Sharon Claydon (Newcastle, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I move:

That this House:

(1) recognises the investments the Government is making in cleaner, cheaper, reliable renewable energy as we undergo the transformation to net zero by 2050, including:

(a) supporting investment in 32 gigawatts (GW) of new renewable generation and storage across Australia through the expanded Capacity Investment Scheme;

(b) delivering Australian homes and businesses cheaper, cleaner energy now and into the future; and

(c) a $22.7 billion Future Made in Australia package which will help Australia become a renewable energy superpower;

(2) notes the latest GenCost report prepared by the independent expert bodies, the Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organisation and the Australian Energy Market Operator, found that:

(a) the cost of power from small modular nuclear reactors would be up to eight times more expensive than finned large-scale wind and solar;

(b) building just one large-scale nuclear power plant would cost up to $16 billion; and

(c) bringing nuclear online would be too slow to keep the lights on, with GenCost confirming that 'the first full operation would be no sooner than 2040' for small modular nuclear reactors, and years later for large-scale nuclear reactors; and

(3) agrees that the Opposition's risky reactor thought bubble is not a viable solution for energy shortages between now and 2040, after 24 coal plants totalling 26.7 GW announced closure dates under the former Government.

I rise to speak to this motion moved in my name. I'm very proud to be part of an Albanese Labor government that takes climate change and energy security seriously. We remain steadfastly committed to delivering the clean, cheap, reliable and resilient renewable energy that Australians want and deserve as we undergo the transformation to net zero by 2050. We took this commitment to the Australian people, who gave us the mandate to implement our plan in government.

In just over two years, the Albanese Labor government has made massive progress on our reliable renewables plan, with now a 25 per cent increase of renewable energy into our grid. Through our government's expanded Capacity Investment Scheme, renewable generation and storage capacity will increase to 32 gigawatts by 2050. The scheme, designed to encourage new investment in renewable growth industries, such as wind, solar and battery storage, will bring more jobs and investment into carbon-intensive regions like Newcastle and the Hunter as well as ensuring cleaner, cheaper and more reliable energy to Australian homes and businesses now and into the future. The government's $22.7 billion Future Made in Australia package will help Australia become a renewable energy superpower and deliver good jobs for Australians.

Newcastle and the Hunter have helped power Australian households and industries for generations, and it is regions like mine that will continue to do so for generations to come. Newcastle has the world-class infrastructure, deepwater port, highly skilled workforce, abundant resources and energy smarts to be a lead in the transformation to renewables. That's why Labor is making targeted investments into Newcastle. We've invested $70 million in Origin to help develop a Hunter hydrogen hub in collaboration with Orica. Two out of the six national projects shortlisted for the $4 billion Hydrogen Headstart program are based in Newcastle. Last week, the Minister for Climate Change and Energy was in Newcastle to announce that a feasibility licence had been given to Novocastrian Wind, a joint project between Equinor and Oceanex which is the next step in building a new offshore wind industry in Australia. If approved, the Novocastrian wind farm will create 3,120 construction jobs and another 1,560 ongoing operational jobs in Newcastle and the Hunter.

North-west of Newcastle, plans are underway to manufacture world-leading solar cells at the old Liddell coal-fired power station. The solar project will employ hundreds of people, more than were ever actually employed when the power station was in fact operational. At the Port of Newcastle, construction has started on a new low-carbon manufacturing plant that will, in partnership with an amazing local manufacturer, MCi Carbon, transform more than 1,000 tonnes of CO2 per annum and provide decarbonisation pathways for hard-to-abate sectors, including steel, cement, mining, chemicals and manufacturing.

We're training our future workforce to ensure we have a future made in Newcastle by investing 600,000 fee-free TAFE places, providing $10,000 to support new energy apprentices over the course of their apprenticeship and investing $16 million at the University of Newcastle new energy skills hub.

In stark contrast to Labor's track record, the same people who told us that we didn't need to worry about climate change for the last 10 years are now telling us that the answer to climate change is nuclear. They didn't do anything about that when they had the chance. The Australian people are right to call out this nuclear nonsense as being nothing more than a desperate attempt to distract us from renewables. This is reckless policymaking at its worst. Nuclear energy is wrong for Australia. It is too expensive, too slow to keep the lights on and far too risky. Indeed, CSIRO's GenCost calculations found that nuclear is not economically competitive with renewables and will take at least 15 years to build. That is not the government saying this; these are the findings of the independent and much-respected CSIRO. They go on to note that the long development times mean that nuclear won't be able to make a significant contribution to achieving net zero emissions by 2050.

