Senator CARRICK (New South WalesMinister for Education) - What Senator Walsh has presented is not the meaning or the intention of the Bill or the way in which it will work. All honourable senators know that the whole thrust of the Labor Senate Opposition's argument in the earlier weeks of the debate on the Environment Protection (Nuclear Codes) Bill was that the Government had been recreant in not consulting the States and that it was imperative that the States should be consulted fully and their views sought and understood, presumably so that a consensus could be reached. Why the imperative of seeking consultation with the States, unless it is important that the intentions of the States be given some recognition? If the Government has sinned it is because we have done exactly what the Opposition asked that we do.

I think there is a total misunderstanding. The fact is that this Bill arranges that the Government shall seek to work with the States to produce a code of practice that is acceptable. I have pointed out to the Senate that all the States at this moment have to some greater or lesser degree a code of practice regarding the handling of fissionable material, the handling of uranium and its products. The question therefore is to have devised an optimum code so that there can be a consensus, the aim being to get supplementary legislation where possible. It is no good using emotive words such as abdication. The Opposition itself has indicated that there is without any doubt some lack of assurance throughout Australia regarding the constitutional heads of power as to the Government's capacity to enforce totally its laws. Rather than have a law challenged and even weakened in that regard, the aim is that we should work together as a team to get a result and to press to get the result to the optimum of the code.

I point out that some States may have a code even higher than the Commonwealth's, others may not have reached that point, and there will be pressure for them to do so. I should also point out that the Commonwealth Government, quite apart from its consensus capacities, which were urged, has reserve powers to persuade. I have no doubt in the world that the Commonwealth Government would insist, if it were necessary so to insist, that throughout Australia the highest standards be observed. It is impertinence to believe that a Commonwealth government would have all knowledge, all wisdom, and would be the only government that was solicitous of the health and security of its people.

Senator Button - Not at all. The Commonwealth Government has powers to do all sorts of things. It is not an impertinence.

Senator CARRICK -I am always delighted when Senator Button gives me a constitutional lecture. Lesser lawyers than he have doubts. Let him rely on the absolute security of his vast ignorance on constitutional law because I am sure that that is a comfortable thing, and I say that happily in this debate. I point out that lots of people and lots of lawyers have doubts about the whole range of the heads of power. Let me test this. Does the Opposition say that the Dunstan State Labor Government has not got the same desire to protect its people or to have the highest standards? Is that what the Opposition is saying? Does it say that about the Lowe State Government in Tasmania or the Wran State Government in New South Wales? What is it saying?

A week or two ago the Leader of the Opposition (Senator Wriedt) said that the great sin of this Government in relation to the nuclear codes is that it has not consulted, it has not got a consensus, and that is what it should get. That is precisely what we are doing now. What this Government says is that it will have this discussion, it will get this consensus, and if there is need for further action, the Government has the capacity for further action. That is what the Opposition asked us to do. It has done a double somersault in midstream. No doubt it will now chide us for doing what it asked us to do.