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

The total system cost of the coalition's plan to transform the national electricity market, the grid, through to 2050, including nuclear energy, is $331 billion. Again, I say that that includes the total system cost. That includes transmission, that includes renewables, and that includes gas. Labor's plan, by comparison, is 44 per cent more expensive. This independent modelling came up throughout the inquiry, yet there was not one piece of evidence that challenged the veracity of those conclusions. No evidence was put forward that could challenge the assumptions made.

When it comes to the nuclear plan of the coalition, it comes to up to $120 billion. Much has been said, including by the chair of this inquiry in his words just now, about the CSIRO and the importance of listening to the CSIRO, yet the coalition's own modelling and the independent modelling done by Frontier Economics accept a comparable capital cost of nuclear power plants, as put forward by the CSIRO, with respect to the large modern plants. The chair has just mentioned the number $600 billion. In fact, the coalition's plan is $120 billion. The chair is again exaggerating the cost by a multiple of five. What he is doing, therefore, is multiplying CSIRO's own advice by a multiple of five, undermining Labor's very argument about the importance of listening to the CSIRO. This is where Labor is exposed. In fact, they were exposed throughout the inquiry. Yet again, they are trying to multiply a figure by five, which is disingenuous—it is not honest.

There's somebody else in this chamber who has multiplied something by five. Guess who that is; he is sitting over there. It's actually the Minister for Climate Change and Energy. It's on this very same topic, and it's relevant to this inquiry, because he claims Labor's cost to get to net zero is five times cheaper than what it really is.

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