Media Release

Robbie Katter and I did a pig shooting trip recently to the North West corner of Queensland (around Doomadgee, Burketown and Gregory). We travelled 1,000 kilometres in three days as well as 500 kilometres there and back. There were virtually no cattle around Doomadgee. We saw around 15 people living in that huge area we covered of around 20,000 sq. km’s. It’s a very unpopulated area. So the danger to human beings from a nuclear breeder reactor is low – and that’s in the unlikely situation it ever leaves the power station. We’ve got the uranium deposits right there.

There would be an even stronger case for nuclear power in large portions of Australia that is desert or arid. Nuclear is the cleanest form of energy with zero emissions. The output is huge with power stations able to produce 2 to 4 thousand megawatts. North Queensland only uses 900 megawatts of power. The power is reasonably cheap when you consider that it can be built with such massive output.

For a country that has 30 percent of the world’s uranium deposits, it’s a bit childish to shutdown debate on the issue of nuclear power. While the KAP aren’t advocating for nuclear power at present, it must be looked at as a serious possibility. As for the issue of terrorists, there’s a hundred ways they can carry out mass killings.

Other parties talk of solar panels. Well they are made of silicon and the energy required to create pure silicon is enormous. You burn up a lot of emission to make solar panels and the current technology only lasts 20 years. Plus most people don’t know that you’re meant to clean them every nine days. Solar is excellent for isolated population hubs like Normanton and even Hervey Range to the West of Townsville.

Nuclear shouldn’t be easily dismissed but there are dangers. The cavalier attitude towards mining uranium at Ben Lomond, 50 kilometres west of Townsville, forced me to stop operations there in the 1980s.

—ENDS—