David Gillespie (Lyne, National Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I move:

That this House:

(1) notes that:

(a) Australia has been at the forefront of nuclear science and technology since 1953 when the Australian Atomic Energy Commission was established and operated two research reactors at Lucas Heights in Sydney;

(b) since the Australian Atomic Energy Commission became the Australian Nuclear Science and Technology Organisation in 1987, it has operated the HIFAR Research Reactor, and subsequently the OPAL Research Reactor, which has delivered significant benefits for nuclear medicine in Australia and around the world;

(c) Australia has developed one of the world's leading regulatory and safety authorities to oversee the operation of its nuclear industries with the establishment of the Australian Radiation Protection and Nuclear Safety Agency;

(d) Australia is a signatory to international non-proliferation treaties which is overseen by the Australian Safeguards and Non-proliferation Office; and

(2) considers the deployment of nuclear energy to deliver energy security for the nation, as part of Australia's transition to a decarbonised electricity grid, utilising emerging nuclear technologies such as Generation III+, Generation IV Small Modular Reactors and Micro Modular Reactors; and

(3) further considers the following legislative actions:

(a) removing the blanket prohibition on:

(i) the Minister for Environment and Water declaring, approving, or considering actions relating to the construction or operation of certain nuclear facilities as described in sections 37J, 140A and 146M, and paragraph 305(2)(d) of the Environment Protection and Biodiversity Conservation Act 1999, by repealing those provisions; and

(ii) the construction or operation of certain nuclear facilities as described in section 10 of the

Australian Radiation Protection and Nu clear Safety Act 1998, by repealing that section;

(b) leaving unaffected:

(i) the other elements of the Environment Protection and Biodiversity Conservation Act 1999, pursuant to which the Minister would assess any application to establish a facility previously named in the repealed provisions;

(ii) state and territory powers to protect their citizens and the environment from potential adverse radiation impacts; and

(iii) the power vested in the Minister for Foreign Affairs to determine whether or not to issue a permit under the Nuclear Non-Proliferation (Safeguards) Act 1987 for such a proposed facility.

During the 33 years I practised as a hospital doctor, from a junior intern through to a general internal medicine specialist, and for the last 22 years as a gastroenterologist, I and all the medical staff around me often used the miracle of modern medicine which utilises nuclear technology, including radionucleotide isotopes for iodine, technetium, molybdenum, X-rays or CAT scans, to diagnose and treat many conditions and, in many instances, cure cancers: breast, prostate, bowel, lung, brain or bone cancer and lymphoma; even overactive thyroid conditions use radioactive isotopes to calm the thyroid down. Yet, even though Australians and people around the world beg for and wish that they had access to that sort of technology and are happy to receive it, in Australia we have a schizoid response. When we apply to use the wonder that nature gave us of fission, of partially enriched uranium isotope 235, to boil water to very high temperatures and pressures, just like a coal-fired power plant does, and use that to run turbines which run electrical generators, like we have in all our coal plants or in hydro stations, people react, and we have legacy legislation prohibiting its exact use.

Why is it that people baulk? I think, having studied the psychology of this for many years, it's because people have had a trained emotional response because of the legacy fears about nuclear Armageddon as a result of the nuclear arms race. They've been misinformed or misled about the nature of what a powerplant is. A simple explanation is that it uses the wonders of fission with electrical rods that, when they get to a critical mass, heat up. The phenomenon of fission makes a lot of heat, just like the element of an old-fashioned kettle—you see those things around the ceramic base heating the water. Well, that's what happens in a nuclear power reactor, and that is enriched uranium—up to 4.9 per cent.

Mr Speaker, I want to reassure you that it is quite different from a nuclear bomb. A nuclear bomb needs 95 per cent enriched uranium—about 12 kilos of it—clustered in a little space, surrounded by huge amounts of physical explosive. There is no way a nuclear power reactor will ever become a nuclear bomb. Fukushima wasn't a nuclear bomb; it was a hydrogen gas explosion resulting from the intense heat because the cooling water stopped circulating. It wasn't a nuclear bomb. The Fukushima earthquake and tsunami killed 35,000 people. No people died from radiation exposure in Japan—not one, zippo, none.

