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

We know nuclear power is very expensive, but we also know this: as is the usual case, there are some members opposite who say the quiet bit out loud. They tend to be from the National Party and from Queensland, and I give credit to the honesty of the Queensland National Party. It's not just that nuclear is expensive to build but it's also that to make it work it needs to force out the cheapest form of energy: renewables. The member for Hinkler admitted this. He said:

Clearly, if you have energy generation that works 100 per cent of the time, you would always use that before intermittent wind and solar, …

And Senator Canavan said:

What we really need is a greater priority given to electricity that can be provided all the time.

When they release their modelling, will they release how much they'll curtail rooftop solar? How much they'll be telling Australians not to use their rooftop solar? How much they'll be saying that they don't want renewables? The Leader of the National Party, again, said that he's going to cap large-scale renewables.

That's the real intent of this anti-renewable policy. They want to shut down renewable energy investment in this country because of their ideological prejudice against it, because they don't like cheap, renewable energy and because they don't have a real plan for Australia. What they are is a real risk for Australia. (Time expired)

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