Transcript

PETER CAVE: Former prime minister, Bob Hawke, says Australia has the "environmental responsibility" to become the world's nuclear waste dump.

The former prime minister told a gathering of Oxford University alumni in Sydney last night that Labor should abandon its three mines policy on uranium, promote Australia as a safe place for the world's nuclear waste and use the money gained for local environmental issues.

And Federal Health Minister, Tony Abbott another Oxford graduate who was present says it's a "visionary" suggestion.

Michael Vincent reports.

MICHAEL VINCENT: Bob Hawke may not have written a diary dumping on his party colleagues, but his idea for making Australia a nuclear waste dump may be just as unpalatable.

BOB HAWKE: Australia has the geologically safest places in the world for the storage of waste. What Australia should do in my judgement as an act of economic sanity

ALUMNI: is bury at all.

BOB HAWKE: and environmental responsibility, say we will take the world's nuclear waste.

MICHAEL VINCENT: Such a proposition would have been political heresy when Mr Hawke was prime minister.

But the 75-year-old says he still considers himself a greenie and his proposal would be revolutionary.

BOB HAWKE: If we were to do that, we would have a source of income forget about current account deficit we would have a source of income which we could hypothecate to environmental issues in this country, salinity, also to Aborigines because this would be in an area where the Aboriginal people would be, and I have reason to believe that we could negotiate with them. We can revolutionise the economics of Australia if we did this.

MICHAEL VINCENT: But revolution didn't appear to be on the mind of another Oxford graduate sharing the stage, current Labor leader, Kim Beazley.

KIM BEAZLEY: Look Bob Is the father figure of the Labor Party, that's well outside the platform.

(sound of raucous laughter from audience)

MICHAEL VINCENT: But sitting between the Labor figures, Federal Health Minister Tony Abbott appeared interested.

TONY ABBOTT: I think Bob does make a very interesting

ALUMNI: I agree. I agree.

TONY ABBOTT: It is a visionary suggestion, but unfortunately

BOB HAWKE: Always buts

TONY ABBOTT: There are a lot of politics in this. Now right at the moment we can't even get agreement on where to put a nuclear repository for Australia's waste, let alone a repository for the world's waste.

Now that is the kind of parochialism that would need to be overcome if Bob's suggestion were to

BOB HAWKE: That's right, but look this is, I mean this is revolutionary, I started off saying it's revolutionary, but it's the sort of thing, you sit down, there are intelligent I've talked with some of the Greens. And there's one of them, I'm not going to talk about his name, but his initial reaction Alan was "oh shit", and then when I went through these things and what it could mean, he said this should be talked about.

Now I know in our party, in the Labor Party, there'll be people just, who'd be horrified. But they were horrified about some of the things I proposed with my colleagues in '83, '84, tariffs and so on.

You talk them through, I mean, politics is not about decibel democracy, you know, all the people that make the loudest noise and that's what determines your decision. The responsibility of leadership is to lead.

Go in and say look, this is what it means for Australia, this is what it means for the world. And I genuinely believe that if we'd sat down your mob would be the least difficult

(sound of laughter from audience)

TONY ABBOTT: As always, as always

BOB HAWKE: The Greens although you've got some mugs who'd be difficult

(sound of laughter from audience)

but basically the problem would be the Greens and the Labor Party, but these people are not un-Australian, you sit down and talk with 'em.

PETER CAVE: Former Labor prime minister and self-confessed revolutionary, Bob Hawke.