There is much to be said about taking notice of science based evidence in Australia. I would say that there is much that we don't know about the opposition's plans, and the Australian people have every right to ask questions. What I do know is that every scientist and expert is backing Labor's renewable reliable plan.

Marion Scrymgour (Lingiari, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Is there a seconder for the motion?

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

I second the motion and reserve my right to speak.

Zoe Daniel (Goldstein, Independent) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Let's get one thing clear: climate change is not a football match, where we have the luxury of barracking for one side or the other. It's a fact, or rather a set of facts, and managing it is not optional or something to be kicked down the road. Climate change is already affecting us all. Concern about it and the lack of cohesive policy to mitigate it and prepare for it were big factors in the outcome of the 2022 election. This goes directly to the current debate that we're having about renewable energy and carbon reduction targets and the need for calm, consistent policymaking on these matters.

People in rural and regional Australia are on the front line of climate change. Storms of greater frequency, fires of greater intensity, repeating floods, escalating insurance costs—all these things are having a shocking impact on Australians who live outside major cities. This is of great concern to those who live in both urban and rural Australia, because we're in this together. This affects our economy, this affects our community, this affects our people. I note that the coalition is confecting a city-country divide where none exists, not for our collective future but for what they believe is their survival. Meanwhile, Victoria's south-west coast received the lowest rainfall on record in the nine months to May. Western Victoria overall has also experienced record dry conditions between February and May this year. Farmers report the driest conditions in decades, with ewes deserting their offspring and lambs starving. This is where the focus should be, not on political pointscoring.

As someone who grew up in regional Australia and who later lived and worked in regional Australia, including covering fires and floods as a journalist, I'm not going to allow the coalition to run around unchecked creating a city-country divide to save their political skins. I note that during the last sitting the member for Indi moved more than a dozen amendments to support regional communities under the Net Zero Economy Authority Bill. These amendments were supported by the crossbench but not by the National Party or the Liberal Party. Enough of the phony outrage designed to divide and delay rather than fix it faster.

In Bayside, Melbourne, which I represent, predictions are that parts of waterfront suburbs will be under water in the future due to climate-change-related sea-level rise. Serious coastal erosion around Port Phillip Bay is already a major problem that local councils are grappling with, frustrated with the lack of cohesion between the various levels of government.

This is not State of Origin. This is not mate against mate. We're all in this together—not that the government should be smug about its record. Many members of the Goldstein community can't see much difference between Scott Morrison's so-called gas led recovery and this government's Future Gas Strategy, which sees the Commonwealth subsidising fossil fuel giants out to 2050.

Indeed, we should be earmarking gas for domestic consumption at a price reflecting the fact that it's a resource for all Australians, and appropriately taxing export profits to fund the renewable energy transition. How ridiculous that there is talk of winter gas shortages when 80 per cent of our gas goes overseas, and when those that we export it to, Japan specifically, are apparently re-exporting it to others, according to the Institute for Energy Economics and Financial Analysis. The indications are also that we will struggle to achieve the government's target of 82 per cent renewable energy by 2030, the key to getting to a 43 per cent reduction in carbon emissions as promised by Labor at the election and legislated shortly after coming to office. This will not be helped by either new fossil fuel projects approved by Labor or flip-flopping on renewables by the coalition as it goes nuclear but provides no detail on cost.

Now, I'm not an ideological opponent of nuclear, but my questions are these: How much will it cost to build and run? Isn't it the case that the energy will be more expensive? What's the realistic timeframe? What's the business case for doing it when, unlike most countries, we have abundant cheaper alternatives? 'Trust me,' the opposition says with no costings; no estimates on how much power nuclear would supply, how much more gas would be required to underpin this and how much water would be needed to run the reactors; little community warning on consultation; where the waste will go—and on and on go the unanswered questions. As Dennis Denuto put it in The Castle, the Leader of the Opposition wants us to believe in the vibe, but this is real, not a movie. Stack up the evidence or get on with the transition. (Time expired)

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

Here we are, only a few days from the bizarre event at which the Leader of the Opposition filed to provide any detail about his nuclear fantasy apart from the seven reactor locations, which we more or less already knew. It was good to see the coalition finally acknowledge that nuclear is so profoundly uncommercial and uninsurable that the only way any reactor would ever be built in Australia would be through an eye-watering Sydney-Harbour-scale waste of taxpayer money. We still don't know how much they would cost to build, when they might be operational, how much energy they would deliver, which country and company would build them, what the price of energy would be and for how long guaranteed offtake agreements would run. There was also a lot of confusion about how the consultation would work and whether that would be genuine consultation in any meaningful sense.