But I will continue. Australia is already a nuclear-ready nation. We have operated three nuclear reactors for many years—since the 1950s in fact. We still operate the OPAL reactor in Lucas Heights, which is surrounded by suburbia where houses go for $3 million, and no-one bats an eyelid. We have 1,300 people employed in nuclear and scientific activities within ANSTO. We have the Australian Safeguards and Non-Proliferation Office, which monitors our compliance with all the nonproliferation treaties around the world. We have ARPANSA, the Australian Radiation Protection and Nuclear Safety Agency, which is a world-class institution. Australia is a part of the International Atomic Energy Agency. We are a part of the fourth-generation nuclear power plants forum, called the Generation IV International Forum, which is researching and designing fourth-generation reactors. These are the newer and latest models, which will come into being in the next 10 or 15 years.

Now, I've visited Canada and America and I've looked at some of these new, small modular reactors that everyone's talking about. They are ready to roll. They are going through final licensing. They're not some far-off, distant development. They are a mini version and refined. Just like a Volvo car, the latest models are incredibly safe. They have lots of passive and safety features. Like the current mobile phones, they're quite different from the big bricks that you used to have to carry around as the first mobile phones. They're smaller and more powerful and they are safe. They have passive safety, and they won't be analysed until we remove the prohibitions in the ARPANS Act— (Time expired)

Milton Dick (Speaker) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Is the motion seconded?

Keith Pitt (Hinkler, National Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I second the motion and reserve my right to speak later.

Fiona Phillips (Gilmore, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I will always rise to set the record straight when it comes to the Liberals' and Nationals' obsession with nuclear power. All I can say is that I'm so glad to stand here today as the member for Gilmore and as part of the Albanese-Labor government, because this is the best assurance our community on the New South Wales South Coast can have against a nuclear reactor endangering our community and putting our pristine Jervis Bay at risk of harm.

That is what the Liberals and Nationals would do if they had the chance; if our community, with me standing with them, I am proud to say, didn't tell them each and every time they bring it up, 'No, we will not accept it.' That's what we do every time this obsession of theirs is raised. We point out, as I will again now for the member for Lyne and anyone else in the coalition ranks who needs to hear it, that nuclear is not an option. I know that the Liberals and Nationals don't seem to care about the inherent risk this would place our community in. They don't seem to care about the inherent risk to our farmers and farming land, or the risk to our health or our tourism industry. They don't seem to care about the risk it will place on our beautiful Jervis Bay Marine Park, our environment and our native wildlife. That much is clear, or we wouldn't still be having this conversation.

So let's talk in a language the Liberals might understand. The coalition are constantly banging on about bringing down the cost of energy. They say nuclear is the way to do that, but it has been proven that the costs of nuclear power do not stack up. The CSIRO continues to state that nuclear energy would far and away be the most expensive form of energy in this country. Nuclear energy produces less power now than 10 years ago, while wind and solar continue to grow. The capital cost of nuclear energy per kilowatt hour has increased, not decreased. A report from 2020 states:

… the costs of renewables continue to fall due to incremental manufacturing and installation improvements, while nuclear, despite over half a century of industrial experience, continue to see costs rising.

'What report is that from?' I hear you ask. It's from the World Nuclear Industry Status Report. Even the nuclear industry admits that it doesn't stack up.

