Peter Dutton (Dickson, Liberal Party, Leader of the Opposition) Share this | Hansard source

During the Liberal Party party room this morning, I advised my colleagues that the Labor Party would be completely hypocritical to attack any policy on nuclear—firstly in relation to waste, because they had signed up to disposal of waste under AUKUS. Secondly, I made the point in relation to safety. They would find it hard to criticise a policy on safety given that they had decided to house the nuclear submarines at Henderson, a matter of kilometres from residential suburbs; and in Osborne in South Australia, where submarines would regularly, for decades, be docked within kilometres of those suburbs.

The third point I made was in relation to location. I said they'll find it hard to criticise that, because we've said that we would restrict the locations to a handful of sites which are end-of-life coal fired generators—bring them to an end—and bring in latest zero-emissions nuclear technology. In relation to cost, I said that the Labor Party would find it hard to dispute that, because, as we know, in Ontario, it costs 50 per cent less than what we pay here for electricity, and in the US it is one-third of the cost. I made the point that we had a little more work to do in relation to the cost aspect and that we would make our decision and our policy known in due course. So for the Prime Minister to come in here today to again show how weak he is as a leader, how pathetic he is as a prime minister, should come as no surprise to anyone.

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