It's interesting to note that the shadow minister for energy, when he chaired an inquiry into nuclear power generation into 2019, chose as the title for his inquiry report Not without your approval: a way forward for nuclear technology in Australia. Now it sounds like he's shifted to a different title altogether: more like 'You will get nuclear when we tell you to get nuclear'.

It's interesting to see how much credit the Leader of the Opposition is getting from some commentators for being brave enough to make a paper-thin announcement with no detail, based on a proposition that can fairly be described as deeply unintelligent. If you look to what the actual experts say, as the ABC has reported, Damien Nicks, of AGL Energy, said:

… the cost, build time and public opinion are all prohibitive.

Jeff Dimery, CEO of Alinta Energy, compared the federal opposition's plans to replace coal plants with nuclear power to 'looking for unicorns in the garden'. Brett Chatfield, Chief Investment Officer of Cbus Super, said:

We don't see nuclear as really a part of the energy transition going forward.

Of course, we know that even the head of the IEA has said nuclear isn't the right choice for Australia.

I want to take a minute to give people at home a sense of the global reality when it comes to the comparison of nuclear to renewables. In 2022 there was US$495 billion invested in non-hydro renewables. That was a 35 per cent increase from the previous year and represented 74 per cent of all new generation investment. In the same year, the nuclear spend was only US$35 billion. That's barely seven per cent of the spend on renewables. In 2022 the world added 348 gigawatts of renewable energy and only four gigawatts of nuclear. Last year, 2023, the world added 440 gigawatts of renewables, a 26 per cent jump on the previous year. Meanwhile, net nuclear energy capacity globally actually decreased by one gigawatt. Last year, China alone added 217 gigawatts of renewables and only one gigawatt of nuclear.

Let's compare a nuclear reactor to a hydro storage project with similar dispatchable power capacity. The British nuclear reactor Hinkley Point C, being built by the French company EDF, which was renationalised last year on the brink of bankruptcy, is already hugely delayed and has already experienced a massive cost blowout. The site was selected in 2010. Currently, it's predicted to commence operation in 2031. That is 21 years from go to woah for a country that has operated nuclear for a long time. At present, it will cost $90 billion for three gigawatts of energy, and it depends on a 35-year offtake agreement under which the British government guarantees to buy all the electricity produced at an indexed price that's already considerably more than what they pay for wind energy from the North Sea. On the other side of the equation, you have Snowy 2.0, a hydro storage project for firming renewable energy, commissioned by the Turnbull government. At present, it will cost $12 billion and dispatch two gigawatts of energy, with a much shorter time frame from announcement to delivery and no long-term waste legacy issues and costs. The former is the very definition of a multidecade economic disaster, for which the British will continue to depend upon the French. The latter is an example of the cost-effective transition we're making to an affordable and substantially Australian-made clean energy independence. The latter is the kind of outcome you get from the sensible and responsible, fully costed, fully detailed, adult national energy policy of the Albanese government. What you would get from the coalition would be a massive blow to Australia as an investment destination and as a trusted regional global partner, through their decision to trash the Paris climate agreement while at the same time putting Australia in hock for generations by wasting hundreds of billions of dollars on a 70-year-old technology that is in decline globally and for which we will always be dependent on another government. Let's have that debate, by all means.

Melissa McIntosh (Lindsay, Liberal Party, Shadow Minister for Energy Affordability) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

The Albanese Labor government's motion talks about cheaper energy. Clearly, every member opposite advocating for this motion has forgotten their commitment at the last election to reduce power bills for Australians by $275. The default market offer released recently demonstrated that Western Sydney residents needed the reference price to drop by $1,000 to reach the Albanese Labor government's target of $275 less on power bills by 2025, from 2022 prices.

