Senator FEENEY (Victoria—Parliamentary Secretary for Defence) (15:55): Here we go again. The Greens, the very bastion of moral purity, once again are telling us what is right and what is wrong: that it is right to have low carbon emissions but that it is wrong to have nuclear power; that it is right to bring the world out of poverty but that it is wrong to give people the tools they need to accomplish this. Once again in a demonstration of bizarre ethical ambiguity the Greens continue to want everything but to give nothing. Alas, what more can we expect from this confederacy of protest movements that is the Greens in the Senate. Let us give the reality of this situation some perspective. India is a nation where 40 per cent of people live below the poverty line, a nation that by 2025 will outnumber China with a population of some 1.5 billion persons. It is a nation that is growing quickly, as is its energy consumption. It needs the sort of stable and affordable energy that as Australians we take for granted. Currently 40 per cent of Indians have access to electricity for less than 12 hours a day and an estimated 300 million people still lack access to energy there at all. I asked the Greens how one billion people of India are going to meet their energy needs without nuclear power. How will their nation modernise, how will they grow? And how will they do this without pumping hundreds of millions of tonnes of carbon into the atmosphere? Coal, or maybe wind turbines as far as the eye can see, stretching from Calcutta to Bangalore. Or maybe the Greens just think India should not have electricity at all. According to the Australian Academy of Sciences, for every 10,000 tonnes of Australian uranium we export we stop the generation of 400 million tonnes of CO2 from conventional power sources. That is quite a remarkable figure. How can the Greens sit here arguing that exporting uranium is wrong when it makes such a huge and clear difference not only to the lives of Indians but to our global environment. No matter how the Greens want to look at it, no matter how they paint it, the answer is the same: nuclear power equals development and the Greens want this stopped. This is perhaps the ideal example to highlight the failure of the Greens party to celebrate their naive views on foreign policy with reality. It is their stance on issues such as this one that shows why Australia will never accept the Greens as a government in its own right. They just do not have the pragmatism required. It is one thing to want the world to be a better place but quite another to make it happen. If we really want a global clean energy future, not just one for the rich and privileged, we need to acknowledge that for large developing countries, particularly a country such as India, nuclear energy is one of many strategies that must be employed if this is going to happen. Australia can afford the luxury of not using nuclear power but India is not so fortunate. Senator Fifield: You pronounce nuclear the way George Bush did. Senator FEENEY: I always welcome your contributions, Senator Fifield. It cannot be because India has nuclear weapons. We sell uranium to Russia and China, both of which are nuclear powers. Are the Greens afraid that India is engaged in some sort of regional arms race? China is engaged in one of the fastest military modernisations in recent history and yet obviously we continue to engage with China. They surely cannot be worried about nuclear proliferation. India tightly guards its nuclear technologies and has never been found guilty of proliferating those technologies. The Greens' stance only makes sense when we look at it from a pre-2007 perspective when not selling uranium to India was part of an international strategy to bring India into the nuclear non-proliferation treaty. But this ended with the US-India nuclear agreement of 2007, which ended the international de facto ban on nuclear cooperation with India. So, although you may not agree with India's decision not to sign the non-proliferation treaty, you can certainly understand their reasoning, which is that it would force the world's largest democracy to abandon their nuclear weapons, despite the fact that the UK, the US, China, Russia and France are all allowed to hold on to theirs, and despite the fact that, on its very own border, Pakistan openly displays its nuclear capabilities. This is a treaty that asks India to have its own national security policy dictated to it by Western powers, and, no, this was not an arrangement that was ever realistic. Until recently, Australia was the only nuclear supplier in the world that would not deal with India. Not surprisingly, this was offensive to a large trading partner. Last financial year, we exported almost 7,000 tonnes of uranium, with a value of around A$600 million, without adverse health or environmental consequences, but we did refuse to sell uranium to India. We have 33 per cent of the world's commercially recoverable uranium, and we are well placed to capitalise on growing global demand. This is an industry that can provide long-term economic benefits to Australia, including generating employment in regional areas, providing benefits to Indigenous populations and generating export income, yet the Greens still say, 'No, you cannot export to India.' India's importance to Australia will only grow in the coming years, and a policy of choosing not to sell uranium to India would be an obstacle to developing the strategic and economic partnerships that we want and, indeed, that we need. Make no mistake about it: India will and does have nuclear power, whether the uranium comes from us or from somewhere else. So why not have some say over the process? Why not have some say over the protections and some influence in how uranium is safeguarded? But, once again, the Greens would rather vote for 100 per cent of nothing rather than for 80 per cent of something. That is the reasoning that caused them to vote against the CPRS bills not once but twice in this Senate, and that is the reasoning that saw them stand in the way of any cross-chamber arrangements regarding immigration laws. The Greens do not think in terms of accomplishing reforms. They would rather Australia had no say, no control and no influence over the nuclear powers in our region. Selling uranium to India is not giving them a blank cheque. Let me be clear: exports will comply with our international legal obligations. But, before any exports of Australian uranium to India can take place, Australia and India need to negotiate and conclude a bilateral safeguards agreement. This agreement would address Australia's stringent safeguards and transparency requirements and would specify that the uranium may only be exported for peaceful, civil nuclear power generation. The legislative framework in Australia is already in place to cater to this agreement. If there are any specific legal requirements in addition to the legislative framework, these will be addressed in the context of negotiations through our bilateral agreement. The Greens policy on this issue is illogical and it is hypocritical. They seek to damage our wider relationship with India but offer no viable alternatives. They continue with posturing and rhetoric but have no practical solutions. India is the world's largest democracy, a sobering fact worth remembering. It is a fellow member of the Commonwealth, with a strong philosophical commitment to peace and cooperation. It is a law-governed state, with a free press and a vibrant civil society. It has proven over the decades to be a stable power in an increasingly hazardous region. I not only reject the Greens stance on this matter; I applaud the government for opening our borders and giving Australia a say on nuclear safeguards in India. I also say with some pride that this was a matter that was ventilated and robustly debated at the ALP National Conference. This is a conference that is open to the public— Senator Brandis: Dominated by trade union thugs. Senator FEENEY: a conference that is open to the press and open to the ramblings and raving criticisms of people such as Senator Brandis. It is a conference where the whole country can sit in judgement of our public policy processes and where ALP delegates can freely debate their ideas before coming to a final resolution. It is a process that stands in stark contrast to the continuing secrecy of the Greens and their decision-making processes and stands in stark contrast to the closed conferences and secret cabals that make up the decision-making process of their party, the last secretive party left in Australian public life.