Kate Thwaites (Jagajaga, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Make no mistake, climate denialism is alive and well in the Liberal Party room. Of course, the latest form of denialism is not to outright deny but to put up smokescreens for denial, specifically to suggest that nuclear energy is the right path for Australia's transition to energy. The shadow minister, the member for Fairfax, really gave the game away on that form of denial in his recent 7.30 interview, when he said words to the effect of, 'Well, yes, we do want coal to last for as long as possible.' It is astonishing that a party that likes to present itself as sound economic managers in this place would endorse such an unviable, ruinously expensive and hazardous venture as nuclear energy in this country—an industry that currently doesn't exist here, that essentially hasn't been developed in the form being proposed by those opposite anywhere in the world, that all the experts tell us would be the most expensive, most uncertain way for Australia to meet our future power needs and that Australian power companies have said they want nothing to do with. This is just the climate denial wolf dressed up in nuclear sheep's clothing. Australians deserve a government that secures their nation's energy future and that is on their side, working to drive costs down—not on a horrifically expensive, ideologically driven nuclear frolic.