risks of a nuclear meltdown — are simply unjustifiable. Could you
imagine if we had a nuclear meltdown outside Melbourne or Sydney that caused thousands of cancers into the
future? The problem would not just be for today, it would be for generations to come.
Let us talk about the economics of nuclear power. The basic point is that all existing studies and current costings
underestimate the cost of nuclear energy by billions of dollars. Nuclear energy is an enormously costly enterprise,
and there are massive capital costs associated with building reactors. There are also massive costs in terms of
reactor efficiency and performance and in investment in research and development. We would argue that the
current studies that say that nuclear power is a cheap option are actually ridiculous, because they incorporate certain
interest rates and discount rates that are far below what should be undertaken. The fact is that it takes a lot of capital
to invest in building reactors, even though they have low operational costs further down the track. If you use a very
low interest rate associated with financing a nuclear reactor, you are going to come out with a much cheaper price
for nuclear energy than is the real cost.
Let us talk about the cost of decommissioning reactors, because the UK’s Nuclear Decommissioning Authority
recently undertook the decommissioning of reactors from the 50s and 60s. That is costing £90 billion. Originally it
was estimated that it would cost in the vicinity of millions of pounds rather than billions. We would argue that there
are long-term costs that would be borne by future generations than are not being incorporated into the cost of
nuclear energy. We would also argue that there is an opportunity cost associated with not investing in renewable
energy and tapping into emerging global markets in renewable energy technologies. The fact is that the monetary
investment required to scale up nuclear energy to a sufficient level would preclude significant investment in
renewable technologies. As much as our affirmative team want to suggest that we can have the best of both
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worlds — they want to have their cake and eat it too — we would argue that it is not possible to invest enough
money in both nuclear power and renewables to be able to make both as good as they could be. This would stunt
the development of Australia’s already underdeveloped renewable energy industry. Whereas there are emerging
global markets in Europe and across Asia for renewable energies, Australia would lose access to these markets in
the long term. The European Union has recently set a target of 60 per cent reductions in carbon emissions by 2050,
and China has set renewable energy targets of 20 per cent by 2020. These are markets that we can tap into, but we
will not be able to invest in nuclear energy as opposed to renewable technologies.
Let us finally talk about the environmental affects, because we would argue that nuclear energy actually has minor
environmental benefits. Over all nuclear power would only cause a 5 per cent reduction in global emissions if we
double the current nuclear generation capacity, because the fact is that nuclear energy only addresses electricity,
which is only 30 per cent of the carbon emissions and of the greenhouse effect. We would further argue that
nuclear energy offers disincentives to change our unsustainable lifestyles. We see that India and China are
emerging players and the quality of life across the world is improving, but we cannot sustain the lifestyles that
Australia and America currently sustain. With nuclear power coming on board, that is going to provide
disincentives to changing our lifestyles. Nuclear energy is unsafe, uneconomic and unenvironmental, and we are
very proud to oppose nuclear power in Victoria.
Delegates applauding.
The CHAIR — Thank you very much, Tom.
Delegates, now it is your turn to have a part in this debate, so I will be calling for questions in a moment. When you
come to the table, please state your name and identify the school you are from. We ask that the questions be fairly
brief and the person who is asked a question will have 1 minute to respond. You can ask them questions to clarify
what they have said or ask them another question, but is not the time for you to give your views. We will do that
later on in the day. Would anyone like to ask the first question?
Miss FORREST — My question is for Amit Golder. Can you clarify how treating 200 000 tonnes of
radioactive waste is not mortgaging the environment?
Mr GOLDER — Sassy! I would suggest two things. Firstly, you have to balance it against the long-term
and irreversible harm of climate change — when Pacific islands sink, we cannot fish them out. I would also suggest
that those things are much more manageable than climate change because changing the entire earth’s heating
structure is a little bit harder than accurately dealing with nuclear waste, which actually does not take up that much
space, and can be dealt with safety.
Mr WHAN — My question is to Amit: you said global warming causes long-term and irreversible
damage, but how does nuclear waste not also cause long-term damage if it takes millions of years to break down?
The CHAIR — You are under the hammer here a bit, Amit, aren’t you?
Mr GOLDER — I would first point out that I am not the nuclear scientist of the team; Martin is.
Prof. SEVIOR — Do you mind if I answer that question?
The CHAIR — Is that okay with you, Amit? Please do.
Prof. SEVIOR — The stuff that I am holding in my hand is radioactive. It will be radioactive for a billion
years because it contains potassium. the potassium in this salt shaker is about one-quarter of the potassium in your
body. Radiation is part of our environment; it is not that it eventually breaks down after some period of time. The
issue is how you isolate something that is toxic from the biosphere. That is a different question; that is a question
that is quite addressable and is addressed constantly in a modern technological society. We produce toxic waste
every day. If there is anybody here from the goldfields, from Bendigo, there is a substantial amount of arsenic used
in the extraction of gold from goldmines. Arsenic is dangerous forever, it is never going to be safe. The only way it
is safe is because people isolate it from the environment.
Mr GREEN — I am directing this question to the first speaker on the positive side, Professor Sevior. How
do you respond to the ethical ramifications of enriching uranium in a society that has had such a negative
perspective on the enrichment of uranium by North Korea, Iran and supposedly Iraq?
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Prof. SEVIOR — I would just like to point out that the uranium enrichment level used in a nuclear reactor
is nowhere near sufficient to actually make a nuclear weapon. That is the first thing — you cannot make a bomb
from the stuff that goes into a nuclear reactor.
The other point is that this is a really good question. The technology that you use for enriching uranium is the
technology that you use to make a nuclear weapon, to make bomb-grade uranium. The point is that this technology
is out of the bag. There is nothing we can do to stop Iran making a nuclear weapon, short of some military
intervention. The point is that we have this massive problem — it is really hard to get double the amount of energy
usage, which is basically what is required over the next 50 years, without using nuclear energy. This is something
that everybody in the world has to deal with. We have to find global solutions to these two problems. I entirely
agree with Dr Ruff about nuclear weapons, and I feel very uncomfortable making this argument. I would not be
making this argument if I did not really see that it was necessary to do so.
The CHAIR — I let Martin have a bit longer than 1 minute because that was a really hard question to
answer in a hurry.
Mr TUNSTALL — My question is for Professor Ruff. I would like to ask how the cost of nuclear energy
compares with that of renewable energy. Is nuclear or renewable energy more expensive?
Prof. RUFF — Currently the cost that is projected — and it is difficult to do, because most of the costs are
provided by the industry, which obviously has interests, and because there have been very few reactors built in
developed countries in recent decades — there is only one reactor currently under construction in an industrialised
country, in Finland. All of the best estimates of the costs suggest that nuclear is currently about comparable to
wind, in favourable sites. Obviously it is a bit hard to make a weapon of mass destruction with a wind turbine, it is
not a particularly attractive terrorist target, and the waste is not really much of an issue.
As Tom outlined earlier, we will not know about the costs for a very long time. The £90 billion that the United
Kingdom has committed — just for the first 25 years — to decommission its current nuclear reactors is four times
as much as British Nuclear Fuels say that new nuclear electricity generated in the UK will cost, so you can see that
the potential long-term issues, as well course as any serious accidents, would simply blow the costs out of the
water. The only reason this industry has survived is because people want it for other reasons — for prestige, for
access to weapons and so forth.
Mr BUCHANAN — Mr O’Connor, you spoke about nuclear power fuelling our unsustainable lifestyle.
Do you believe that the only way that we can make renewable energy a baseload energy supplier is if we do cut
down our lifestyles?
Mr O’CONNOR — I guess our response to that would be we do not think that without energy efficiency,
renewable technologies will provide the answer. We think that a combination of the two is needed. But we think
that is important in the context of nuclear energy, which is not infinite anyway. We think we do need to reduce the
level of consumption we currently have. If you consider that in the world today only 8 per cent of the world’s
population drive a car, and if that figure doubled, what would be the effects on our climate then? If we all live the
kind of lifestyles we do in Australia and the US, it will simply not be sustainable for our environment. It is a
combination of efficiency and renewables, and that will be a good thing in the long term.
Mr DEHGHANI — I have a question for Amit and Martin. You both spoke about how everyday life has
risks involved in it, which is fair enough; it does. So why should we add another one to it? Why should we add
more risks if we already have enough?
Prof. SEVIOR — Thank you very much for that question. This is entirely why I am in this debate. I
would argue that the risks of attempting to meet our power needs without something like nuclear power far
outweigh the risks of actually running a nuclear power station. I think it is far more dangerous for us to have
unsustainable, unpredictable power through fluctuations in power loads than it is to actually operate a nuclear
power station.
Miss CANNON — This is addressed to the first speaker. I was just wondering, if you cannot make a
bomb from the uranium used to make nuclear energy, how is it possible to blow up a nuclear reactor?
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Prof. SEVIOR — I will just clarify the question. Are you asking what is the danger of a nuclear reactor if
it is not going to blow up?
Miss CANNON — Yes, how is it possible to blow up if — —
Prof. SEVIOR — It will not. That is the whole point. The whole point of a nuclear power reactor,
especially a modern one, is that if it loses its cooling capability, if it loses the water that cools it, then the reaction
stops and no more fission happens. The danger occurs if in the process of losing the water the fuel elements
become exposed and melt down. That is the danger that you have to design against. These modern power reactors
have employed principles of physics, like pressurisation, gravity feeds, valves that fail-safe close — so if something
goes wrong, they close and water comes in and keeps everything covered up. Because of this you can do
probabilistic risk assessments that estimate the core damage frequency — how often this actually happens — to be
1 in 2 million years. Those are entirely reasonable and entirely correct projections.
Mr ALLILOMOU — I would like to address a question to Mr Tom O’Connor. Near the end of your
speech you claimed that at the end of the day nuclear power would be ineffective because power production only
amounts to 30 per cent of the carbon emissions. I do not see, opposed to your idea of renewable energy, how that
will make a difference? At the end of the day renewable energy will only impact on 30 per cent of carbon
emissions, so I really do not see the relevance of such a quote. Was there a point to it or was it just a sound byte.?
Mr O’CONNOR — I guess there are two points there. The first point is that we need to make a 60 per
cent reduction in carbon emissions by 2050, but a 5 per cent reduction really is not going to help that much. The
second point is that adding a whole lot of energy through nuclear energy to our grid will actually create a
disincentive for people to actually conserve power. The public perception of having a lot of power available will
mean, firstly, they will believe they do not have to conserve power or use it more efficiently. Secondly, the very
fact of having more power available will mean that people will simply use more appliances, leave lights on and that
kind of thing. The basic fact is that, firstly, nuclear power will only cause a small reduction in our energy usage,
and secondly, nuclear power will actually cause disincentives to environmental conservation. Inn the long term will
prevent us from taking up renewable energies which we can take up now and not wait until the future when nuclear
power runs out. Does that address your question?
Mr ALLILOMOU — Yes.
Miss POLITIS— I have a question to Professor Sevior. Due to the finite nature of uranium are there
possible future economic ramifications when new methods have to be discovered to create a reliable baseload of
energy?
