Costello warms to the nuclear option - National - theage.com.au

TREASURER Peter Costello has declared nuclear power the "clean energy" of the future, saying Australia must do more to fight global warming.

Moving to further differentiate himself from Prime Minister John Howard, Mr Costello vowed to continue dealing with issues outside his economic portfolio.

Working on a record 11th straight budget, Mr Costello also refused to commit himself to delivering next year's budget.

"If you look at my speeches over the last couple of years there have been speeches on foreign affairs, on culture, on immigration, on Australian history, on values, and I've got to say to you I probably get much more response from those speeches than I do from an economic speech," Mr Costello told The Sunday Age.

He said his speech slamming "mushy, misguided multiculturalism" in February had generated "tens of thousands" of responses — more than 90 per cent positive.

"The response to the speech that I gave on values and culture earlier this year is probably the biggest response I have ever had in my life."

Directing his attention to the environment and global warming, Mr Costello said he was now "more aware of these issues".

"I think the evidence is that there is a gradual warming taking place, and I think that means we have to begin addressing it," Mr Costello said.

Mr Costello is no longer as sceptical about nuclear power as he was after the Chernobyl disaster 20 years ago.

"Far from nuclear power being the dirty energy source, it may in fact turn out to be the clean energy source when compared to fossil fuels," he said.

He also warned Australians to get used to the idea of a domestic nuclear power station.

"If it's commercial to build nuclear energy in Australia, it ought to occur," Mr Costello said.

"Australia can't mine uranium and sell it to other people and then pretend that it would never use it in its own country."

Earlier this month, Mr Howard also said Australia should look at using nuclear power if it became economically viable.

Federal Opposition Leader Kim Beazley has said that Labor is opposed to a nuclear power industry in Australia, but Labor's resources spokesman, Martin Ferguson, has said the party should be open to the idea.

Mr Costello said that while Australia was meeting its greenhouse gas emissions targets established under the Kyoto Protocol, it had a responsibility to bring the developing world along with it.

"Australia is such a small, tiny contributor towards global warming that if Australia meets its emissions target that will have no effect whatsoever on global warming if other large economies continue to develop as they are," he said. "We're talking now of countries that are 50 times Australia and growing all the time in emissions."

Nearly three years since Mr Costello pledged to speak out on social issues, and after Mr Howard had told him he would remain leader of the Liberal Party for as long as the party wanted, Mr Costello said he had been encour- aged by the public response.

Mr Costello declined to talk about the size of tax cuts expected in next week's budget, but said he remained committed to reducing the burden on families.

"What I have done is say that if we can balance our budget and meet our expenditures we should aim to reduce the tax burden, which is what we did in 2003, 2004, 2005 and 2006," he said.

He said putting together this year's budget, with competing spending priorities from defence, security against terrorism and the background of the oil shock, remained difficult.

Discussing the Government's economic achievements over 10 years, he said: "What other countries … could you compare us to that have made this kind of progress?"

Asked if he was leaving major structural reform of the tax system for his 12th budget, Mr Costello said: "These are just word games that you're trying now."