Small businesses facing the crunch in this energy affordability crisis will continue to struggle, regardless of a $325 hit from the government next financial year. There is a gym in Penrith, in my electorate in Western Sydney, with energy costs that have more than doubled, from $13,000 to $27½ thousand. A local manufacturer in Emu Plains said their energy bills have gone up 100 per cent. A defence manufacturing contractor in Jamisontown recently told me that they are struggling to stay open. How are small and family businesses and medium-sized enterprises across Western Sydney and, of course, all across Australia meant to survive under such financial burdens?

We have seen a mass closure of manufacturers under the Albanese Labor government's watch, since May 2022. This harms local jobs. Western Sydney is crying out for more opportunities for locals to work across our community. We cannot afford to lose such important jobs for those with skills in manufacturing. They are desperately needed. And let's not forget the need for more gas supply in the domestic market. Almost half of manufacturers that use heating processes need natural gas. We need more gas approvals to ensure our sovereign capability is not at risk.

I wrote an op-ed for the Daily Telegraph last week in which I said that many manufacturers need 24/7 power, particularly in the form of gas, to ensure they can keep producing steel, aluminium and plastic products. These are the manufacturers in Western Sydney—heavy-industry manufacturers that create local jobs. The Albanese Labor government does not get this. I walk the floors of these manufacturers, and they simply can't put solar panels on their roofs and hope for the best. Gas is needed for them now.

The Minister for Climate Change and Energy has been busy fighting the ideological fight in his op-eds. Guess what. The coalition isn't putting ideology into the debate. Rather, we have a technology-agnostic approach to reaching net zero emissions by 2050 in a way that will ensure affordable and reliable power for all Australians. We have a minister who admitted that he didn't need to legislate his net zero target but chose to for investment purposes. Well, let's lift the ban on nuclear for civil industry in this country to see what investment can take place. But I know that neither the minister nor the rest of those opposite will want to do this. This is despite all G20 countries except Australia using nuclear energy. Why is it good for other major economies across the world but not for Australia? Why is it okay for our submariners to be in nuclear powered submarines but not for nuclear to power industry and homes across Australia? They're all quiet on the other side when the coalition members mention this.

It is a fact: nuclear will cost a lot less than the $1.2 trillion to $1.5 trillion figure for the renewables-only approach thanks to this Labor government. Labor's approach would require up to 58 million solar panels, 3,500 new industrial wind turbines and up to 28,000 kilometres of new transmission lines across Australia. There is no country in the world that relies on solar and wind alone in the way that Labor is proposing to. By contrast, there are 32 countries operating zero-emissions nuclear plants, and another 50 countries are looking to do so.

The coalition is happy to continue having this debate with Labor and will continue talking to the Australian public about its realistic approach to energy policy to bring down power prices for everyday Australians when they are struggling so much in this cost-of-living crisis, to ensure 24/7 energy and to create a new long-lasting industry for this country. Everyone across Western Sydney wants this, and every Australian deserves it.

Libby Coker (Corangamite, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I thank the member for Newcastle for moving this important motion. It provides a valuable opportunity to recognise the significant steps our government is taking to provide cheaper, cleaner, reliable renewable energy as we undergo the transition to net zero emissions by 2050 and to 43 per cent emissions reduction by 2030. This comes at the time of the coalition's disastrous, half-baked nuclear energy announcement. It was an announcement that left Australians in the dark. It was all bluster—no detail. It was a three-page media release, a trojan horse to enable more fossil fuels for longer while rejecting climate action.

The details we have simply don't stack up. All we know is that there are several locations for reactors. But what about the massive cost of the scheme, the timeframe to build these risky reactors, the size and number of reactors and the safety of communities living nearby? My communities are already asking, 'How much will Dutton's nuclear thought bubble cost me and my family?' The coalition has no answer. They say they will let us know after the election. Well, that is just not good enough—not when it's about the health and preservation of our planet, the safety of communities and the environment, our global commitment to the Paris Agreement and the enormous cost it will impose on households if it even happens. It's chaos, because the opposition's plan is toxic and confusing and will cost a bomb.

Even the Leader of the Opposition, only a year ago, said:

I don't support the establishment of big nuclear facilities here at all. I'm opposed to it.