Prof. SEVIOR — I gather your question is along the lines of what happens when uranium runs out?
Miss POLITIS— Yes.
Prof. SEVIOR — Okay. The point here is that we have actually mined a tiny fraction of the available
uranium we have on the earth. It is something like one-thousandth of the accessible uranium. With the price of
uranium going up more and more people are looking for uranium and finding it. So this process will continue as
long as there is the demand. Essentially the world’s mining companies will find as much uranium as there is
demand for it. The difference with oil, which I talked about before, is that we have actually extracted about half of
the oil we know of. From reasonable projections we know how much oil there is in the world, and we have taken
half of it out. That is the other requirement. This is other reason I am in this debate, because literally we do not have
a choice. We do not have a choice to continue to use oil and natural gas. Even in Victoria and Australia where we
have a lot of natural gas the price of natural gas will inevitably rise as the rest of the world uses it. We will almost
certainly move to world market prices for natural gas, and it will not be particularly cheap.
Mr GOULD — I have a question for the affirmative team. You said that radioactivity is natural in
everyday life. Last time I checked, splitting atoms is not all that natural. Why should we use something so
unnatural when we have got alternatives such as renewable energy, like solar?
Prof. SEVIOR — This is another reason I am in this debate. If I seriously thought we could make
everything work as we currently do with renewable energy, I would not be here. If you try to make it work with
biomass, then you have the problem: what are we going to do when we keep having droughts and when we cannot
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grow the food we need, let alone burn it? Geothermal is a long way in the future, and there are all sorts of problems
with it. It is not the least bit clear that it is going to work. From that perspective nuclear is a means of providing us
with the energy we need. That is basically where I am at. I am not saying it is natural, although it has occurred
naturally. There was a natural reactor about 2 billion years ago, and the waste from that natural reactor stayed
exactly where it was, under the ground in Oklo in Africa. It is a process that has happened in nature, and it is a
process that we can usefully use to provide the energy we need.
Mr MOHAMMED — My question is directed to the affirmative team. Amit stated that the Chernobyl
incident was 30 years ago. Technology has advanced since then. As it was technology that first established nuclear
energy, if technology advances, who is to say that the danger will not advance?
Prof. SEVIOR — The thrust of the technology is to reduce the danger and not to increase it. That is the
whole point of it, and that is the whole point of these next-generation reactors. They are designed so that operator
intervention is far less necessary. Instead of having a lot of active systems to detect if something goes wrong, to
open valves, to start up pumps and do whatever is necessary to keep this reactor core covered, you have a system
which, via fail-safe techniques, will naturally serve to keep the core covered up. That is the thrust of the
technology — to make things safer.
Mr OAKFORD — My question is to the affirmative team. I have probably been watching too much TV,
but every time I see something about nuclear waste, it is always in a big barrel coming out of a nuclear factory. I
am just thinking if only one-thousandth, or whatever it is, has been mined, is that not going to build up to a lot of
barrels of nuclear waste just sitting somewhere? Also, with all the wars and stuff going on such as random bombs
flying everywhere in Iraq, there would have been so much oil just blown up. If there are thousands of barrels of this
toxic waste, which is quite flammable and would explode as they make nuclear bombs out of it, how is that a
positive thing to have everywhere?
Prof. SEVIOR — There are many conflicting ideas there. The first is that it is not flammable in the least;
it does not burn, it fissions. The second is that the most dangerous component, the high-level waste, is contained in
very large concrete containers right now, and the proposal is to put them back underground again. The third thing
that is almost certainly going to happen anyway over the next 20 or 30 years is that advanced nuclear reactors are
being developed right now which consume this waste and burn it in fuel. So a large fraction of this waste will
probably get consumed over the next 200 or 300 years, generating the next generation’s worth of electricity.
Mr KHER — This question is directed to Amit. What are your thoughts on countries which have
undertaken to use nuclear power and are using it, such as Sweden, which has spent $14 billion on nuclear waste
management and at present is actually decommissioning its power plants? What is your response to this, and do
you not think we should take it into consideration?
Mr GOLDER — Yes, we definitely should take that into consideration, because this choice is never
going to be an easy one, and that is why there is a debate. In response to Sweden’s spending money on nuclear
waste management we have two responses: firstly, that money comes directly from the state’s sale of electricity,
which can be generated thanks to nuclear power; it is able to fund itself. Secondly, naturally as production
increases, as the scale increases, as time and technology improve, costs will go down because of better waste
management techniques, and the scale of those waste management techniques will necessarily reduce the cost as
well.
Miss NOVAKOVIC — I have another question for either speaker on the affirmative team about nuclear
waste. Where would you dispose of it where it will not harm the environment or the land around?
Prof. SEVIOR — I will explain a little bit about modern waste encapsulation techniques. You have to
remember that the amount of high-level waste that comes out of a reactor is not actually that much. It is around
15 cubic metres in volume and as such is relatively easy to contain. What you can do is encase it in a copper
canister which does not erode in an anaerobic environment — that is, an environment where there is a lot of water
but the oxygen has been removed. The copper does not corrode under those circumstances. What you do then is
embed it in bentonite clay. Bentonite clay has a property that makes it expand when it is subjected to water. Then
you take the whole construction and put it 500 metres underground. An obvious place to put it would be in an area
where there is very ancient groundwater such as in outback Australia, because when the bentonite clay expands
from being embedded in this water, it naturally provides a corrosion-resistant environment. Bentonite clays by
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themselves, even should the copper decay, have been observed to contain materials within them. For example, trees
and old pieces of organic materials have been preserved for over 500 000 years in these things.
Miss BUBB — I have a question for the affirmative team: are there sufficient places in Australia with the
geological structure that would be appropriate for a nuclear power plant?
Prof. SEVIOR — Yes, very briefly. Australia has nothing like the dangers of earthquakes that a country
like Japan has. Japan suffers earthquakes at an alarming frequency. I have worked there and I felt a lot of them.
Basically having been employed in Japan I know that at a large-scale 30 per cent of Japan’s electricity comes from
nuclear power. So from a geological perspective, yes, it is fine here.
Mr GONSALVES — The affirmatives said that being prosperous Victoria has to go nuclear, but what
would happen if an accident were to happen? Would not business then go away?
Mr GOLDER — If a large-scale accident happened, yes, there would be a lot of problems for people and
business, but I think the risk is not as substantial as a lot of people make out. But more importantly, that is a risk, a
potential, which you can measure in percentage terms, whereas the benefits of having nuclear power, guaranteed
power, to corporate activity, to increased risk-taking — the stuff I was talking about — are much more guaranteed
than the risks. So if you balance it on probabilities it is much more likely that the benefits will significantly
outweigh those detriments. Yes, potentially those detriments might exist, but on balance, I am still supporting this
side.
Miss LA ROCHE — To Martin or Amit: based on the attitudes most people have been showing, this is a
bit of a negative one towards nuclear, but do you think that might come from things such as the media — the
stereotypes and the views that it poses? Because Australia is quite new to the idea of nuclear do you think that
affects how your argument comes across?
Prof. SEVIOR — In a nutshell, yes. It is very easy to make a negative case for nuclear power because it is
essentially a dangerous activity. It really is. The problem is: how do we maintain what we are interested in; how do
we have everybody in the world drive their own car; how do we have people not starve all over the world? This is
the thing that we have got to balance against. It is very easy for someone to say, ‘Yes, we can do it. Renewable
energy — we have got tons of sunlight, we have got tons of wind’. But if you actually try to make it work, that is
the problem. I would not be here if I thought it could work.
Mr WARDHEN — Professor Ruff spoke about the fact that the same stuff filling our nuclear reactors
was going to fill nuclear bombs and that potentially the fuel for nuclear reactors, if misused, could go into nuclear
bombs. What is your take on the fact that 3 to 4 per cent enrichment is needed for nuclear reactors, yet about 97 per
cent is needed for uranium nuclear bombs?
Prof. RUFF — You can make nuclear bombs with two fissile materials, out of one or two things: one is
highly enriched uranium and the other is plutonium. The technology that you need to enrich uranium from the
0.7 per cent that contains the uranium-235 isotope that is in the ground to the 4 or 5 per cent to use in a nuclear
reactor is exactly the same technology, materials, equipment and skills required to enrich it a bit further. Two-thirds
of the work of getting to weapons-grade uranium, better than 80 per cent uranium-235, is done by getting it to
reactor grade. All you need to do is to run it through the centrifuges — the most common way of enriching
uranium — a few more times. There is no way of separating that capacity. At the other end plutonium is inevitably
produced when uranium atoms in a reactor absorb neutrons. That plutonium can be extracted by a relatively simple
chemical process, dissolving the fuel rods in acid and extracting the plutonium.
These are the two points — at the front and at the end where weapons risk arises. As long as you have a free-for-all,
as we currently do in the world, in enrichment potential and in plutonium — reprocessing of spent nuclear fuel to
extract plutonium — then there is the risk of nuclear weapons being developed. We have seen many countries have
done this, and many others could; there are about 44 countries. Anybody who has got a research reactor, an
enrichment plant and the capacity to reprocess spent fuel can potentially produce a nuclear weapon. Whether we go
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further down the nuclear power route or not, we have a very serious issue to manage. The best way of dealing with
this issue would be to do, finally, what resolution 101 — the very first resolution of the United Nations General
Assembly in 1946 — called for, which was the abolition of nuclear weapons and the international control of
nuclear energy. That would mean that internationalising — putting under international safeguards and control —
the capacity to enrich uranium and not allowing any reprocessing of spent nuclear fuel would be ways of
dramatically increasing the safety and reducing the proliferation potential of nuclear technology for as long as it is
around.
Mr GOULD — I have a question for the negative team. If we were to use renewable energy such as solar,
how many panels would we need to power, say, Victoria or Australia, and the same for wind power?
Prof. RUFF — The potential of renewables is enormous. We have shamefully lost many years in
Australia, in seriously addressing this issue. If anything like the subsidies that have gone to nuclear power had been
devoted to renewable energy resources, we could be a lot further down the track. Germany is a small, not very
sunny, not very windy, place which is making extraordinary strides. It produces currently more wind energy than
almost the rest of the world put together. If the United Kingdom increased its wind power capacity at the same rate
as Germany has done, it could completely replace its nuclear reactors before a first new reactor could be built.
There is also a very great slowness in developing nuclear technology. It takes at least 10 years to get a reactor up
and before you start getting net energy out of it, it is another 10 or 15 years, so we need to be getting serious about
climate change and reducing our emissions a long time before 25 to 30 years away. The solar radiation that hits the
earth is about 10 000 times the total of all human energy requirements. Sure, harnessing that is a real challenge, but
it can be done.
Miss McNAMARA — I have a question for Martin. As Australia has the largest resources of thorium in
the world, what are the benefits of using thorium instead of uranium to generate energy, and would this be a useful
alternative for Australia?