In the last parliament, the Standing Committee on the Environment and Energy held an inquiry into nuclear energy. I sat on that inquiry, and we heard from expert after expert who said the same thing: there is no evidence for nuclear energy in Australia. Dr Ziggy Switkowski, a nuclear physicist and Chancellor of RMIT, told the committee that there is 'no coherent business case to finance an Australian nuclear industry'. There is simply no evidence that nuclear energy could or would bring cheaper power to Australia. What do all the experts agree can bring cheaper power to Australia? Renewable energy. Wind and solar. Cleaner, cheaper power is in renewables. But the Liberals and Nationals must have had their fingers in their ears during that inquiry, because the message still has not sunk in. So here I am, once again standing up for our community.

I was highly amused recently when the Liberals on the south coast whipped themselves into a frenzy about fantasy wind project proposals. We have no wind industry on the south coast, so there is no conversation yet to be had on these or any other projects. That didn't stop them trying to drum up hysteria, though. They said they are worried about the potential look and about the potential noise. What did I hear were whispers of the solution? Nuclear power instead. Apparently, if tourists were to come to Kiama to see our famous majestic blowhole, they would rather see a nuclear reactor blocking their view than some wind turbines off in the distance. It beggars belief.

Once again, I will promise this to the people of the south coast: I will always stand in the way of anyone who thinks our beautiful coastline can be muddied with a nuclear reactor. I will stand with each and every person, farmer, business owner and conservationist who knows that nuclear power can only do more damage than good in our community. I say to the Liberals and Nationals, both here and on the south coast, who continue to tout this as a solution to our country's energy needs: we will oppose you at each and every opportunity. We will not have nuclear power on the south coast—not now, not ever.

Keith Pitt (Hinkler, National Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

The blackout specialists are at it again over there. The problem with their proposal is it doesn't work. That is clear to anyone that was in Queensland and saw the loss of power to entire suburbs with blackouts over the weekend. We have seen load shedding across industry because what they are proposing doesn't work.

Mr Speaker, I refer you to an incredibly good article by Claire Lehmann in the Australian on 3 February, 'The clean energy revolution hides a very dirty secret'. It's based on facts. The proposal from those opposite is some two million hectares of solar across this country—a product which lasts maybe, on average, 20 years, so every 20 years it has to be replaced. I've had reports of a new solar farm at Gympie, which still isn't connected, that lost 20 per cent of its panels—100,000 panels—in a hailstorm over Christmas. In Ms Lehmann's article, she says that in China alone waste from solar panels would add up to 20 million tonnes of waste, 2,000 times the weight of the Eiffel Tower, by 2050, and Australia will accumulate one million tonnes of solar panel waste by 2047.

We hear all of the scare campaigns and the scare tactics from those opposite. It's all about the half life. I can tell you: heavy metals don't have a half life. They don't expire. They're there forever. They are in these parts and they have to be dealt with. These are the points that we continue to make. It is about facts. Ms Lehmann's article also identifies:

… nuclear reactors have produced 390,000 tonnes of spent fuel since the 1950s, solar panels are estimated to create 78 million tonnes of hazardous waste by 2050, 200 times the amount …

A technology that has been in place for decades.

Those opposite say that there is no place for nuclear in Australia, it's a terrible solution and it's awful, but that's not what they say in the United States, France, the UK, South Korea, the UAE or anywhere else that is using this technology, because it works. It is consistent. If you want something which is zero emissions and will last for decades, this is an opportunity for Australia to look at it.

In the United States—once again back to facts—they produce about 2,000 metric tonnes of spent fuel every year. That sounds like a significant amount, but it is incredibly dense, which means it is very heavy by volume. That is the equivalent of less than half an Olympic swimming pool to power more than 70 million homes, and it avoids more than 400 million metric tonnes of carbon dioxide emissions. That sounds like a pretty good solution to me. In fact, the fuel can be recycled. It has more than 90 per cent of its potential energy still remaining in fuel after five years of operation in a reactor. That is straight from the United States Department of Energy. So if we're going to have a debate about this, let's make it about facts.

Another example: in South Korea, nuclear energy will account for 34.6 per cent of South Korea's electricity generation by 2036. It can be done.

