Chris Bowen (McMahon, Australian Labor Party, Minister for Climate Change and Energy) Share this | Hansard source

We probably should have had another trigger warning, because we mentioned the CSIRO and science. I do thank the honourable member for Higgins—what a difference she has made; what a climate leader she is in this House. We welcome her presence in this House as a leader on climate action. As the honourable member referred to, the recent GenCost report by the CSIRO and AEMO has confirmed yet again that renewables are the cheapest form of energy and nuclear is the most expensive form of energy. This is consistent with findings overseas and with continual findings by the CSIRO and AEMO.

I'm asked what the response has been, and the response from those opposite has been very disappointing. The member for Fairfax had a very interesting formulation. He said:

… renewables may be the cheapest form of energy for investors, but not for consumers.

Apparently energy is the only commodity in the world where, if it's more expensive to build, the investors don't need to get a return on capital and it's a lot more expensive for consumers. The only one of all of them is energy.

But that looks good compared to the Leader of the Opposition, who chose to attack the CSIRO and call the report 'discredited', which is to the discredit of the Leader of the Opposition as the alternative Prime Minister of Australia. He falsely claimed that GenCost doesn't count the cost of transmission, which is not true and he should apologise to the CSIRO and AEMO. This is all part of the opposition's policy to introduce the most expensive form of energy, as identified in the GenCost report.

We've been on quite a journey with the opposition over the last two years. For two years they've been telling us that they're going to introduce small modular reactors, which is what GenCost deals with. They keep telling us that small modular reactors is where the action is, despite the fact—we pointed out on multiple occasions—that they don't exist. It's actually a fiction; there's no such thing as a small modular reactor. The Leader of the Opposition even said, on 5 March 2023—

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