Prof. SEVIOR — Thorium is an alternative source of nuclear energy. It has been studied in small scale
for a long time. If it can be made to work, the benefit is that the long-lived transuranics are not produced by the
thorium cycle. On the other hand the technology for making it work is nowhere near as developed as the uranium
cycle. That said, it is reasonable to think that with sufficient investment it could be made to work. So then the
question is: is it worth making that investment? There are a lot of drains on our scientific expertise to develop
renewable energies — solar energies and all these other things. The question is: how much effort do we put in that
direction?
Mr ASSAFIRI — This is to Martin. When we come into a debate on nuclear power, many of us think of
the fried fish from The Simpsons. If there was a leakage — and I specify ‘if’ — would there be any mutations in
our environment or even in us?
Prof. SEVIOR — Like anything, it is a question of degree. The effect of genetic mutations is a
well-measured biological process and the rate at which that happens is basically proportional to how much
radiation is available. Almost all mutations are not beneficial for the host organism and result in spontaneous
abortions, so basically nothing much happens. Then it is a question of: how big was the leak? Then you come back
to the whole point of having this argument about what is safe and what is not safe and that is what the nuclear
industry addresses.
Miss HAN — I have a question for the affirmative team. I am just going to go back to the risks thing. I
was wondering what you would say to the fact that you are risking other people’s lives and what do you think the
public would have to say about that?
Prof. SEVIOR — I am finding it difficult to keep my temper. The whole point is to minimise the risk. It is
very difficult to explain how hard it is to make wind and solar energy scale up to the amount of power that we need
to replace our coal-fired power stations. Just to give you an example, the Victorian government has done an
excellent job in promoting renewable energy and if all goes well — everything works perfectly — we will have
10 per cent of our electricity produced by renewable energy by 2015. None of that will reduce the amount of CO2
that we actually emit from our coal-fired power stations. In fact I expect that shortly there will be a new gas-fired
power station built to produce more electricity for us. Perhaps the announcement will be made in a year or two
from now. So this is not actually addressing the problem. The problem is the CO2 emissions. You can replace those
coal-fired power stations with nuclear in a way that actually keeps us having electricity and energy as we need it.
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That is the risk. It is not the risk of a nuclear accident, which is very, very small. That is the risk that people have to
be focused on: how are we going to do this; how are we going to keep our comfortable lives or even reasonable
lives going?
Miss KAISER — Martin, you twice briefly mentioned water. I was just wondering if nuclear is going to
be another factor in our lack of rainfall. Will we just be using an incredible amount of water in this?
Prof. SEVIOR — Nuclear power is a thermal cycle, which means it basically boils water, like coal-fired
power stations or advanced gas-fired power stations. One of the benefits of nuclear power stations is that you can
actually locate them exactly where you want them. You do not have to put them at the end of a coal mine; you can
locate them near the coast and they can use sea water for cooling. So the amount of water that is needed for an
appropriately located nuclear reactor is substantially less than we are using in the Latrobe Valley right now. With
that energy, we can use it to make more water by desalination. We can do it without making greenhouse gases.
The CHAIR — Could I ask people who have asked a question before not to stand up to ask another
question until we run out of questions, because I would like everybody to have the opportunity to ask at least one
question.
Miss MUIR — For the affirmative team: if we decide to basically go with nuclear technology, can they
ensure that we would not ever have a major accident?
Prof. SEVIOR — The answer to that is no, of course. All you can do is measure risks. The risk is: with
the next generation, core damage frequency 1 per 2 million years of operation; or the next level, if it is not
contained within a containment, 1 part in 40 million years. So it is a very, very small risk, but it is not zero.
Mr HOLMES — Martin, do not sit down. Can you just point out to any nay-sayers about nuclear
accidents, especially regarding Chernobyl, the type of reactor that was used, as opposed to modern reactors that are
used now?
Prof. SEVIOR — This is a really going point. The Chernobyl reactor was not — is not — a pressurised
water reactor or a boiling water reactor. It was basically graphite moderated, water cooled, which is basically
exactly the wrong combination you want if you want to make a safe nuclear plant. In addition, the control rods —
the components that are meant to stop the nuclear reactor — actually have a carbon tip on the end of them so when
you first put these control rods into the reactor, the reaction rate speeds up. It is not appropriate to say that this was
a good design at all, it was a terrible design. It was a terrible design in combination with operator error that caused
the accident.
The CHAIR — I might ask no-one else to stand up apart from those who are already to ask questions at
the table, because I think we will probably run out of time. If we do not, I can call you up.
Miss BURNS-WILLIAMSON — I was just wondering — this is to the affirmative — do you believe
that nuclear energy would be the sole answer? Seeing as Victoria has a lot of renewable energy such as our wind
farms down in Portland and elsewhere, do you not believe a combination of both could work just as well?
Mr GOLDER — I will give Martin a rest. We completely agree. It should be a variety of power
generation sources acting in concert, but the need and the ultimate aim is to provide base load consistent power that
will not be intermittent, that will not be questioned, that will not fail and will not seem like it might fail. It is both
the fact that it might fail and the risks inherent in that which would prohibit action and potentially hurt people —
doing things like raising prices like I talked about. We are not negating alternative energies, what we are doing is
putting them in a realistic context of a Victoria with growing power needs every year, with the need to provide base
load power, and suggesting that base load power can come from nuclear. Certainly supplementary and augmented
power can come from other sources.
Miss WARD — I have got a question for the affirmative team. If we were to go ahead with nuclear power,
whereabouts in Victoria would you put it?
Prof. SEVIOR — That is a really good question. The cheapest places to put it would be probably in the
lower Latrobe Valley where there is already a large-scale electrical distribution system, but there are other places.
You could imagine Portland would be a reasonable place since it has access to the ocean and there are already large
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powerlines going there. But having said that, I am very well aware that this is an open society and I do not think
that we should employ nuclear power if people do not want it. As far as I am concerned, I will try and make the
best I can and hope that we can make things work without it if that is the will of the people here.
The CHAIR — Perhaps just in a practical sense I can contribute that at the moment the current state
government is opposed to nuclear energy so the only sites that could be used in Victoria are on land owned by the
commonwealth government.
Mr POWER — As Australia’s involvement in foreign matters increases, so does our risk of becoming a
terrorist target. Do you think it is a good idea to put nuclear power plants which could be easily infiltrated near our
capital cities?
Mr GOLDER — I think that is an important question in assessing risks. What we would suggest is that
Australia as a terrorist target is often overplayed in the media in a way that is designed to sell papers and things like
that. Australia is not at that much of a credible risk of terrorism. More importantly, if you actually analyse the aims,
goals and methods of terrorists, it would not be in a group like al-Qaeda or Jemaah Islamiah’s interests to strike at a
nuclear power facility because they are not there to cripple societies and wage war, what they are there to do is
cause mass casualties, disrupt people’s lives in a more fundamental way. Hitting symbolic targets like tourist
places, hitting dense population areas is more designed to instil the kind of fear and theatre of violence that
terrorists aim for rather than hitting power generation. New York’s infrastructure was not targeted, the World Trade
Centre was, so I do not think nuclear power stations would necessarily form an extra target that would in any way
change Victoria or Australia’s defence situation, especially when you balance the competing interests — the
benefits would outweigh that minimal risk.
Miss DAVIES — To the negative team: Tilman, you said we need to keep immorality out of energy
production. Who is to say something is right or wrong? If it is acceptable, it is moral. What are your thoughts?
The CHAIR — Tilman, can you answer that in 1 minute?
Prof. RUFF — I think the ethical questions are really profound when one is dealing with technology that
has implications for all future generations, not just for us. The point that Tom made about intergenerational justice
and equity is a really critical one here. It is not enough to think about just our current situation in terms of our
short-term economic interests, our short-term lifestyle interests. By the way, across industrialised countries there
are countries that have standards of living and quality of life higher than ours with about a tenth of the per capita
energy consumption — there is no direct correlation between quality of life and energy consumption. But I think
this ethical issue is really important because this technology is so uniquely dangerous in the persistence and the
unique hazard that ionising radiation poses to biological systems, to the core blueprint of those systems, the DNA.
There is already evidence of a tenfold increase in leukaemia and in breast cancer downwind of the Three Mile
Island plant.
A recent study sponsored by the Department of Energy in the United States — not exactly a rabid antinuclear
organisation — provides very clear evidence of an increase in childhood leukaemia in proximity to nuclear power
plants under normal operation. Then there is the whole long-term question of the waste and the potential for this
material to produce the world’s worst weapons. I think there are really profound ethical issues, and we have
absolutely no moral right — that is why I am here as a parent; I feel really strongly about this — to impose such a
toxic and dangerous legacy, without being able to say no, on essentially every future human generation.
Miss HOGG — My question is directed to Amit. You mentioned that Victoria, for future reference,
needed cheaper power — clean energy. What energy would be the cheapest out of solar, wind, hydro or even
nuclear?
Mr GOLDER — In answer to that, the cheapest power we can have is coal — dirty brown coal — and if
we were only concerned about price, that is what we would burn, but we do not. That is the point. We have to find
a balance between cheap, accessible, guaranteed power, but one that hopefully does not damage the environment as
much as coal, because we cannot function without power and it is unreasonable to expect us to take on the radical
all-alternative, all-green solutions that other people may have proposed. We do need to balance the two. Nuclear
power offers something that is affordable, is guaranteed and lasts for a long time, which means that the power plant
itself can recoup the cost of its construction and, because the power is longstanding and guaranteed, the price can
be maintained as well.
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Miss MUJKIC — I am directing my question to Amit because he is a law student. I am aware of the topic
today and the wording of that topic, and I am aware that resources are a state power, but I am also aware that there
is a back door for the federal government to take power over nuclear power. In your opinion do you think that
nuclear power should be a state or a federal issue? Would it work if, for example, Victoria went nuclear, when an
accident or the radiation could affect much more than just our state?
Mr GOLDER — That is an excellent and difficult question. No doubt if I could answer it I would already
have a better job than I do. I would suggest that power individually belongs to states, but the commonwealth
probably could have capacity to take control of this, either through the massively widened corporations power or
the use of tied grants to the states. I do not believe the commonwealth has expressed any intention to do so yet, but
if they were crazy serious about it, then perhaps they would through things like tying grants or private nuclear
power being a corporation and therefore using that to control it in the same way they were anticipating grabbing the
Murray–Darling Basin issues. I would suggest that it should be a state issue. People locally should be able to vote
for where their power comes from, and people should be able to assess the benefits we have offered and determine
that a little bit more locally.
Miss AH KET — I have a question for the affirmatives here about nuclear waste storage. If we wanted to
continue to have nuclear power in Australia for future generations, are we going to run out of space to put it and is
this going to be dangerous for the environment and humanity?
Prof. SEVIOR — We certainly will not run out of space, and I do not see any reason why it would be a
danger to us or the future. The point is to hand my daughter — I am a parent, too — a civilisation that works. I
want to hand her one where she has all the opportunities that she could possibly want, and that is what I am focused
on. I think that the nuclear waste issue has been extremely overplayed. It is very dangerous, but we operate with
lots of very dangerous scenarios and industrial activities. Your computers use vast amounts of toxic chemicals, and
those are safely stored.