If you wish to have zero emissions in this country from energy generation, you've got until 2050, yet those opposite propose to destroy industry in this country by driving up the cost of power. We saw interventions from them before Christmas, which are now reportedly going to cost some $1 billion dollars in subsidies for the coal sector, let alone for gas. And guess what? There's no gas to offer, because no gas company actually knows what their costs are. How do you offer a long-term contract on a product when you don't know what the government of the day are going to do in their mandatory code of practice and other changes?

We hear about wind as well. Here's some information from the Parliamentary Library on wind and waste: each blade can be between 25 and 100 metres long. It is expected that by 2050 a total of 43 million tonnes of wind turbine blade waste alone will be produced and accumulated around the globe—43 million tonnes!—93 per cent of which is a composite material which simply cannot be easily recycled. In fact, no-one has found a solution for that at all.

The proposal from those opposite is to have our energy systems rely on the unreliable; to rely on the weather; to accumulate literally millions of tonnes of waste right around the country, but particularly in Australia; and to level, clear and cover over two million hectares of this country with what is the equivalent of a giant tarpaulin that has to be replaced every 20 years. This is nonsense; the reason it won't work. Sun Cable are now in administration. Why? Because, as the front page of the Australian reported, one of the proponents said it was not technically feasible—yet those opposite are suggesting that we can run solar energy from Cairns to Melbourne and it would be technically feasible. (Time expired)

Josh Wilson (Fremantle, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

The idea that Australia should waste time, resources and taxpayers' money on the pursuit of nuclear energy is bananas. It is daft in the extreme. There is literally nothing in favour of that course of action. It would waste taxpayers' money on projects that are fundamentally uncommercial. It would delay the supply of new energy generation. It would make us more dependent on foreign technology. It would lock in higher energy prices for decades. It would create new health and environmental risks. It would have negative geostrategic consequences. That is some scorecard right there, yet the coalition, which couldn't settle a national energy policy in nine years and presided over a decrease in energy generation capacity, has now got just one bright idea: let's go nuclear.

They are obsessed with having a perpetual conversation about nuclear while complaining that we need to have a conversation about nuclear, never mind the Howard government inquiry chaired by Dr Ziggy Switkowski in 2006 or the South Australian royal commission or the New South Wales parliamentary inquiry or the inquiry by the Standing Committee on the Environment and Energy in the last parliament, back in 2019, that was chaired by the current shadow minister for energy, the member for Fairfax, and participated in by the member for Lyne. At that most recent inquiry, Dr Switkowski said:

… one of the things that have changed over the last decade or so is that nuclear power has got more expensive rather than less expensive.

All of the inquiries and endless conversations tell us that nuclear is the most expensive form of new generation and the slowest to deliver and the least flexible. Don't worry about the fact that nuclear is not being delivered on a commercial basis anywhere in the world or that the nuclear power industry, now more than 70 years old, has still not delivered a single permanent storage site for its high-level waste.

Those are the consistent conclusions reached by the same merry-go-round nuclear conversation we've been having for decades. That's why the existing ban under the EPBC Act is utterly sensible. It provides absolute clarity, and that clarity protects us from wasting precious time and resources. If for some insane reason you open the door to nuclear energy in Australia, the first thing you would need to do is establish a fit-for-purpose regulatory and oversight framework that would suck up millions of dollars in taxpayers' money. The budget requests of the Nuclear Regulatory Commission in the United States in 2022 was US$887 million. The first thing we would need, if we went down the crazy nuclear path proposed by those opposite, would be an expensive and distracting expansion of bureaucracy and red tape. The second thing you would get, for sure, is the nuclear white-shoe brigade, all the spruikers who would end up in these halls trying to chisel some taxpayers' money for their pet pilot projects. That's because nuclear energy is fundamentally uncommercial. It is funded by governments. The still-to-be-delivered NuScale small modular reactor project that is beloved of the nuclear fantasy crowd is being funded by government, and as predicted during the inquiry we held three years ago, NuScale has revised its costs upwards and upwards, including a 53 per cent jump in January this year.

