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

I'm asked what policies we reject. I have heard rumours of an alternative policy, but am yet to see any alternative policy. The rumours of an alternative policy are nuclear power plants in areas where there are coal-fired power plants. The Leader of the Opposition hasn't been within a hundred kilometres of any coal-fired power plants since he became Leader of the Opposition, so he hasn't really been engaging in good consultation.

We saw a report last week which underlines why we reject this policy. That was the GenCost report by the CSIRO, which showed again that nuclear power plants are expensive and slow to build. Those opposite were falling over themselves to discredit the CSIRO, led by the Member for New England, who explained in his normal methodical, calm manner that you can't trust the CSIRO because they're Australian.

That got me thinking. CSIRO started GenCost in 2018, when the opposition were in office, and GenCost has consistently shown that nuclear is the most expensive form of energy, including while the opposition were in office. That got me thinking: I wonder what the member for New England thought about it when they were in government? Well, he was asked by David Speers, 'Is nuclear under consideration?' and he said, 'It's not. It's been ruled out by reason of cost.' David Speers went on and said, 'You're in government. You're no less than the Deputy Prime Minister. Why don't you give it a push?' Joyce said, 'Because the cost is too high.'

I wonder what's changed. Sometimes in politics you can overlearn a lesson and you can overcorrect. We were very critical of the then government for having 22 energy policies. We thought 22 was too many. But we didn't mean have zero. One is the sweet spot. Have an energy policy. If the Leader of the Opposition was any good he could release an energy policy. He could at least be up to that. (Time expired)

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