Govt defends renewable energy investment. 07/06/2006. ABC News Online


Prime Minister John Howard has strongly rejected criticism that his Government is focusing too much on nuclear power at the expense of renewable energy.
Mr Howard has announced a major review of the nuclear industry that will be led by former nuclear physicist and Telstra boss, Ziggy Switkowski.
The Opposition says the Government should invest more in solar and wind power, as well as clean-coal technology.
Mr Howard says the Government is already doing that.
"And we ought to be looking at all of these things, and we are, and we have done a lot of work in relation to renewables," he said.
"I keep hearing people saying 'let's look at renewables', we have in the past, we've brought down incentives that have brought forth three and a half billion dollars of investments in renewables."
Meanwhile, Labor's resources spokesman Martin Ferguson has told Channel Nine there can not be a proper economic analysis of nuclear power without naming sites.
"But nuclear power in Australia is uneconomical, but if the Prime Minister actually believes it is economical then tell us where you're going to put the power stations and do the sums on those power stations otherwise it is not a truthful debate," he said.
But Mr Howard says Opposition Leader Kim Beazley is adopting the same tactics he has used in the past.
"Mr Beazley and others can run a short-term fear campaign and they will and they'll say there is going to be a nuclear reactor just around the corner, of course they will do all of that, you can do that on everything, he did that on the GST, he's done that on industrial relations, he always does that," he said.
Print Email