For those who persist in pretending that nuclear is favoured elsewhere, this is from the World nuclear industry status report in 2019:

In 2018, ten nuclear countries generated more power with renewable than with fission energy. In spite of its ambitious nuclear program, China produced more power from wind alone than from nuclear plants. In India, in the fiscal year to March 2019, not only wind, but for the first time solar out-generated nuclear, and new solar is now competitive with existing coal plants in the market. In the European Union, renewables accounted for 95 percent of all new electricity generating capacity added in the past year.

The most recent report, from 2022, said:

Nuclear energy's share of global commercial gross electricity generation in 2021 dropped to 9.8 percent—the first time below 10 percent and the lowest value in four decades …

And, it said:

In 2021, wind and solar alone reached a 10.2 percent share of gross power generation, the first time, they provided more than 10 percent of global electricity and surpassed the contribution of nuclear energy.

Globally, the contribution of nuclear power to our energy needs continues to decline while the contribution of renewables grows strongly year on year. The bottom line is this: we know everything we need to know about nuclear energy technology. It is uncommercial. It is eye-wateringly expensive. It is slow and inflexible. It is toxic and dangerous. It has no solution for its own waste after 70 years. Nothing tells you more about the coalition's complete abandonment of any faintly sensible or reasonable position when it comes to energy policy than the fact that the only new idea they have is for Australia to go nuclear.

James Stevens (Sturt, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Australia already is nuclear. I rise to speak, most particularly, as a member from the city of Adelaide, which, until I heard some of the contributions earlier, I believed was receiving bipartisan support towards the decision made two years ago to obtain nuclear propelled submarines to be built in my home city of Adelaide.

My colleague and friend the member for Grey, of course, has about half the world's uranium in his electorate. He knows—and everyone in this chamber should know—that Australia has participated in the nuclear industry from many perspectives of the supply chain for many decades. As the member for Sturt, it's the future that I'm most concerned about when I hear some of the comments made by those opposite, particularly when it comes to the construction of nuclear submarines, which seems to now be in jeopardy, based on some of those remarks regarding safety.

There are always two elements to the debate about nuclear energy. One is economic and one is about safety and environmental concerns. This motion has nothing to do with economic points to do with nuclear energy because it's about removing a prohibition on it. It doesn't call for any taxpayer investment in building a particular nuclear plant, and, for those who understand the electricity market in this country—particularly in states that have a proper market operating—new generation comes into the market based on decisions that can be made by private capital, and they can't when you've got a prohibition on a certain technology. But, if there are economic arguments against any technology like nuclear energy, removing the ban won't change the economics of it, so the economic argument is completely irrelevant because no-one will put their private capital into an investment that is not going to achieve an economic return. That's the reason that we on this side of the chamber are so passionate about markets. So, when it comes to ruling out a technology on economic grounds, that means that you've got some kind of secret plan to dramatically change the way in which the electricity markets operate in this country, and that doesn't surprise us because, of course, you've been doing that very consistently and very recently.

But, on the safety side and on the dangerous rhetoric coming from those opposite, what we're effectively starting to understand about this government is that they have got a prejudice against nuclear technology. That is very concerning to anyone who relies on nuclear medicine. That is concerning to anyone, particularly from a state like mine. I'm representing many people who have an ambition to work in the nuclear industry into the future, particularly on the Future Submarine program, which involves nuclear technology, nuclear generation, nuclear reactors, frankly—small nuclear reactors, which are being demonised and attacked from a safety point of view. Eight of them, I understood, until this contribution from those opposite recently, were going into the bellies of submarines at construction yards in my home city of Adelaide as part of what I understood to be a bipartisan commitment towards the Royal Australian Navy being given a capability of nuclear propulsion within those submarines.