So what's changed? The fact is that we have an election coming and the coalition have no policies; this is the only thing they've got. Government is about more than thought bubbles. Unlike the coalition, the Albanese government has a solid plan that is costed; reduces emissions; drives down power bills; creates clean, green jobs; and protects our planet from the ravages of climate change.

The recent GenCost report backs in a renewables future and makes it clear that nuclear reactors would be costly and complex and take decades to build. The report by the CSIRO and AEMO found the cost of power for small modular nuclear reactors would be up to eight times more expensive than large-scale wind and solar. It also found nuclear would be too slow to keep the lights on, with GenCost confirming the first full operation would be no sooner than 2040—that's 26 years away at least—for small modular nuclear reactors and would be years later for large-scale nuclear reactors. The report also confirms the opposition's half-baked thought bubble is not a viable solution to meet energy shortages between now and 2040.

When it comes to implementation, there are more questions: How much nuclear waste will be produced? How much energy will be created? How much gas and coal will be needed in the energy mix, and how will this affect industry confidence in renewables investment, as well as jobs? And, finally, will the coalition override states and communities who say no to nuclear reactors? We do know that all eastern states have recently rejected the coalition's nuclear fantasy. They are backing renewables. The Albanese government is backing renewables because it makes absolute sense for energy security, for household energy bills, for our environment and for urgent action on climate change.

Since coming to government, we've approved more than 50 renewable energy projects. We've got more than three million Australian homes powered by renewables. We're supporting investment in 32 gigawatts of new renewable generation and storage across Australia through the Capacity Investment Scheme. We're delivering Australian homes and businesses cheaper, cleaner energy, and we're investing $22.7 billion in our Future Made in Australia package to drive our nation as a renewable energy superpower.

My communities in Corangamite welcome this. They want climate action now. They want a safe, clean, cost-effective energy future, and that's exactly what the Albanese government is delivering.

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

I can't agree with the premise of this. We have to have a total reality check about the misinformation that's been peddled for 15 years about a renewable system being cheap. An individual renewable generator might be cheap, and it bloody well should be—I take that back. It really should be because it doesn't deliver much energy. The capacity factor of renewables is incredibly low. Would you build a car that only worked 15, 10 or five per cent of the time? No, you wouldn't.

Well, the proponents on the other side are suggesting that we build up to 82 per cent renewables as the base for our electricity system. The full system cost of electricity under renewables is incredibly expensive because it firstly has to be overbuilt to try and, at least on paper, make up for the low-capacity factor. The University of Melbourne, the University of Queensland and Princeton uni have actually analysed this cost. It's called the Net-Zero Australia Study. It took all the highly trained academics and researchers two years, and their landmark report pointed out the cost that is needed by 2030 for the scheme. It's an absolute bargain! It's $1.3 to $1.5 trillion for a renewables-only system.

A renewables system is justified by the LCOE metric, but the levelised cost of energy, which is in the GenCost report—the CSIRO badged report—is the cost of generation. The generators don't set your electricity price. The grid and the delivery of electricity set the price, and that's the levelised cost of energy for the full system. For a grid built on renewables, that is incredibly expensive. That's what Princeton uni, Melbourne uni and Queensland uni have published and put on the record with a straight face. That is what it's going to cost Australia. It also means carpeting the equivalent of the state of Victoria with solar farms and wind farms.

Nuclear costs have been analysed by many bodies, including the United Nations, the EU, the OECD and Australian academics like the former Labor candidate for the seat of Goulburn—a good colleague of mine—Mr Robert Parker. A trained engineer who has a master's in nuclear science from ANU, he and Robert Barr, who runs Electric Power Consulting and came out of the New South Wales electricity commission, have actually done the cost, and a baseload system based on nuclear energy is the best solution both for the climate and the economy. Renewables based systems not only cost a fortune to build; they have a short lifespan, a huge geographic footprint and need massive backup with batteries. You need to expand the grid. A minimum of 10,000 kilometres is proposed at the moment, but if you really want to make hydrogen all over the country you will have to make about 23,000 kilometres. What it doesn't tell you is that, with this renewable system, your house, your battery, your car's battery are going to be the backups for a system that will inevitably fail.