Mr McLEMAN — My question is to the affirmatives. I am just wondering why you talk about a baseload
as something that we have to meet. Do you not think that part of the problem is that our consumption is not going
to be safe for the long term?
Prof. SEVIOR — Over the last year in the course of doing these environmental debates I came across
someone named Matthew Wright, who is very interested in replacing Victoria’s coal-fired power stations with
wind. He actually has a means of making it all work. Basically to make it all work you have a centralised computer
system that connects individual appliances to the amounts of power that is available at any one time, then, as the
wind drops, various items in your house get turned off. You would start with, say, your air conditioner, then your
TV, then your lights and the last thing that would be turned off would be your fridge. This is the kind of mechanism
by which you could make active power demand run by wind work. To me that seems to be an idea that is fraught
with danger at all sorts of different levels.
Mr KARP — I am wondering how you can weigh the potential risk of nuclear power generation, whether
it is meltdown or potential weapons, against the risk of global warming, which seems much more realistic and
much more imminent?
Prof. RUFF — Thank you for that question. That is a really important question. I think we can do both.
There is no question that global warming is a very, very serious issue that we need to get very urgent about. That is
why I think we need to mobilise all of our resources and get really serious, and very fast, about deploying massive
energy efficiency measures that have no downsides and can be done very quickly — energy conservation and a
mix of benign renewable energy technologies. Nuclear power is not sustainable. It is going to run out, depending
on the rate of usage, some time on the time scale of decades unless we go to as-yet-unproven technology, despite
decades of work and hundreds of millions of dollars of investment, to recycle nuclear fuel using plutonium. That
would blow the proliferation, terrorist and accident dangers out of the water. A climate-stressed world, with
competition and potential conflict over land, food and water and with more extreme events and displacement of
large numbers of people from rising sea levels is the worst possible place for the world’s most dangerous
technology in the form of both reactors and weapons potential.
In relation to the terrorist risk: the small nuclear reactor in Sydney’s southern suburbs has been the target of serious
terrorist planning on six publicly known occasions since 1983. A climate-stressed world is the most dangerous
place for nuclear power and nuclear weapons. We do not want to jump out of the climate-change frying pan into
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the nuclear fire. I think we can get very serious about investing in the things that we need to do for a benign and
sustainable energy future and at the same time get ourselves out of nuclear technology in as safe a way as possible.
It is a real challenge, and it needs all of our efforts.
Miss NEYLAND — This question is for Amit. I would just like to say that uranium, just like fossil fuels,
is not renewable; it is going to run out. So if we do embrace nuclear power as an energy source and if we have
invested all this money in the infrastructure for managing uranium, and have put less money into renewables, what
is going to happen when uranium does run out?
Mr GOLDER — Firstly, in response to that I would point out that it will take a very long time for
uranium to run out. We have mined one-thousandth or 1 per cent of one-thousandth — I do not know; I am not
good with numbers and things. Basically we have used a tiny amount of uranium. Even if we were to have uranium
providing our baseload power, we still would have a long time before it would run out. An assumption in that
question was that we have either nuclear or green alternatives, but that is not true. We can use them in concert. We
can change people’s patterns of consumption whilst not dropping them below a rate that is comfortable or civil. We
can be sure of Victoria’s power for the future while still ensuring it for the even longer term. The idea that
technologies improve also supports that. The way that Martin talked about the recycling of uranium that comes out
the other end, the way that we have spoken about more efficient uses of uranium — those are the kinds of things
that develop over time, with investment and with the experimentation that comes from large use of nuclear power.
So in the long term we have a long time. It does not need to be the only solution but we will get more efficient uses
out of it, and if we are serious about the long term, if we want there to be a long term, if we want the sea level to
stop rising, if we want those kinds of things to stop, we need to take drastic action on climate change, and that
action is to provide power through non or less-emitting means.
The CHAIR — Thank you, Amit. That concludes our first session. Can I thank Sir Gus, Martin and Amit,
Tilman and Tom for speaking to you this morning and answering your questions, particularly Martin, who did most
of the hard work. Perhaps you can join me in thanking them this morning.
Delegates applauding.
Sitting suspended 11.06 a.m. until 1.34 p.m.
PART B: EXPLORING THE ISSUE
Feedback session
Group 1
Miss KARMIS — We believe nuclear power should be allowed to be an option, and we should not
completely rule it out. By exploring and investigating nuclear power we can use it as an option to reduce
greenhouse emissions. We might be more accepting of nuclear power if the issue of waste were better addressed.
We do not see nuclear power as the answer, but it could be used in conjunction with other renewable sources. We
discussed the possibility of alternative energies and the possibility of wind. We considered the transport of power
and using the power we have efficiently. We also discussed that there is no guarantee that uranium will be
available. The cost of receiving waste — the economic issues include trading, the cost, running out of uranium and
building and shutting down plants; the environmental issues we discussed include receiving waste and its effects.
Social effects include the ‘not in my backyard’ issue, that waste power usage and our change of lifestyle. We have
to consider that we are a democratic society. There would need to be a uniform policy for all states to adhere to
with the structure and control. People need to be educated about nuclear power to make an informed decision.
There is a strong case for using nuclear power in Victoria. A long-term goal should be to use renewable energy.
Group 2
Miss FORREST — We in group no. 2 believe all our current energies should be put into reducing our
energy consumption. We are finally realising that energy is running out, just as our water was running out. We need
the same restrictions and the same publicity for the matter. Firstly, the base power load fallacy is introduced
because they have night tariffs, so it costs less to run your power at night. Also they keep street lights on all night.
This gives us false impressions that tell us we need more energy than we do. We need more media coverage on
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how to reduce our energy consumption. We need cheaper low-watt light globes. We need government rebates on
solar panels, which currently cost too much for most households to afford. We need carbon taxes for excessive
uses, and we need more research done on how to get the most energy from our renewable sources. For example, the
solar panels that we currently use only take 45 per cent of solar energy. Until we have achieved these measures
nuclear power should not even be considered. We believe we should do research into when exactly our power will
run out if we do achieve the goals I have just previously stated. With these goals in mind our power should extend
over the next 10 years. When we have this figure nuclear power stations should be built only as a last resort 5 to
10 years before our power will actually run out. We reached this decision due to the fact that risks are posed by
nuclear power. We agree that the risks are very small. The only thing is that the consequences of just one of these
risks happening — which we agree is very small — are huge. We are talking about major destruction, major
cancers, major deaths, major effects on our lives, and a very, very costly clean-up. Building nuclear reactors will
include extensive mining of Aboriginal sacred land, and we believe this is a very important issue given the fact they
were our original owners. NIMBY — firstly, where do we put the reactors? And, secondly, where do we put the
waste? Everybody does not want it in their backyard. Also given the fact that you can hold uranium in your hand it
cannot be a renewable resource; it is going to go at some point in time. For these reasons nuclear power should only
be used as a very last resort.
Group 3
Miss POLITIS — In our group there were numerous mixed opinions on the topic, but we found that there
was a general consensus for the combination approach to nuclear power. There were also those who believed the
social, economic and ethical ramifications outweighed the benefits that were involved. However, we came to the
eventual conclusion that we all take risks in everyday society and this is one risk we should be prepared to take to
protect the ecology of Australia. Regarding a combined approach, we would favour a predominantly renewable
source of energy with a portion of nuclear power to fall back on as a baseload. Primarily we believe the main
concerns are to reduce CO2 emissions in the immediate future. We hope to invest resources in the exploration of
promising renewables such as geothermal and solar and other options to create a reliable source of energy to sustain
a stable future for generations to come. To conclude, our group has deliberated and decided that Australia’s future
should involve a nuclear option, within the constraints mentioned.
Group 4
Mr GREEN — Our group discussed many different issues about nuclear energy and decided that certain
issues have greater importance than others. For example, we decided that the economic impact of nuclear energy is
not as important as the social, ethical and environmental ramifications. The key issue we thought was probably the
social and ethical one of leaving nuclear waste to lie under the ground for thousands and thousands of years, a span
longer than any civilisation has ever lasted. Ethically we find it difficult as a group to justify doing that when
people in the future would have to deal with it. We could be seen as making a similar mistake to that made by the
pioneers of the coal industry hundreds of years ago, the consequences of which we are having to deal with now —
global warming and so on and so forth. We also discussed the issue of the federal government imposing on state
government regarding nuclear energy and decided as a group that the state government rather than the federal
government should have the power to decide on its own whether nuclear energy is imposed on Victoria. We
discussed that it is a contradiction not necessarily of Australian values but of the Australian political system, the
Westminster system, for the federal government to impose on state governments. There were many other issues
discussed, but in the 13 seconds I have left I am not going to be able to mention them.
Group 5
Mr OAKFORD — As a group we did not have a leader.
Miss LEWIS — Basically we could not come up with a conclusion because we were all really strong and
passionate about what we thought. A few were totally against the idea of nuclear, believing it a waste of time and
too risky to take the chance. They believe we should use renewable energy. Some of us have a fifty-fifty point of
view, believing that in some ways nuclear is very beneficial because there is a possibility it could work. But we
were told by Tom that in 100 years we would have to dig them up again. What if they misplace one and cannot find
it and if it extends into our environment? Some of us are totally for nuclear, believing it to be beneficial, 100 per
cent reliable and a fantastic idea.
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Mr OAKFORD — The part of the group that I was in thought it would be a good idea but that we need
something to take it over so we do not keep it for the long term, because in the long term it would not be a great
idea in my view. About half the group believed that line, so that is where we stood on it. We were kind of just
fence-sitters in a way, because we could not decide.
Mr ASSAFIRI — Although most of us were fence-sitters, most of us would agree that we kind of went
against nuclear power, only because of the time, money and resources used.
Group 6
Mr GONSALVES — We had many differences and mixed opinions. In one word it was: interesting. We
explored all aspects of the energy debate and all the resources that are available to us; we discussed the new
technology of silver sails in solar energy, in comparison to that of nuclear. We did not really come to a verdict; we
had one person who did not want to say yes to nuclear. We talked about how the population would be affected by a
nuclear plant. We also talked about safety, for the people around it and the people who worked for it, and the
environment as well. We talked about how other countries can influence us, like China; and how we export coal
and uranium to them. The group showed that there were cases both for having nuclear energy, and for not having it.
We had a mixed view on whether it was cleaner or not. We also talked about how people have their homes in
deserts, where it would be most likely to put a plant. They have a right to have a home and not be subjected to
having a nuclear plant in their backyard.
Group 7
Miss LA ROCHE — In our group we had a lot of different views that were put up, but the majority of the
group felt that nuclear options should be pursued. If they are to be pursued, it should be started soon; if it is not
started soon, then it will not really have much effect because it takes so long for them to actually be built. We
should put a lot of research into it so that the technology keeps improving, and that way people can feel safer about
what is going on. People should be educated about it, and talk about what sites and what options there are; and give
people choices. One of the choices that we thought of was that there should be other sustainable energy options like
using wind or solar power. That could be used as a backup because uranium is not a renewable resource and we do
not want to be stuck in the same boat in the future, when we do not want the same thing to happen. We should have
solar and wind power to fall back on, even though it cannot provide as much energy as nuclear will provide. We
talked a lot about safety, and especially terrorism, and that kind of thing. We gathered some different points but we
thought that if we were talking about Australia, or Victoria more to the point, we should feel generally safe with
each other and if we dispose of the waste in the correct way, and if we do things properly, we should be able to trust
each other, and then we should feel safe about what is happening with nuclear and uranium options.