If that is now not the position of the government because of the points they've made about safety when it comes to small modular reactors, then it is the most spectacular revelation with unbelievable national security consequences that I have heard in my career in this chamber. If you're now junking nuclear subs because they're not safe and because, apparently, these reactors are dangerous and people do not want them—and we've heard even the minister rubbish the concept of small modular reactors—then I'd love to hear from other members of the government from Adelaide as to whether or not they support eight nuclear reactors being in the bellies of eight submarines that are being constructed in my home city of Adelaide, generating thousands of jobs for decades to come. If these reactors are unsafe, they're just as unsafe on the docks of Port Adelaide as they are in any other part of the nation. If you believe that the people of Adelaide are going to be unsafe with these nuclear reactors, then say so. I believe that's incorrect, and I am very passionately a supporter of nuclear submarine propulsion technology and of that happening in my home city of Adelaide. But, if the government now says that's dangerous and they're against it, firstly, come clean on it but, secondly, that is a dramatic and frightening revelation coming out of this debate.

Josh Burns (Macnamara, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I'm not sure if the previous speaker actually read the motion before the chair because what he spoke about had absolutely nothing to do with the topic that we're all discussing. But let me also say to the member for Sturt—

Opposition Members:

Opposition members interjecting—

Josh Burns (Macnamara, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I can hear some chirping from those in the cheap seats up the back, but I'm not going to pay much attention to them. I'll say this to the member for Sturt: we already have a nuclear reactor in Australia, at Lucas Heights in Sydney. It's currently producing really important compounds that help treat and detect cancers and other medical instruments. It's a really important industry. I've been there, and I've stood over our OPAL reactor and peered down into an incredible piece of engineering and technology and a really important part of our medical industry.

What we are talking about here is not whether or not we should have that sort of technology being developed. We're not talking about whether or not we're going to move towards nuclear powered submarines. We are talking about this fantasy that keeps being brought up by the National Party that, somehow, nuclear energy makes any sense whatsoever for the Australian energy market. I think the most compelling truth of the fantasy that is constantly being brought up by the National Party—and now, it appears, the new, young, dynamic aspects of the Liberal Party—is: if they were so keen on having a nuclear reactor to power our energy sector, you would've thought that maybe in the last decade, when these characters were on the treasury bench, they would've taken at least one step towards thinking about, maybe, potentially, sometime, building a nuclear reactor—but they didn't. They didn't go near it because it makes absolutely no financial sense whatsoever.

We clearly have nuclear technology in this country. We've had it for decades. That's not the question. The question is: for our energy sector, does it make one skerrick of sense to have a nuclear reactor powering our homes and powering our industry? The answer is no. Why? Because the thing is so expensive. If we were going to buy a large-scale nuclear reactor we would have to do things like upskill our engineering workforce. We would need to train nuclear scientists to not just deal with a nuclear reactor but deal with an energy-creating nuclear reactor. This has been the direct advice from ANSTO; they were very clear that, in their current capability, they would need to upskill and potentially import for the first few years a whole range of skills we currently don't have in Australia—that's not to say it's impossible; it's just part of the process—not to mention building this thing, which would take at least 10 to 12 years. Nuclear reactors rarely get built before they are scheduled to be completed. In America right now, especially for the small modular reactors, all the time lines are being pushed back and pushed back and pushed back and pushed back. It's just not feasible. We're talking about a technology that will not be created in the next 10 to 15 years, when we talk about the capability gap and construction costs. That's for a large-scale reactor.

Then these characters like to drone on about small modular reactors, which are in prototype form around the world. They're not there. There's no SMR that's been constructed in a factory and rolled out across multiple sites that's saving people millions and millions of dollars in construction and ongoing fees. It just doesn't exist yet. Now, that's not to say that at some stage we shouldn't have a look at SMRs; sure, let's have a look at them once they've been rolled out and we know they can operate safely, they can be managed and they actually save costs. According to their own report done by the CSIRO—not when we were in government but when these were people were in government—the CSIRO made it clear that small modular reactors are still more expensive than, or as expensive as, the large-scale reactors, and way more expensive than renewables.

