Luke Howarth (Petrie, Liberal Party, Shadow Assistant Treasurer) Share this | Hansard source

A nuclear power station can last for up to 60 years, while Chinese-made solar panels last for 25 years. We wouldn't have all the transmission costs. We wouldn't the environmental footprint that this government wants with solar and wind only. That footprint is 370 times bigger than that of a modern nuclear power station. You've got a bit of paper like the one I have here. That's the footprint on the environment that we currently have for coal and gas or we would have if we replaced it with an emissions-free nuclear plant. To get the same amount of power, the Albanese Labor government is going to need 370 times that. What is the impact on the environment—on the trees, the koalas, the wedge-tailed eagles and everything else? They don't want to talk about any of that.

If they were serious about reducing emissions and about climate change, they wouldn't just rule this out hands down. The reality is that the GenCost report, I think, said that if someone wanted to build nuclear power it would cost $17 billion. Snowy Hydro alone is going to cost $12 billion. What's all this costing? It will be another billion dollars here for another authority. No. They're not serious about it, and the Australian people are waking up.

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