Group 8
Mr DEHGHANI — Our group had a very interesting discussion. There were nine in our group and about
eight were with Patrick from Melbourne High. It was like a tennis game: Patrick versus the girls; but it was good to
see that everyone had input. We spoke about pretty much everything we could. We did not even have time to
prepare a speech because of how many arguments we had. About government control over nuclear power, we
decided that state governments should not be overruled by federal government because there would not be an
independent opinion. We decided that local governments should have direct power regarding decisions made about
nuclear power and that all governments, both state and federal, should come to a fair agreement. The ethical
concerns were that the waste from nuclear power would be a major issue. Patrick informed us that there were two
types of nuclear waste: low-level waste and high-level waste. He told us that high-level waste can be reprocessed.
We got a lot of information through Patrick; he was pretty much the main arguer. Ethical issues may arise
regarding the difference in moral perspectives from any individual to the next. That was the main ethical argument
that we all agreed on. We did not agree on much excepting that. Six people in the group voted for the motion, three
were against, and one was undecided. As Patrick voted for the motion, I think he persuaded most of the group to be
on his side. The main thing that came out of our group was that everyone had input, so congratulations Group 8.
Group 9
Mr GOULD — In our group, pretty much everybody was against nuclear energy, except one person, so
we had a little bit of debate, but we came to the following conclusion. We believe that nuclear energy is not a very
sensible energy source. We believe it is costly, ineffective and in the long run, unsustainable. We discussed the
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social, environmental and economic issues and decided we need to spend time and money on renewable energy
sources instead of nuclear sources because renewable energy sources have a positive impact on earth. We believe
nuclear energy is costly and time-consuming and in the long run nuclear power plants may need to be
decommissioned. As we saw in England, this could cost billions of dollars. In conclusion we are 100 per cent
against nuclear energy and much prefer renewable, stable and safe power sources.
The CHAIR — Thank you very much. That concludes the group reports. The good news is that if you
were in a group and were of the minority view, you will get a chance to vote later. We will have a conscience vote
later on when you can all vote either for or against the topic.
Before that we have a short time for a soapbox session. That means that anybody who wants to, can get up and give
us two minutes on the issues. It is not a question, it is for anyone who would like to make a statement about the
topic.
PART C: THE CAMPAIGN CONCLUDES
Soapbox
Mr HEARNE — I am a member of the Liberal Democratic Party and I will be the only one speaking here
for a while, I think. I do not think any government agency should have the power to decide on such a difficult
matter without the backing of the free market. Furthermore I believe firmly in states’ rights, and I do not believe
that we should be pressured by any government agency from the commonwealth. On the subject, 100 years ago
there was a man named Tesla, who invented a free source of energy — and soon after he died. Before we look at
nuclear power, could we please look back at his doctrine for a second? We might learn from that.
Mr CLEARWATER — I will start by saying that unfortunately you cannot create free energy. I think
nuclear power should be an important element of Victoria’s future power generation. I am not saying that we
should convert to 100 per cent nuclear tomorrow; I think that renewable sources are very important. We will need
to use coal, so we should invest in clean coal technology and natural gas. Otherwise we will be unable to supply the
energy that we need to maintain our current standard of living. In saying this, I feel that the current nuclear
technologies should be a temporary solution. I say temporary as long-term temporary, 50 to 100 years, until we can
develop more advanced technologies such as fusion power, which has all the benefits of nuclear and almost none of
the costs. I say it should be a temporary solution but I want to urge that it not be a half-arsed temporary solution.
We must invest, making sure that we build lots of nuclear power plants so that we can take advantage of the
economies of scale that we can get from them and we must invest in research and development so that we can
develop new technologies such as fast-breeder reactors, waste reprocessing and vitrification, which deal with some
of the most pressing issues that nuclear power plants present. Principally we should take this opportunity to become
a world leader in energy technology — a powerhouse, if you will. We should take the lead on the world stage and
use this opportunity for the betterment of the state, the country and, in theory, the rest of the world.
Mr GREEN — It response to the two rather conservative views we have had so far in this soapbox
session, first I would like to address Samuel’s point about the free market backing nuclear energy. Why should the
free market have to back nuclear energy before we can go along with it? Power is a state issue, not for the state just
as in the nation but it an issue for the state government of Victoria alone. Whether the mining companies are
backing it or not, ultimately it is the decision of the government, which is elected by the people.
Secondly, my point overall about nuclear energy, which may be in response to Patrick’s opinion, is that ethically
we cannot justify it. It is so irresponsible to leave this incredibly potent nuclear waste under the ground for
thousands, hundreds of thousands or millions of years — I do not really know. The point is that if we get leave it to
future generations, future societies and future civilisations, we cannot live with ourselves — probably even less
than past generations who have polluted our air and have been a huge contributor to global warning and climate
change. How do we get around this issue and still have nuclear power? We cannot. I do not know much about
nuclear fusion, which supposedly does not emit waste — I am not sure — but if there are safer, more viable options
for nuclear, that is great, but maybe in a few hundred years, when the technology is genuinely safe, generally viable
and is actually going to be a bigger positive to society rather than a negative. Also, the implications about nuclear
weapons and Australia being a nuclear nation are too great to even comprehend.
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Miss WARD — I will be quick. Greenhouse emissions produced in Australia from electricity generation
are less than one-third of the total emissions. Our main contributors to greenhouse gases are cars and deforestation.
Nuclear power is used almost exclusively for electricity generation, with no benefit for that other two-thirds. This
less than one-third of the emissions does not need to be produced by dangerous or costly nuclear power. Solar,
wind and geothermal power can achieve this much more safely and cost efficiently in the long run.
Mr WHAN — I just wanted to start off by saying that I agree that nuclear energy would not exist in a free
market, so I agree that you would have to have the government run and subsidise it. But I disagree that we should
not look at it at all, which I think is what Mr Hearne was trying to say — but I am really not sure what he was
trying to say.
Mr Hearne interjected.
Mr WHAN — Neither do the rest of us. From the reports, a lot of arguments I was hearing were that
nuclear energy produces nuclear waste which is unsafe. This is not true because we heard speakers before saying
that there are safe ways to dispose of nuclear waste by encasing it in copper and then burying it underground. This
has absolutely no negative effects on the environment whatsoever. I think that the only way to truly achieve safe
power is through using nuclear power as kind of a stepping stone up to renewable energy. At the moment the
technology for renewable energy is not good enough so we would need to advance that but in the meantime we
cannot simply rely on coal power — we would need to use nuclear energy to get to that stage of renewable energy.
That is the only way we can truly achieve clean power.
Mr HOLMES — I would just like to put a quick question out to all of you. If anybody in this room can
come up here, speak into this microphone and find me a cleaner and more efficient power source, please let me
know because you can totally change my opinion if you do, apart from tests because that is just out of this world.
The CHAIR — This is not a question-and-answer session, so I am not quite sure we can do that.
Mr HANNAN — Can I just clarify that? Were you for nuclear energy?
Mr HOLMES — Yes.
Mr HANNAN — We have discussed this in my group as well. There may be some clean or safer ways to
mine uranium, turn it into energy. However, with nuclear energy a lot of it, first of all, even if it is clean it is not
renewable. It may be efficient and a good resource by maybe a last resort. If you can build a base made of
renewable resources — hydro, wind, however you like — I am not quite sure why you would not. If you can start
with that, if you need nuclear energy after that, maybe fair enough. We have a great coal industry as well; that is
obviously damaging the environment. If you can use renewable resources, I really cannot see why you would just
not use them, then resort to nuclear energy.
Miss MUJKIC — In response to the comment from Mark, he was saying nuclear energy is really clean.
We say we have got a lot of uranium, not all of it can be used straightaway. You have to enrich a lot of uranium and
that could take CO2 emissions potentially to do that.
I wanted to go on to something that I wanted to say. It has crossed my mind a lot today, and a lot of other people I
am sure have considered this, that nuclear power could be inevitable for Australia but to me I realise that labelling
something as inevitable is just a way of taking the weight of that decision off your shoulders and a way of escaping
the responsibility of that decision. There is a lot, especially an ethical responsibility to us, in regards to nuclear
power generation. I feel that if something is worth debating in such a scenario as today’s, it is clearly not inevitable,
because subjects worth debating are not that clear-cut. There is an extensive number of renewable energy options
that are completely safe, with zero risks, that are definitely worth investigating for the future of our state and our
country. In my opinion Australia should not buckle under peer pressure and jump on that nuclear bandwagon. We
should become a world leader in not nuclear technology but renewable energy generation, especially because our
country is so windswept and so sunburnt and we are an island and we could investigate tidal and hydro power. I
think renewable sources are definitely an option for us.
Mr TUNSTALL — I am a big fan of renewable energy. I have been my whole life because as a young
child I watched a lot of documentaries on it so I have known a lot about it. But at the price it is now and how far it
is to mass produce it to create a mass resource, it is too early now. What we need to do is get some nuclear plants
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running to take the strain off the coal plants so there are fewer CO2 emissions going into the skies. While we are
doing that we should spend the money we are saving on nuclear energy on renewable resources and building up a
network so eventually, once we get about 50 years down the track, we will have stopped as many CO2 emissions
going into the air and also have a bank of steady, renewable resources.
Mr WARDHEN — I would like to address a couple of misconceptions. Firstly, with the social and ethical
aspect it was continually stated that if we do take up nuclear power, then we would be basically being unfair to
future generations. The fact is that nuclear waste is put it in a sealed-off underground area, so it does not have to be
dealt with in the future. There is no way future societies will have to deal with it in the short or long-term future. It
sits there, cools off, and we slow it down. Also, in terms of private investment, Finnish power plants are completely
funded by private investment with some government insurance, so we see that private equity can fund and maintain
nuclear power. I would also like to address the idea of the federal government and its control. The fact is that,
although state governments should have power in terms of how they handle their own local community, the federal
government needs to have power in order to ensure that the greater good is maintained and that relationships and
things such as trade between states can be conducted effectively. In this case I do not think that we should be too
fussed about limiting the federal government’s power, because we have things like the High Court and the
Governor-General to keep a check on the federal government’s power to ensure that they do not abuse it.
Lastly, there has been a bit of talk about nuclear power being unsustainable and a finite resource. Although it is
finite, it is way more efficient than things such as coal. Although it may not be abundant, the relative abundance of
it is much larger. It is also more cost-effective than things like solar power and wind power. As we heard from
Martin, wind power and solar power cannot even establish our baseload power, so we need to rely on such things
as nuclear power in order to establish our baseload power and continue in the future.
Mr ASSAFIRI — When we speak about nuclear we automatically think about mutants. We would all
love to be X-Men, wouldn’t we, but I do not want a third nipple, so let us not go there!
