Brian Mitchell (Lyons, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

This week, the Australian Labor government is wiping $300 from the power bills of every Australian household. At the same time, we continue to roll out the plan we took to the election for cleaner and cheaper power across the nation. By contrast, the Leader of the Opposition is proposing to inflict on Australian households and businesses the most expensive form of energy there is. The opposition leader was a senior minister in the former Liberal government, Over 10 years in office, the Liberals proposed 22 energy plans and failed to land even one. The Liberal version of net zero is propose 22, deliver zero.

But none of those 22 failed plans included nuclear as an option. When someone mused whether nuclear should be in the mix, a conga line of Liberal ministers, including the now Leader of the Opposition, told Australians why it was a bad idea: too expensive, too slow to deliver and nowhere to store the waste. Those reasons remain. Nuclear is simply the wrong solution for Australia's energy needs. The opposition leader's new-found nuclear obsession is a blank cheque for a bad bet. But it's the mums and dads of Australia that he will stiff with the bill. The opposition leader has kept the details locked in a bottom drawer but, luckily for Australia, the CSIRO has done the numbers. The cost of power from nuclear reactors is up to eight times more expensive than from firmed renewables—not twice as expensive, not three times or even four times: eight times! Take a bill from today, multiply it by eight and that's what you're looking at. The Smart Energy Council revealed that building seven reactors could cost taxpayers as much as $600 billion. It's nuts—completely bonkers! And, to top it off, by the opposition leader's own estimates, no reactor will generate power until at least 2035. But if the Liberals win next year's election, they have to get nuclear laws through both the House and the Senate—and we've all seen the Senate. Then there's all the paperwork and the inevitable legal challenges and protests. It's a sure bet that no reactor will be online inside of 20 years.

In his budget reply speech, the Leader of the Opposition dismissed the capacity of renewable energy, despite Australia's obvious natural advantages. 'There's no need for the proposed solar panels, wind farms and new transmission poles and wires,' he said. Incentives to boost critical mineral processing and green hydrogen to drive a homegrown renewable energy sector were dismissed as 'corporate welfare'. Let's get this straight: securing a made-in-Australia renewable energy supply chain is corporate welfare, but spending $600 billion of taxpayers' money on foreign supplied nuclear reactors is fair dinkum?

It's a simple fact that driving more investment in renewables drives down emissions, creates thousands of jobs in the regions and advances Australia's bright future as a renewable energy superpower. And it's all at risk because the Liberals are recklessly spooking investors. The party of business has become the party of tinfoil hats. As a regional MP, I am deeply concerned that billions of dollars and thousands of jobs are on the line. Earlier this year, I joined ministers to announce a $70 million federal investment to help build the Bell Bay Hydrogen Hub. It will produce 45,000 tonnes of renewable hydrogen a year—enough to fuel more than 2,200 heavy vehicles—and it will create more than 700 jobs in northern Tasmania. Is that what the opposition leader means by 'corporate welfare'? How many Tasmanian engineers, technicians, truckies, plumbers, concreters, fitters and sparkies do the Liberals want unemployed, instead of contributing to energy transformation? I wonder if the management of the Bell Bay Advanced Manufacturing Zone shares the opposition leader's view about the so-called corporate welfare that the zone is receiving to develop green hydrogen.

At this stage, the known details of the Liberals' nuclear obsession fit on the dry corner of a wet beer coaster. What we already know is that nuclear is too slow to build and too expensive to deliver. Australians deserve the cleaner and cheaper energy that Labor is delivering today, not a risky Liberal nuclear obsession that smashes energy investment, takes 20 years to deliver and drives up power bills. Thank you.

House adjourned at 20 :00