During May, wind generation in Australia did what wind generation always does around this time of year. We had some beautifully sunny days and weeks. You couldn't feel a breath of wind. The amount of generation in most of these wind farm areas was in the single figures on more days than not. That's why you need all these massive backups of batteries and pumped hydro schemes that are yet to be built. It is absolutely misleading when people say that a renewables based system is cheap. Renewables will have a place in any system, but you can't use it as the baseload. Baseload energy is the same as every other energy: it's got to be there with frequency control, with the right voltage, at the right place, and it has to be reliable. You can't have a system if it depends on the weather. You can't run a nation depending on the weather.

Matt Burnell (Spence, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I thank the member for Newcastle for moving this motion. In this debate, I've heard my parliamentary colleagues discuss the many policies the Albanese Labor government have implemented to boost our renewable energy and battery storage capacity: policies that bring cheaper and cleaner forms of energy for Australian families and businesses now and into the future—a future made in Australia, with $22.7 billion that will cement Australia's place as a superpower in the renewable energy sector.

The member for Newcastle's motion does another thing: it provides us with some evidence of her powers of clairvoyance, predicting that, 687 days after the Leader of the Opposition's nuclear thought bubble, they would go in front of the media and announce some of the details of that policy. That was last week. They rewarded us for our patience with a pamphlet masquerading as a policy. It is around 4½ pages of detail double line spaced, roughly 2,000 words shallow, after all this time. You can even smell the crayon coming right off the page. It's left many with more questions than answers—answers the opposition either are withholding from the Australian people or haven't bothered to come up with yet. They are Australia's most expensive improv troupe. I am not quite sure which of the two possibilities is less terrifying. It is a document that mentions Labor eight times in their centrepiece policy. But it is a real policy because it's printed on real paper, using real ink and real staples! It's more fizzer than fission.

The Leader of the Opposition may have launched this 4½-page pamphlet flanked by his colleagues the member for Maranoa, the member for Farrer, the member for Hume and the member for Fairfax, but, perhaps as a curious design choice, none of the above were pictured on the cover, deciding against Tony Abbott's pre-election pamphlet design back in 2013. I think even they know that, if they'd had the gang of five pictured, it would have been taken even less seriously, because everyone knows they have no business being involved in a credible energy policy, especially after the 22 policy failures they've seen collectively from their time in office.

With the amount of time they've had to work on this, you can't even call it policy on the run, but it is certainly policy underdone. When the CSIRO released their GenCost report, outlining the absurdity of introducing nuclear power into Australia's energy mix for its suitability, cost and timeliness, basically throwing those opposite a lifeline to say that they had heard the experts out and gone back to the drawing board, they just doubled down. They disputed the CSIRO's modelling and said they knew better. What would scientists know anyway? Even if any number of the local communities around these proposed sites don't want a bar of their proposal, as Senator Davey rudely discovered last week, that won't matter either. Those opposite know better. What would they know?

Those opposite have, however, pointed to internal polling saying that everyone living around the proposed nuclear sites loves the idea. Much like their modelling, their costings and, effectively, everything else that would collectively amount to being an actual policy, it is either not there or purposely hidden from view. They would have you believe that their policy would end up with nuclear power plants being built and running as soon as 2035 and that there won't be any delays or costs blowouts in the build phase. They would have you believe that somehow these would be built at a world record speed, not even factoring in the cost blowouts when building a first-of-a-kind reactor in a country. I'm not sure which of those eight locations are going to be f-o-a-k-ed. If the community is not behind it, that's too bad. If the state government isn't behind it, that's too bad. If the owner of the site isn't behind it, that's too bad as well.

Ultimately, we all know that this isn't just some fever dream of 'Plutonium Pete' to bring nuclear power to Australia. This is about white-anting renewables and the multibillion-dollar industry that surrounds them here in Australia. That is what they do best. They wasted the best part of 10 years, destabilising the renewable energy sector from government, and now they are throwing a great, big, nuclear dead cat on the table, in an attempt to do the same from opposition.

Australia can't afford to lose more time when it comes to increasing our renewables capacity and rebuilding our renewables industry. Billions of dollars and thousands of jobs are being put at risk, because of the hubris of those opposite. Australia can't afford to lose out because of it. If you try to digest the magic pudding that is their nuclear energy policy, you'll see Australians will be picking up the tab and paying for this risky policy for decades.

Terry Young (Longman, Liberal National Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

The time allotted for this debate has expired. The debate has adjourned, and the resumption of the debate will be made an order of the day for the next sitting.