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

I thank the honourable member, who is a fantastic member for Aston, for her question. As the honourable member knows, GenCost is a report which has been issued annually by the CSIRO and AEMO since 2018. It has consistently found nuclear energy to be the most expensive form of energy available, and slow to build as well. Between 2018 and 2022, this was an uncontroversial report. In fact, the previous government used to source and cite GenCost in their report to the Paris accord. They used to reference it.

This is no longer the case. The Leader of the Opposition was asked about GenCost in March and about its findings that nuclear is the most expensive form of energy. He said, 'It is a discredited report, not to be relied on, and it's not a genuine piece of work.' This is the alternative Prime Minister of Australia talking about Australia's premier scientific organisation. Did he reflect on his policy and say, 'Maybe we need to reconsider?' No. When the Leader of the Opposition sees a report telling him he's wrong, he attacks the CSIRO, much like when he sees a news report he doesn't like—he attacks the journalist on Twitter. That's his modus operandi. That's how he behaves as the alternative Prime Minister.

He's not alone. The architect of this policy disaster, the member for Fairfax, had something to say about GenCost. When he was asked originally about GenCost, he said, 'The CSIRO hasn't released its modelling.'

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