As Martin said, the inevitability of nuclear leakage or some sort of error would be highly unlikely, but we are not
here to talk about the risk factor. We are here to talk about CO2 emissions, and that is why it has been brought up.
Basically it is going to create more CO2 to build these power plants, and if we do build them we will be the world
leaders in nuclear technology and other countries would want to get on the nuclear bandwagon. In the long run
renewable resources are better, because they will effectively create less CO2, and we have already initiated wind,
water and geothermal power. I am going to leave you with a rhetorical question: who wants that third nipple?
Mr MOHAMMED — I would like to point out that there is no such thing as clean energy. For example,
solar energy may seem clean in production, but using any form of electricity, however it is produced, will cause
carbon emissions and thus global warming, so keep that in mind! I would like to clear up some very hazy views.
With nuclear energy, the steam coming up from those big towers in nuclear plants — you have all seen them on
The Simpsons — is not radioactive; it is all steam, so keep that in mind, too! One more thing: in a nuclear reactor
everything is kept safe inside the containment. Anyone who does physics should know that. It is kept in there.
Fissile material is inside the contained reactor, which is used to expand and cause heat to produce steam from the
water, which moves the turbine and creates energy — just so you know. That is about it. The third nipple!
Mr HOWES — Something was mentioned earlier about responsibility — our responsibility — and that is
something I believe very strongly in. As a society we do not have enough knowledge to second-guess or predict
what could be happening in the future. I do not believe in nuclear, simply because we do not know what can
happen with the waste. We think we do, but we used to think the world was flat. I think it should only ever be used
as a very last resort if we simply cannot get renewables, such as solar, thermal, geothermal, wind — anything like
that.
Miss McNAMARA — Providing for Victoria’s and Australia’s future needs faces great challenges. At
such a critical stage in our country’s development we need to find the most cost-effective, safe and environmentally
friendly energy option that can support our growing nation; therefore we need to assess all energy options. It would
be detrimental, not to mention irrational, if Victorians were to totally discount nuclear power as an option. We can
see today, because there has been such a debate, that there obviously are benefits to nuclear power, even though
there are some aspects of it that are not what we are looking for in a power source. Although I believe nuclear
power is not the right option for Victorians currently, it would be foolish not to look into every source of energy
available to us. Being informed better equips us for the future and what we will face in the future. Therefore it is in
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Victorians’ best interests to research, debate and consider nuclear power as with every other source of technology
provides us, thus future Victorian power generation plants should include a nuclear option.
Miss POLITIS — I have a quick thing to mention. We are all used to a high standard of living. When we
go home, the lights are always on and we have electricity and hot water. We are used to so many luxuries. As much
as I firmly believe we should expand our research into renewables, none of them can reliably provide us with a
baseload of electricity that Australia requires. As much as we may say geothermal, solar and wind, they all rely on
nature, which we unfortunately cannot control. It is out of our hands. The only option is to include a nuclear facet to
our energy choices and not rely solely on renewables.
Mr ALLILOMOU — When it comes to nuclear power for Victoria, under no circumstance should we
ignore it or rule it out. It would be foolish to do so. We should pursue all the options that are open to us, whether
they be geothermal, tidal, wind or nuclear power. There are great benefits to us in pursuing every single cleaner
resource that we can. Even if they are not renewable, it is still better than the coal or gas options which we have
today which pollute our state and country so much. Furthermore, under no circumstances are we saying that by
pursuing nuclear we will ignore the renewable, cleaner sources. It would also be foolish to just pursue nuclear. We
must keep our options open so that we can pursue everything that we can, because when you have the largest
amount of options you have the largest amount of freedom and more likelihood of succeeding.
The opposition to nuclear power complains that it is not clean. I disagree with that. First of all, in terms of the waste
that it produces, as was pointed out before, we are going through research and development that could lead to no
waste. When we get to that point I do not know what the opposition will be saying to nuclear power. But even now
we have methods to safely store the waste that we produce and methods to take care of it for a long period of time.
These crazy theories that in 300 000 years mankind is going to open up some stores of nuclear waste and then the
world is going to come to an end are nothing but insanity. It is not possible, it is not likely and I can tell you that we
are not going to destroy our future, destroy our environment, on the fear that some day, within 300 000 years, some
random person is going to get a mutation from some canister that he opened in some warehouse. It is just
ridiculous. All these crazy theories and concerns are just stopping us from advancing and stopping us from creating
a cleaner Victoria, a cleaner Australia and a cleaner earth.
Miss NEYLAND — Today we have been hearing a lot about pro-nuclear. The pro-nuclear argument is
constantly saying, ‘Yes, there are costs, but the benefits outweigh the costs. Sure, there are going to be all these
problems, but the benefits of cheap energy will justify all of this’. I just do not agree. I am starting to think that it is
just too much to justify — mining Aboriginal land, the risk of meltdown, the terror threat, the nuclear war threat
and, most importantly, the waste management issues. It all seems too much when there are so many other options.
Believe it or not, if we as a community really do commit to renewables and we all cut down energy usage — that is
the key. Everybody is saying we need to meet our growing energy needs. What about if we shrink our energy
needs? What if we actually reduce the demand? That is going to do more good than just developing more ways to
create energy that we can just use and then want more. It is a bit of a domino effect. We can reduce our usage and
put in renewables and have a bit more faith in them. It seems as if everyone is pretty sceptical, but if they are all
combined, and if we invest in all of them separately, the research to develop them further and to help store solar
energy and wind energy better, then renewables actually can work. It is scientifically proven. I can see a renewable
future if we do not go into nuclear energy today.
Mr SEGAL — A lot of people have been talking about renewables, and we just heard one then. But I
believe the point needs to be reinforced that renewables, while they are fantastic — they have been developed for a
few years and they can be used for all sorts of applications; for instance, I have solar panels in my home — are not
suitable for a baseload power supply. They are not reliable, as one person said before. They are going to be
effective for half the day, but during the night solar panels are not going to produce any electricity. The same thing
will happen with wind. The more reliable sources such as hydro are under enough pressure as it is and are not going
to supplement all our coal-fired power supplies or completely replace them. They are not going to be a one-stop
shop to give us all our answers. So perhaps we should look at reducing our baseload, because that is probably the
root of the problem that we have here. Should we be looking at adding more power to fulfil our need or just
reducing that need so that we do not even have to look at this question? Even in here we have a light on at a spot
where nobody is sitting — nobody is reading there. Why should we be wasting so much electricity and yet debating
how to create more? But if we cannot reduce electricity usage enough to solve our problems, then nuclear is a good
option to go for. As many people have said already, and as they will say again, it is safe and reliable and it is a
really decent answer for our electricity needs in the future.
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The CHAIR — Perhaps you could turn the light off on the way back to your seat? Thank you.
Mr POWER — Just to expand on what a girl was saying before, we as a first world Western country are
pretty well addicted to power. Can you imagine a world without power? Whereas 150 years ago they were pretty
much using no power whatsoever. We scorn individuals and generations of the past century for using up coal
resources and oil, yet if we change to nuclear power we will just be using up that. Do we really want future
generations to look back and think, ‘Wow, that was a really bad decision!’?
Mr TWOHIG — I am here to point out that we are focusing too much on nuclear power. There is a
researcher I think in Melbourne University who apparently found a way to make solar panels almost 30 times more
efficient using mirrors inside them, but he did not gain funding because we are not interested enough in renewable
sources such as these. At the end of the day, if we do use nuclear power, when it runs out what will be the
advantage? If we go into renewables, they will last us forever, or at least until our civilisation collapses. We have to
think about future generations and not just ourselves.
Mr VANGELI — I am going to use cars as an example of why nuclear energy should not be an option.
When cars were first invented they took the world by storm. They revolutionised the way we live, but now cars and
the CO2 gases they emit are the main reason why we are having to cut back on CO2 gases and why we are
considering nuclear energy. Cars have emitted a lot of CO2 gases, but when they were first invented everyone loved
them. Now we are trying to think of hydro cars, electric cars, cars running on dim sims — who knows! Nuclear
energy is looking good now, but what problem will it make in the future. Look what cars have done to us now.
Miss SINGH — I do not think we should exclude nuclear power as an alternative source of energy, but we
should remember that we have a duty of care; we have a responsibility. Are you willing to bear the responsibility?
Would you be willing to own up to the responsibility of having these nuclear plants and further on having
meltdown with all the long-term consequences for our children and grandchildren?
Mr BUCHANAN — The flame of Australia burns bright in the South Pacific. It is a flame symbolising
democracy, hope, peace and freedom. This flame is kept alight by energy, the energy we produce from coal. Lest
we let this flame dim by entrusting it to a breath of fresh air or a sun-scorched egg. No, ladies and gentlemen, we
need to ensure the prosperity and future of this country and the entire South Pacific region, which depends on us,
are in the hands of a reliable, cost-effective and green energy source. That energy source is nothing but nuclear.
Nuclear can be stored safely. We have not had a Chernobyl — well, in 30 years. Even then 32 people were killed.
As horrific as it is, more people die in the coal industry every month. China has at least 10 die each week due to
terrible coal-mining practices. In the scale of things it is a rather life-effective way of producing energy. We also
have renewable energies. Great as they may seem, the technology just is not there to support this. The technology is
here for nuclear. Let us use it, let us not waste any more money, let us stop wasting time, and let us strive forward,
let us go forward! We want progress. We want to save this planet from CO2.
Miss MUIR — I am definitely not going to compete with that performance. I live in Glenthompson,
which is about 56 kilometres from Hamilton. They are proposing to build a wind farm site in Yambuk, which is
about 4 kilometres from where I live. I am against it because of all the noise and stuff, but I would rather have that
than the nuclear plant they are proposing to put at Portland. That is only 100 kilometres from me, and if there is a
major catastrophe half the people in my region are going to be dead.
Miss BURNS-WILLIAMSON — A lot of people are referring to nuclear energy as the stepping stone
between coal and a cleaner way of producing energy, but I think that is a really bad way to look at it. You could
hardly call something temporary when the after-effects of which last for tens of thousands of years. I would hate
that to be on our future generations. I think that is really sad. Go Greenpeace and all that!
Mr MOBILIO — Some comments were made earlier that nuclear power should be used as a stepping
stone to completely renewable sources. I disagree. Nuclear power is a long-term source. It will take many years to
develop the technology, apply it to Victoria’s needs, build the stations and pay for them. Victoria should not pursue
nuclear power as a short-term source, and we cannot have discussions for many years and come to no conclusion.
Miss LIST — Everyone keeps talking about nuclear. They seem to know a lot, but in comparison I do not
think everyone knows about all the other energy sources which are available — for instance, solar, which is one of
the cleanest. There are newly developed sliver cells which actually save money. If everyone had them in their
houses, the electricity bills would be a lot less than we are paying right now. So we would be saving money; we
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would be getting back the money, which the government should be putting into solar. It is stupid not to do that
when it is obviously cleaner than the nuclear source we are talking about. The sunlight Australia receives in one
day is enough to fuel the country for a whole year. I do not see why everyone says we need to do it in conjunction
with nuclear. This is clearly enough. Germany is using solar at the moment, and it gets the same amount of sunlight
that Tasmania gets in one day. This is ridiculous; we can power our country for a whole year on one day of
sunlight. These new sliver cells actually have storage so that when the sun is not shining at night-time we can still
use electricity. I do not see where the problem is.
