Senator FORSHAW (4:11 PM) —I will pick up on the last point just made by Senator Tierney. He makes the allegation that no evidence has been produced. In a moment I will come to the evidence that has been produced, particularly before the Senate select committee inquiry, on the serious question surrounding the capacity of INVAP to complete this project. I find it the ultimate irony for Senator Tierney to be standing up here on behalf of the government and saying, `Where is your evidence?' After all, Senator Tierney represents a government whose Prime Minister, ministers and Secretary to the Department of the Prime Minister and Cabinet actually made conclusions in respect of another issue, the `children overboard' issue, on the basis that there was no evidence. We had the head of the Defence Force and the Secretary to the Department of the Prime Minister and Cabinet saying, `Nobody has shown me evidence that it did not happen; therefore, I am entitled to assume that it does.' That is the sort of logic that you get from this government.

But let us get back to the evidence that was produced to the Senate select committee. Firstly, we have the serious concerns raised by members of the scientific community about the capacity of INVAP to deliver. I am not addressing my remarks to the issue of whether we should have a nuclear reactor. Today I want to focus on whether, if we are going to have that reactor as this government seems intent on, we are going to get the best value for the $300 million that is going to be spent initially constructing this reactor and then the further millions of dollars to be spent in the next 40 years maintaining and operating it. I invite senators to go to the full report, but Professor John White, representing the Academy of Science and supporting the reactor, expressed his surprise at the fact that INVAP had won the contract against established companies from Germany, such as Siemens, and from France, such as Technicatome, because of the scientific community's `unfamiliarity with the ability of INVAP to perform'.

In more specific detail, Mr Tony Wood, a retired nuclear engineer who worked at ANSTO and who supported the building of a new reactor, gave evidence to the committee and he said:

Senator Tierney has referred to the fact that he visited their headquarters in Argentina.

Senator Tierney —I saw the reactor that they had built.

Senator FORSHAW —You did not see the sort of reactor that INVAP has undertaken to build at Lucas Heights. The only location outside Argentina where this company has built a reactor is in Egypt, and there is clear evidence on the record that it has had serious problems in getting that reactor up to full power—it has never been able to operate at full power. Since those allegations were made and since evidence was presented to the committee, we have sought time and time again from ANSTO and from Minister Minchin—who happens to be in the chamber at the moment—detailed documentation such as the contract and a whole range of other material. We were denied access to that material on the grounds of commercial-in-confidence.

We now know, for instance, that, as Senator Carr has pointed out, there has had to be a $10 million allocation from the Argentine government because of the problems that INVAP were in before they won this contract and since they have won this contract. We also know that the intention was to have a new reactor which had a cold source, a hot source and a thermal neutron source. Since that contract was entered into, we have been informed that there will not be a hot source constructed in this new research reactor. So we are not going to get world's best practice as we were promised—far from it. And we have not been told what implications that has for the design— (Time expired)