LIBERAL Party policy on nuclear energy is "a dog's breakfast", Environment Minister Peter Garrett claimed yesterday, after a senior Opposition frontbencher called for Australia to include nuclear in its future energy mix.

"If we are serious about reducing global greenhouse emissions, the nuclear option is one we cannot ignore," former resources minister Ian Macfarlane said in a speech last night.

"If Australia expects to live up to the expectations the Rudd Government is creating, and to be taken seriously in claiming to set an example it expects other nations to follow, we simply must get real on nuclear energy."

Mr Macfarlane's remarks are the strongest pro-nuclear comments from the Coalition since their election defeat.

A 2006 report commissioned by the Coalition in government found 25 nuclear power stations near main population centres on the east cost could supply a third of Australia's electricity needs.

Former prime minister John Howard said months before November's poll Australia needed to consider nuclear power in its fight against climate change.

Liberal leader Brendan Nelson declared in February: "There will be no nuclear power industry in Australia unless Mr Rudd has some sort of secret plan for it."

But last month his deputy Julie Bishop said: "The issue of nuclear power has to be debated rationally if Australia is serious about making deep cuts to its greenhouse gas emissions."

Mr Garrett yesterday said the Liberal Party needed to settle on its policies. "Is it Brendan Nelson who's right, and the Liberal Party doesn't stand for nuclear energy, or is it Mr Macfarlane and Ms Bishop who are right, and they do?

"The last election showed that Australians are absolutely of one mind about not having 25 nuclear power plants dotted around their suburbs and in and around their cities."

Climate Change Minister Penny Wong said the Government remained opposed to nuclear power, saying Australia had an abundance of renewable energy resources.

Dr Nelson claimed Labor was confused over uranium and nuclear issues. "The Labor Party can't even agree to dig uranium out of the ground and sell it to the rest of the world," he said.

"We need more rational discussion about nuclear power in Australia and much less of the emotive political debate we've had in the last few years."