Mr KARP — The first thing I want to raise is that a lot of people have mentioned that we should look into
nuclear power now while pursuing the research behind other renewable sources. The problem with that is that to
build a nuclear power plant takes 10 years. If we decide to build one now, it will be completed in 10 years. The
energy, electricity, cranes, trucks, cars, everything used to build that power plant will only then be balanced out by
the power plant’s output and electricity after another 12 or 13 years. That is not a quick solution. If we start doing
this now, it is going to take another 20-odd years before we can start balancing and counterweighing the energy it
took to build it in the first place. It should be the renewable sources of energy we look at now, and then if that is not
enough to sustain our baseload limit — although I noticed everyone has pointed out that they do not think
renewable sources of energy will be enough to support baseload limit, I believe it was Tom, the second speaker for
the negative, who pointed out many fallacies in that argument, and that they can. I was uneducated on the topic
prior to that, and I am not too sure, but Tom mentioned many points where baseload limits can be sustained by
renewable sources of energy — for example, wind turbines, geothermal, solar or whatever it may be.
These are the options we are going to be looking into now, and then if they are not enough to sustain our baseload
limits or if they are increasing for whatever reason — although they should not be — nuclear should be a last
resort. I am not really willing to make decisions now that will take 20 years to come into practice and the
ramifications of which will last another quarter of a million years.
Mr GOULD — I would like to point out that right now we are in this really brightly lit room and right
now coal is being burnt. If we were to choose nuclear energy, it would take 30-odd years before that energy were
functional, so I do not see why we are thinking about nuclear energy when it takes that long and when the damage
is being done right now in this room.
The CHAIR — Just to clarify Parliament’s point of view, I point out that 50 per cent of the energy bought
by Parliament is green power, so it is not all coal energy. You might notice that half of the lights are turned off,
because the members said it was too bright when they were all turned on.
PART D: THE VOTE
Division
The CHAIR — Now you will all get the chance to give your vote in relation to today’s topic that ‘Future
Victorian power generation plans should include a nuclear energy option’. We will do this by division, which is the
way the house would vote if it were a conscience vote. Voting is done this way all the time in the upper house —
the Legislative Council — but in the Assembly most votes are on party lines. We have party votes, and a
representative of each party delivers the total numbers for that party. I will explain the process to you and I will
then call for a division. Those who support the question, being those who believe that future Victorian power
generation plans should include a nuclear energy option, I will ask to sit on my right, and those who oppose that
question should sit on my left. When you are all seated I will call two tellers for each side, and it will be their job to
count the votes.
The result of the division is Ayes, 27, Noes, 66, so the vote of the convention is against the question.
PART E: CONCLUSION
Official closing
Mr DIXON (Shadow Minister for Education) — Thank you, everybody. It is good to be here. When I was
listening to the young people who attended the national convention describing life as a politician in Canberra, I
thought a right of reply would be in order. I can guarantee you that members of Parliament do not come to blows.
We get on with each other; your Chair, Judy Maddigan, and I are quite good friends. Judy was the Speaker of the
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house, and a very fair Speaker at that, so we all respect each other. And we pay for our meals — I must let you
know that bit!
Firstly, I am here because the usual procedure is that somebody from the government opens the convention, and
somebody from the opposition closes it, and I am here representing Ted Baillieu, the Leader of the Opposition, but
also as I am the shadow Minister for Education I think it is fairly appropriate for me to be here. I am the member
for Nepean. My electorate is at the bottom of the Mornington Peninsula. My office is in Rosebud and I live in Rye,
so if you like golf courses, wineries and hot spas it is a nice place to live. There are lots of tourists down there and a
huge amount of retired people, so you have got to watch out on the roads — they have very interesting driving
habits. It is an interesting contrast as an electorate, because as everyone goes down there for a holiday, people think
about Portsea, mansions and what have you. Many people who holiday down there have lots of money, but the
people who live down there are mainly pensioners. My electorate has the highest proportion of people on seniors’
pensions than any other electorate. There is not a lot of money in my electorate, but there is a perception that the
electorate is very well off. It is an interesting place to represent and it is never ever dull.
It is interesting, too, that the two biggest issues in my electorate are to do with the environment. You would think
that with the age group down there that perhaps health, public transport or law and order might be big issues. They
all have their moments but the biggest issues in my electorate are to do with the environment. There have been two
specific issues. One is the channel deepening. You are probably aware of the channel deepening, which is
happening largely off the shores of my electorate. So people in my electorate are very, very concerned about and
very vocal about that. The other big issue is that about half of Melbourne’s treated sewage is disposed of at sea
through the Gunnamatta sewage outfall. Again, that is a massive issue for the local people down there. Obviously it
is a very relevant issue when we talk about water. Those two issues are by far the biggest in my electorate.
As I said, I am the shadow Minister for Education. My background actually is in education. I was a school principal
for about 15 years and was also a teacher. It is great to have portfolio responsibility for something that I have a fair
bit of experience in and certainly a deep love of, so I really am enjoying this portfolio. Today is interesting, too,
because I have a youth council running in my electorate, which has three secondary colleges. A couple of times a
year a few students from each of those colleges meet with me over lunch in my office. We talk about local issues
and I drill them about what is happening.
Recently we had a really good discussion about binge drinking because it was in our local papers and in the daily
papers. We had a really good talk about what is happening on the peninsula — what is happening at parties, how
freely available alcohol is, and what are the students’ attitudes to alcohol. We had an incredible discussion. Also a
review of public transport is happening in my electorate, so my youth council made a submission to that review
from the young people’s point of view. Today the members of my youth council are having a tour of Parliament
House with me. In fact a few of them got onto TV. This morning I had to do some TV interviews. I got word of
that only on the way up, so they were there in the background and were filmed. It was a bit of an added bonus for
them that they might see themselves on TV tonight.
The reason that you are here and the reason that I have a youth council is that it is very, very important that young
people’s voices are heard. It does not matter that you cannot vote. It is very important that all members of
Parliament and the community are reminded that just because you cannot vote does not mean you are irrelevant in
the political process, because the decisions we make in here affect you. We have to be aware of that and constantly
reminded of that. Any organisation, whether it is this convention, the youth council I have or the Youth Parliament
that is happening in the school holidays, it is very important that the decision-makers of this state are kept alert and
mindful of what young people think about all sorts of issues and how things are affecting them. We tend to get
blinkered as we get older. My youngest is now 19, so I have no family member in their teens. To keep my focus
and that of my colleagues on young people, it is very important that these sorts of occasions occur.
This is a constitutional convention. Whether you belong to a sporting club, a social club, a state or country, they all
have a constitution. Constitutions are very important because they contain the basic ground rules. In most cases a
lot of wisdom, thought and experience have gone into them and the rules in a constitution are meant to last a long
while. When you think about our state’s and country’s constitutions, a lot of thought by our forefathers went into
those. A lot of the meetings regarding the future Australian constitution before Federation actually took place here
in Melbourne and in the parliamentary precinct, so this is a very historic place as far as our country’s constitution is
concerned.
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When you think about how the world has changed since our country’s constitution was written, you realise that it
has changed incredibly, but our constitution has really served us quite well. Occasionally we really do need to have
another look at our constitution. You guys have done it here today in what you have been discussing. On probably
the broadest issue, one of the most important structures of our constitution is the fact that it provides for federal and
state governments but also local government, so that we have three levels of government.
People argue about that and say that there are too many politicians and that we should have fewer. They say that we
should change the constitution and that there should be just the federal government and super councils, with no
state government. That would mean that Judy and I would be without jobs. We might be amenable to that — I do
not know — depending on what the conditions are. But other people say it is good to have three levels of
government because it means the government is closer to the people and the people who represent the voters are
more accountable and you can get to them more easily, you can speak to them and be aware of their views. There
are views on both sides.
We are going through a really interesting debate at the moment about what is the federal government’s role and
what is the state government’s role. More and more those lines are blurring. In previous years it was quite obvious
what was a federal government responsibility and what was a state government responsibility and what was local
government responsibility but those lines are blurring for all sorts of reasons, for political reasons and just for
growth reasons. Our country is changing, our society is changing and our world is changing. There are aspects of
our constitution that I think need modernising and just a review — we might not change them but we need to look
at them. I think the powers of the federal government and the powers of the state government, especially in areas of
education and health, are something where we are going through a very interesting process.
You have debated your issue today and voted on the question. It was interesting to see which way the vote went. I
was not surprised after hearing some of the debate that I had heard during the day and just my understanding of
what young people are thinking, but what a fascinating thing you are talking about. It is something that is really
very real to Victoria. With climate change — that is the broader issue — but within Victoria we have one of the
largest brown coal deposits in the world. Can you just stop that, and what are the implications of that? You have got
all sorts of renewable energy sources out there that are subsidised or not subsidised or developed or undeveloped.
There is a whole new way and we really need to be looking at all these alternatives. You have looked at nuclear
energy today. Again, we have to have reasonable debate about these sorts of things. It is very easy to be emotional
about these sorts of things but we have got to be able to deal in facts and figures. That is what you guys have done
with your research and you have all come to a conclusion.
Those of you who were on the winning side of the vote, that is great, your thoughts have prevailed. Those of you
who were on the losing side of the debate, that does not matter. The fact is you have had a red-hot go, you have
done the research and you have had a point of view and you have put it across. You did not get your point of view
across but that is the way the world works. That is the way politics works. I am a member of the opposition. The
government always wins the votes in this place because that is what governments are for, but that does not mean
the opposition should not be getting up there and making their views known and putting that view across. That is a
healthy democracy and that is the process you have actually gone through.
I would just like to finish just by saying that whether we are in government or opposition we come into this place
and we debate legislation. Even though we know that if it comes to a vote — and I must remind you too that not all
votes come to a vote. On most occasions the opposition says to the government. ‘We agree with you’, or ‘We
might disagree with what you are doing but you were elected and we will not oppose that legislation’. It is probably
only, I do not know, say, 15 per cent of legislation that goes through this place where we actually vote, where the
opposition will say, ‘No, we want a vote on this’. We know we will lose because we are the opposition not the
government but we want to make a stand on this. Across a sitting week, across a sitting term, that would be the
general layout of the vote. We only really take it to a vote on about 15 per cent of occasions.
The CHAIR — Five per cent.
Mr DIXON — Only 5 per cent? Only 5 per cent of legislation in this place actually goes to a vote. We
actually do get on with each other and we work together in here fairly well. But in the lead-up to a debate, even
though we known the foregone conclusion of what is going to happen to that legislation, we do a lot of work in the
background, like you have done. We talk to interested groups, we do our research, we talk amongst ourselves, we
come to a consensus and we put that argument across. That is what you have done and that is what we do. It is a
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great training ground, what you have done, in leading up to the political process. I thank you all individually for the
great work that you have done today and the spirit in which you have been involved today. Thank you very much
to all of the organisers of the convention; you have done a fantastic job and I hope you continue to do that. Thank
you very much to all the schools and the staff involved, because usually this is something extra that has to be done
on top of a very heavy teaching load. I take my hat off to all the teachers involved. Once again, thank you. I
officially close the convention.
