Anna Bligh opens door to nuclear power

ANNA Bligh has backed calls for the Labor Party to review its policy on nuclear power.

ANNA Bligh has backed calls for the Labor Party to review its policy on nuclear power.

The Queensland Premier has warned that renewable sources cannot meet the surging demand for baseload electricity.

Ms Bligh and ALP national president said development of the only other viable alternative energy, hydro-electricity, had been hamstrung by resistance to new dams.

Ms Bligh said pointedly that "parts of the environment movement" had shifted on the nuclear option, and now supported it as an abatement measure for climate change.

Ms Bligh's comments to The Australian reflect an important shift on nuclear power among Labor leaders, who now cite cost and perception issues rather than philosophical considerations as the impediment to introducing nuclear energy.

She joins senior Labor figures including federal Resources Minister Martin Ferguson, right-wing Australian Workers Union leader Paul Howes, former NSW premier Bob Carr and Labor senators Steve Hutchins and Mark Bishop in supporting a review of the ALP's long-standing ban on nuclear power, most likely at the party's national conference next December

The conference is already set to become a political battleground over gay marriage.

In an interview with The Australian, Ms Bligh said the national conference was "where these debates should happen. We shouldn't be frightened of them."

The office of NSW Premier Kristina Keneally said yesterday she was "open to a public debate" on nuclear energy.

"As the Prime Minister has indicated previously, the Labor Party has had a longstanding policy of opposition to nuclear power," Ms Keneally's spokesperson said. "National conference has always been the place to debate changes to our national party policy.

"Any change to Labor's long-stated policy against nuclear power would have to consider a range of issues, including safety and cost."

The senior Labor Premier, Mike Rann, is heavily invested in expanding uranium mining in South Australia but his spokesman said he would not comment on whether nuclear power should be on the agenda at the national conference, which has been brought forward from 2012.

The Australian understands Labor's NSW division has decided to bring its state conference forward from its usual date in October to July, partly to frame its position on nuclear power.

A NSW Labor source said the move was to allow issues such as nuclear power and gay marriage to be thrashed out in advance of the national conference.

By bringing the national conference forward, Labor is trying to avoid having internal policy brawling drag into the election year of 2013.

Ms Bligh said the nation was entering "an environment where people are questioning coal-fired power". With a carbon tax back on the agenda, and Julia Gillard nominating 2011 as a year of decision and delivery on climate change, among other issues, Ms Bligh said it was "perfectly understandable" for nuclear power to be in the frame.

The Prime Minister, however, has played down the push within Labor ranks for a nuclear review.

The government's chief scientist, Penny Sackett, said this month that nuclear power should be considered as part of a suite of options aimed at reducing greenhouse gas emissions. Her comments came as a report by the Australian Academy of Technological Sciences and Engineering found that nuclear, combined-cycle gas turbine and wind power would provide the cheapest low-carbon electricity, and were the most worthy of investment.

Ms Bligh said energy was "one of the big policy challenges for the nation" and a carbon tax "will be part of that".

"We have . . . set ourselves renewable energy targets that almost by definition are going to be more expensive than our traditional forms of energy, and there's going to be a limit to the public appetite for that . . . So what are the alternatives?" the Queensland Premier said.

"And . . . people are, you know, increasingly loath to consider hydro-electric power because they don't want dams."

Ms Bligh said other renewable energy sources, such as wind and solar, could not produce sufficient baseload power. "I think it is perfectly understandable why nuclear comes on to the agenda . . . as people are genuinely looking for what is a cleaner alternative," she told The Australian.

"And I think it is quite interesting that's now coming as much from some parts -- not all, but some parts -- of the environmental movement, as it is from other parts of the energy sector.

"As we move towards a carbon tax, then that price differential might well start to play out differently."

However, Ms Bligh cautioned that any discussion about nuclear power for Australia remained theoretical, and not just because the cost was "prohibitive".

"I don't know of any suburb that would want it," she said.

"I think there are still very genuinely held concerns about safety, and in an environment . . . where we have other alternatives then I think the prospect of one (a nuclear power plant) in an Australian context in the near future is very slim."

Ms Bligh affirmed that she had no plans to relax Queensland's ban on uranium mining, even though it is now allowed in South Australia and Western Australia, as well as the Northern Territory.

Although Queensland allows uranium exploration, Ms Bligh said she would not take up the mining issue during the term of the current parliament.

"It's not something on my agenda for the next election . . . it's the sort of thing, frankly, I don't have any intention of revisiting."

Additional reporting: Michael Owen