Don't listen to the drivel that these people come into this place with, pretending that all of a sudden they've got this really fantastic, new whiz-bang idea. In the 10 years they had a chance to help shape our energy market, all they did at each and every stage was fight renewable energy being brought into the market. They did not do one thing to pursue the course of nuclear energy—not one. They didn't do it because they know it doesn't make sense. Unless they want Australian taxpayers' bills to skyrocket, they should drop this fantasy and focus on renewables because that's our future.

Michelle Landry (Capricornia, National Party, Shadow Assistant Minister for Manufacturing) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Australians are in the tight grip of a cost-of-living crisis. In my seat of Capricornia I hear from families who tell me they are struggling to put food on the table and a roof over their heads. Family owned businesses are battling to keep their doors open. Rising costs and supplies, manufacturing, and transport and energy are tearing these businesses down. One of the greatest challenges we currently face is skyrocketing energy prices. Now more than ever, we need to be working towards an effective and reliable means of energy production.

The Labor government have been absorbed in their need to meet climate change targets. They are relying heavily on renewables to deliver 82 per cent of Australia's energy supply by 2030 to reach their climate objectives. Renewable energy does have its part to play, but it is being set up to fail by Labor's complementary technology policies. Despite plans for over 80 per cent renewable energy by 2030, investment in this sector has plummeted since Labor came to government.

The Albanese government's plans to decarbonise the economy are not working. After just six months in government, they have already broken their promise to reduce our power bills by $275. In their October budget, it was predicted that electricity prices would increase by 55 per cent this year. Labor's panic-stricken legislation before Christmas to enforce a price fix on the energy market only created further pressure. Their rushed policies will result in things: bill blowouts and more blackouts.

The Albanese government is losing control of domestic supply. Their policies are restricting the use of our gas supplies and the development of gas resources that we have available. Without adequate access to energy-creating materials, it further forces us to rely on energy resources from overseas, especially from China. Our families are suffering and businesses are on their knees while they wait for Labor to find a tangible solution to this issue.

The Australian Workers Union estimates there will be 800,000 job losses if a solution is not found to being to drop energy prices. A local manufacturing business in my electorate has told me that, if something is not done to stop the increase in electricity prices, it will jeopardise their trade with overseas countries. Higher production costs have to be passed onto the consumer, leaving them struggling to be competitive in an already volatile overseas market. This family owned business has been around for generations. They have supported hundreds of locals with jobs, contributed significantly to the economy, and helped put manufacturing in Central Queensland on the map. This is just one business out of many across my electorate of Capricornia that is facing the same challenges.

We need to look at better short- and long-term solutions to our energy crisis. In the short to medium term, the focus needs to be on supply. While in government, the coalition ensured that gas continued to come onto the market to support the demand for power. Unfortunately, the current government has not been engaging with the market and states to unlock more gas for use during this energy crisis.

Labor has no long-term solution. They are floundering and taking stabs in the dark, which threatens to leave Australians in the dark. Now is the time to talk nuclear and the role that it can play alongside other technologies to reduce how we pay for electricity and strengthen our manufacturing businesses. In order to achieve an outcome that meets climate change objectives while also lowering the cost of energy, our focus must move to new technology.

Countries all over the world are successfully harnessing a range of technologies, including nuclear energy, to assist in lowering power prices. Thirty-three nations are currently operating with nuclear power, while another 50 are working on implementing nuclear energy programs to fix their power price crisis. Seventy per cent of France's energy supply is constituted by nuclear. The United Kingdom, a country not unlike our own, has plans underway for nuclear energy to form 25 per cent of its energy mix by 2050. These countries are ensuring they have reliable and low-cost solutions to power their nations.