Delegates applauding.
The CHAIR — Having collected the evaluations, we will now close the afternoon’s activities. Having
chaired today’s convention, can I say what a very enjoyable experience it has been and how impressed I have been
by many of the questions you have asked and comments you have made. I think it shows that a number of you have
a great passion for the subject you have been talking about. Of course if you have a passion to change the world,
you need to get elected to Parliament, so I suggest you all think about the possibility of being a politician or a
parliamentarian as a future career.
Well done, all of you. I hope a lot of you will apply for the national conference, because it sounds as though the
people who went this year had a great time. It is a great opportunity to once again discuss issues that will be
important to your future as well as to the community today. I thank all of you for attending, and your teachers. I
also thank Gary Shaw, Sonya Velo, Rod Espie and all the other people who helped organise the day.
Delegates applauding.
The CHAIR — Have a great rest of the school year!
Convention adjourned 3.03 p.m.
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VICTORIAN SCHOOLS’ STATE
CONSTITUTIONAL CONVENTION
Future Victorian power generation plans
should include a nuclear energy option
PARLIAMENT HOUSE
MELBOURNE, VICTORIA
Monday, 10 September 2007
A collaborative project of:
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10 September 2007
Department of Education and Early Childhood Development
Association of Independent Schools of Victoria
Catholic Education Office, Melbourne
Australian Electoral Commission
Parliament of Victoria
Victorian Schools’ State Constitutional Convention
36
PROGRAM
8.30–8.50
Registration
A registration desk will be set up in Queen’s Hall. Please be ready at 8.50 am
to move into the Legislative Assembly.
9:00
Welcome and Introduction: Judy Maddigan, MLA
State Member for Essendon and Chair, Drugs and Crime Prevention Committee
Mr Steven Herbert, MLA
(Parliamentary Secretary for Education)
PART A: INTRODUCING THE ISSUE
Future Victorian power generation plans should include a nuclear energy option
9.20
Introductory speaker: Sir Gustav Nossal, Professor Emeritus (Pathology),
The University of Melbourne
The purpose of this introduction is to provide you with an overview of the key issues and
considerations you need to keep in mind when listening to the speakers and later when
working in your discussion groups. If you keep these ideas and the ideas you gained
from your pre-Convention reading in mind, it will help you sort out the facts from the
opinions when you listen to today’s speakers and decide upon a personal position on this
issue.
9.35
The Campaign: The following speakers will each address the Convention for 5–7
minutes each. A strict time limit will be enforced by the Chairperson.
For:
Martin Sevior, Associate Professor (Experimental
Particle Physics), The University of Melbourne
Against:
Tilman A. Ruff, Associate Professor
Nossal Institute for Global Health, The University of Melbourne
For:
Amit Golder, Arts/Law student
Monash University Debating Society
Against:
Tom O’Connor, Victorian Director
The Oaktree Foundation, and 2007 Young Victorian of the Year
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Each speaker will present his/her position, and explain why they hold their particular
views about the issue. They will be doing everything they can in their 7 minutes to
convince you of their viewpoint. After these speeches you will have the opportunity to:
 ask questions of any of the speakers
 ask questions to clarify something you didn’t understand
 challenge what any of the speakers said.
You should address your question to ONE of the speakers who will have only one
minute in which to answer your question. This will allow more student delegates to ask
questions.
11.00–11.25
Morning tea in Queen’s Hall
PART B: EXPLORING THE ISSUE
11.25
Organisation of student discussion groups
A list of student groups and where each group meets will be provided in your folder.
Some of you will be identified as group leaders, others as recorders. The group leader’s
role is to help you reach decisions about each question for discussion and to make sure
everyone who wants to speak has a chance to have a say.
The recorder will write down the group’s agreed position about each question. In some
cases this might be ‘All agreed’ or ‘All disagreed’. In other cases you might record a split
decision. You should also list the reasons why you agreed and/or disagreed with the
question. The recorder will report back to the full group before lunch. The recorder must
make sure she/he gives the group’s response sheet to a Committee member after the
presentation so that your group’s ideas can be included in the final communiqué.
11.30
Student discussion groups
12.35
Student briefing in Queen’s Hall
12.40
Lunch: Students to bring or buy lunch.
Please return to the Legislative Assembly to start the afternoon
session promptly at 1.30 pm.
1.30
Feedback session in Legislative Assembly
Groups report back to the Convention. Each group will have a maximum of two minutes
to report back. Make sure the main ideas are presented, especially if they are different
from the others. Try not to repeat responses.
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PART C: THE CAMPAIGN CONCLUDES
2.00
Soap-Box Session
This is your final opportunity before the vote to try and convince your fellow delegates of
your views about the issue. You will have a maximum speaking time of two minutes. If
you exceed the time, the Chairperson will ask you to stop. If there are too many
delegates wanting to speak the time could be reduced to one minute or less.
PART D: THE VOTE
2.30
This section will be conducted by Rod Espie, Education and Community Engagement
Officer, Parliament of Victoria.
PART E: CONCLUSION
2.40
2007 National Convention
Jaspreet Singh from Taylors Lakes Secondary College and Mark Holmes from Lalor
Secondary College will talk about their experiences at the National Convention in
Canberra in March 2007. If you are a successful applicant, you will be invited to attend
the 2008 National Constitutional Convention in Canberra. All travel, meals and
accommodation will be paid for your three-day participation at this Convention.
2.45
Official closing
Martin Dixon, MLA, Opposition Spokesperson for Education
2.55
Complete evaluations (see form is in your folder)
3:00
Judy Maddigan closes the 2007 Victorian Schools’ State Constitutional
Convention.
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Victorian Schools’ State Constitutional Convention:
Guiding Questions — Summary of feedback from Group Discussions
Key economic, environmental and social issues
Economic
 Impact on trade and economy.
 Depletion of uranium and decommissioning of nuclear plants is expensive, ineffective and not
sustainable.
 Implications for Australia’s coal industry.
Environmental
 Resulting waste and its effects. Impact on climate, storage, meltdown.
 Focus on renewable energy sources for positive impact on the earth.
 Explore geo-thermal and solar power.
 Impact of radiation; threat of nuclear destruction, mutations.
Social
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Storage of waste — ‘not in my backyard’ view.
Incidence of human error.
Waste, power usage and changing lifestyles.
Terrorism, community safety.
Risk of building on sacred Aboriginal land.
Moral implications – effect on future generations.
Concerns and pressing issues
 Terrorism, cost and dangers of nuclear power.
 Proliferation of nuclear weapons.
 Nuclear waste lasts thousands of years!
 Effects on global warming and future generations.
Options
 Governments could consider harnessing current options/solutions.
 Invest in a mix of renewables – or nuclear, if necessary.
 Initially reduce current energy consumption, using rebates on solar panels, low wattage light
bulbs, etc; investigate greater use of solar energy before turning to nuclear power option.
 Sell uranium to fund ‘green’ options.
 Use coal until another renewable energy source becomes available.
 Invest money on new technologies (e.g. sliver cells solar energy panels).
 All available options to use clean energy should be exerted.
 Build power stations only as a very last resort.
 Further research, planning, regulations, back-up plans required.
Federal Government authority
 Federal government should not have right to overrule, considering our democratic status.
 Federal and State governments should cooperate for a viable solution.
 Introduce uniform policy for all states, with structure and control.
 Need community education programs for informed-decision making.
Arguments FOR nuclear energy
 Long-term goal: renewable energy; reduction in greenhouse emissions.
 Can be used in conjunction with other renewable sources.
 Reliable base load from nuclear energy, and does not emit CO2.
 It would (could) be an immediate solution.
 Nuclear energy OK if waste stored properly.
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Arguments AGAINST nuclear energy
 It is disruptive; supposedly cheaper.
 Will affect future generations.
 Renewable options could be used forever; uranium will run out.
 Waste issues will pose major problems.
 Proliferation of nuclear weapons needs to be considered.
 Money will be wasted.
 Should be a law to put renewable energy sources in place.
 Nuclear waste lasts thousands of years.
 Nuclear causes meltdown which will affect everyone.
Other comments/considerations
 Australia sells uranium.
 Nuclear power could be a temporary source of power to crease CO2 emissions, switching to
clean power later.
 Government cares about economy.
 Taking risks is a part of life.
 Coal stations are constantly polluting the atmosphere.
 Renewable energy is an economic strain.
 Government won’t admit that climate change is happening, so if they are willing to embrace
nuclear we should take whatever (steps) we can to stop global warming.
 Nuclear energy is not ideal, but is the only option government seems willing to consider.
 Use geo-thermal (temporary solution) base load — semi renewable.
 Invest into a mix of renewables or nuclear, if necessary.
 Not everybody agreed – generally renewable, but nuclear can provide base load, but not as a
whole.
EVALUATION
Besides anecdotal comments from participants, student comments in the formal evaluation form
included:
 Whole day beneficial. Thankful for opportunity to hear opinions of other students and
qualified people and to experience sitting in Parliament House.
 Set-up was great; surroundings and people interesting and very educational.
 All speakers presented themselves well.
 The hotel was excellent. Enjoyed every part.
 Great day — really informative; great experience; an eventful day.
 Enjoyed it so much; learnt a lot. Was an experience of a lifetime. It was very informative and
I am pleased to have attended.
 Accommodation for rural students was great.
 Fantastic experience, thanks.
 Unexpectedly enjoyable day.
 Was an experience of a lifetime.
 Topic was excellent; such a great opportunity.
 Good opportunity to witness the fusion of alternative views.
 Interesting day! I became aware of a topic which has great importance to our society and was
able to form my own opinion. Today was GREAT!
 Really good. Hope to be in for next year. Good organisation and resources.
 Great to meet other people who are passionate about issues affecting us.
 Speakers were very informative and helped clarify this complex topic for me.
Group discussions were also helpful.
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An aggregation of the 87 student responses under ‘Excellent’ and ‘Very Good’ provided the following
results:
 89.3% for ‘Administration’
 85.5% for ‘Presentations’
 96% for ‘Delegate Involvement’
representing an 88% overall success rate.
Comments and suggestions for improvement included:
 Provide more time for soap-box session, questions to debaters and small groups.
 Provide additional pre-reading material.
 Introduce topics relevant to teenagers of today. Suggested topics: drugs, alcohol, abortion.
 Great way for under-18’s to talk about political issues.
 Ensure more equitable distribution of students (too many students from one school
represented in small group discussions)
 Have more mikes working in the Legislative Assembly.
 Reorganise group discussions — a structure may be necessary.
 Some presentations were too long.
 Have more speakers on each side of the debate.
 Invite more politicians, and perhaps even the Premier?
 Suggest two-day program with a variation of activities — private/smaller chats with
politicians/debaters.
 Invite someone from the ‘Greens’.
 Lunch for all delegates would be appreciated.
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