Ted O'Brien (Fairfax, Liberal Party, Shadow Minister for Climate Change and Energy) Share this | Hansard source

I want to proceed with this debate, as Labor MPs leave the chamber—yet again afraid to have a debate about Australia's energy future. If I were Labor, I, too, would be leaving in shame, because every MP in this chamber on the Labor side of the House promised their constituents a $275 reduction in household power bills, including the minister, whose own constituents are now set to pay $1,300 more than he promised them.

This inquiry has been an important one, and there's a reason why this Labor government set up an inquiry that has been a political stitch-up from the very get-go—a political stitch-up by way of the members constituting that committee. In fact, as a very rare occasion in this parliament, we have the crossbench, including the Greens and the teals, supporting the coalition on a motion to bring balance to that committee because it was so poorly skewed in favour of the Labor Party because they wanted to manipulate the process in order to have a go. Also, the terms of reference were narrow so the Labor Party could try to get across its political points.

But, of course, as it transpired during the inquiry, we heard evidence after evidence coming from Australian and international experts which said, 'If you add nuclear to a balanced energy mix, the prices come down.' That has been the evidence right across the world. It is why Australia is now isolated—the only nation in the G20 that is either not using nuclear energy or not moving towards using it in the near future.

The Department of Energy in the United States made it very clear in their own report: there's a 37 per cent reduction in costs compared to a renewables-only scheme if you have nuclear in the mix. The independent report from Frontier Economics here in the Australian context did a similar study, a total system cost analysis, that proved the coalition's plan to get to a 2050 zero emissions grid is actually 44 per cent cheaper than Labor's. But Labor ignores all this. Labor don't want to have a debate, which is why they seek to gag this debate today.

On timing, again we heard evidence after evidence in the committee that the timing put forward by the coalition for introducing zero emissions nuclear energy in Australia was accurate and it was doable. In fact, we had the Albanese government's own advisers on nuclear technology. Their view with respect to small modular reactors is that they have an expected deployment timeframe of around five years from construction start to electricity or heat generation—that's the Albanese government's own advisers. The committee report itself, written by the chair, the member for Hunter, actually ignores that advice. It also ignores the advice of Professor Andrew Whittaker, who has advised the White House in the United States on nuclear energy. He says that, when it comes to timing, it should take five to 10 years to build a plant with two-gigawatt-scale reactors in Australia, taking advantage of the lessons learned. Again, whether it be costs, whether it be timing, the inquiry bore this out. The experts, globally and domestically, basically said the coalition's plan is based on international best practice. But they want to ignore this.

The chair of the inquiry, the member for Hunter, stood up earlier in this parliament, before they gagged the coalition, to claim that the real problem with nuclear is the speed at which coal plants are coming out of the grid. As somebody who has seen him in the coal communities and in this parliament can I remind that member that his constituents have two very different members. When we sat in coal communities across regional Australia, the chair of this inquiry, the member for Hunter, on multiple occasions denied Labor's plan to close coal plants prematurely. It's all in Hansard. Loy Yang, the latest, goes all the way through into the mid- to late 2040s. He said: 'No, no, no. It will be allowed to proceed, of course, all the way through until the end of its life.' Yet the inquiry report drafted by the chair himself, the member for Hunter, makes clear that all coal plants are closed by 2038.

Under Labor's plan 10.8 gigawatts of coal generation will be exiting the grid over the next 10 years without replacement. That's before the scheduled closure, according to the coal plant owners. The member comes into this place and tries to argue that the coal plants are going to be closed early, but back at home he tells a very different story. Again, you have to look at what Labor's policies really are and what their impacts are, rather than listen to what comes out of the mouths of those opposite depending on different situations. We heard from regional communities—from Muswellbrook, for example. That is a community the member for Hunter should know very well. The former mayor of Muswellbrook, Steven Reynolds, told the inquiry:

… a replacement of a power station here—

referring to nuclear energy—

would see jobs being transferred into a familiar role whilst retaining the permanent well-paying jobs.

The Latrobe City Council Mayor, Dale Harriman, said:

I know I talk regularly to a number of coal power station workers. They're excited by this idea that they're actually going to have a future … The discussion now that nuclear is there and it gives an option to our coal-fired power station workers—that there is a future that pays like-for-like jobs—they're very, very supportive of it. I think, as a community, that's something we've been asking for: those jobs that are like for like.

Keep in mind, of course, that studies by the Department of Energy in the United States have explained that around 77 per cent of coal plant workers can transition to work in a nuclear power plant without any change to their occupation, seamlessly so, which is why these communities which are being shut down—regional economies being hollowed out by the premature closure of coal-fired power stations with no replacement on the way from the Labor Party—are screaming out for a future.

Our proposal, which is a balanced energy mix—a future which will have renewables, gas and, as coal eventually does retire from the system, zero emissions nuclear energy—gives these regional communities the future they deserve. The two I just quoted, the Hunter and La Trobe, are regional powerhouses that have underpinned energy security for generations in this country.

The Labor Party's plan is to hollow them out. They want to turn boilermakers into baristas. That's their plan; that is how shallow their plan is. We don't agree with that. We believe in regional Australia. We believe these communities have a bright future. And that is why we are interested in introducing zero emissions power plants, plants that will be designed to last for 60 to 80 years—maybe, with extensions, up to a hundred years.

We're talking about a plan that allows for regional deals to ensure that transport infrastructure and community infrastructure can be built in these communities. We're talking about integrated economic development zones so we can ensure these communities are rich when it comes to manufacturing, when it comes to mineral processing and when it comes to high technology, because they will have the cheapest, cleanest and most consistent power in the country. But the Labor Party refuse to have a conversation. They gag debate. They're into memes and untruths about this plan because they know there's a reason why our friends and allies around the world are adopting nuclear energy as part of a balanced energy mix. It's because it gets prices down, it is the fastest way to decarbonise an electricity grid, and it guarantees security—all the things that this Labor Party has promised the Australian people and failed on. Today it's no surprise that they have, yet again, sought to gag debate.

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