Australia possesses the largest uranium reserves in the world and is the world's third-largest supplier of this resource, but we do not power our own country with nuclear energy. This untapped energy source produces no greenhouse gas emissions during operation and has a 24/7 base-load power that can be adjusted to meet the sporadic nature of renewable resources like solar and wind. Nuclear ticks all the boxes: friendly to the environment, reliable and cheap. Now is the time to begin discussions on nuclear and help our nation to begin to recover from this crisis.

Graham Perrett (Moreton, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

r PERRETT () (): The Nationals are banging the drum on nuclear energy. It's deja vu all over again, isn't it? It's always the same. I will include a few Liberal members in this as well who are representing the people in the bush. Anytime they're asked by the people in the bush to do something about dangerous climate change and reducing emissions, they go straight to the old nuclear power playbook: 'If irrelevant, break glass.' We've heard it all before. It's funny. I heard the member for Capricornia talk about nuclear power, and she didn't mention the coal-fired power station the Nationals committed to in Collinsville that they didn't deliver when in office.

The fundamental flaw in this motion right from the word go—with their happy go-to strategy—is that they didn't actually do anything about nuclear power when they were in government. No-one should be under any misapprehension here: this is just another attempt to undermine this country's need to transition to renewables. We didn't see former Minister Pitt or the member for Cook—the other minister for mines—bring in a policy for nuclear energy when they were in government. They had a decade to move on their nuclear ambitions and did not do so. If this is such an important and urgent need, why didn't they lift a finger during those dark ages from 2013 to 2022?

This morning's posturing is nothing more than a rearguard attempt to undermine and deny a transition to renewables—the equivalent of a policy Hail Mary, for those who are hanging out for the American football final coming up next week. As the energy minister, Chris Bowen, said in parliament last year:

What this represents is the third quiver in the armoury of those who don't want to see Australia take action on climate change. They accompany delay and denial with distraction.

Everyone knows, except those in the LNP, that nuclear energy is by far the most expensive form of energy. Compounding this further, as Australia doesn't have much of a nuclear industry, it makes it even more expensive Down Under.

You've heard in the debate those opposite talking about the small modular reactors, or SMRs, and about how successfully they're being built right across the globe. The opposition leader spruiked that they're being built in Canada, France, Japan, South Korea, the UK and the US, but guess what? The number of SMRs being built in those countries is a big fat zero. The only country where we have at least some movement beyond an announcement is in the US where the figures for the price of energy from proposed SMRs is going up and up and up. From 2016 to 2020, NuScale and UAMPS said that the power price of the SMR would be just US$55 per megawatt hour. That's competitive, as the member for Hunter would know—he knows energy very well—but then it went up to US$58 per megawatt hour. And get this! The increased price included the project being halved in size and output.

A more detailed report recently says it has gone up to US$89 per megawatt hour. In anyone's language, except maybe that of the member for Fairfax, US$89 per megawatt hour isn't cheap energy. But it's actually more bleak than that. When you dig under the surface, the project expects to receive a US$1.4 billion contribution from the Department of Energy, which will deliver an estimated US$30 per megawatt hour subsidy through the Inflation Reduction Act, on top of the US taxpayer pumping in more than US$4 billion in subsidies to NuScale and UAMPS. It's hardly a ringing endorsement of where private capital should be investing. So we have an actual SMR project heavily subsidised by the US taxpayers that shrunk in scope by 50 per cent, delivering sometime in the never-never some of the most expensive energy on the planet at a real cost of around US$119 per megawatt hour, and that's even before it starts being built.

I didn't get an invite to the opposition's nuclear love-in last year, but I think there was a bit of backslapping about how good the SMR in the US was going to be—but look at that real cost. We know this because every energy expert with a scrap of integrity knows that nuclear is the most expensive and slowest form of energy to implement. We have cost-of-living pressures right now. We can't wait 15, 16 or 20 years to deliver a higher cost of energy. Nuclear power doesn't make sense. We know that, despite over 50 years of industrial experience, costs go up and up and up.

Mike Freelander (Macarthur, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

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