Llew O'Brien (Wide Bay, National Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Australia's energy policy needs to be based on facts, not fear campaigns, and it needs to serve Australian families, businesses, manufacturing and industry. It must be affordable and it must be reliable. Australia can have this reliable and affordable secure energy future by repealing the nuclear moratorium legislation and by fostering an open and informed debate about the energy source which safely powers so many of the world's major economies, including the US and France. And Australia possesses all the tools to do this as well.

Australia needs baseload nuclear energy to deliver the lowest-cost electricity generation to power our homes and businesses. Intermittent energy developments such as wind and solar are so reliant on the ever-changing weather and require such large backup they become very expensive. The system wide spend needed to achieve the Labor government's radical renewable policies has been costed at over a trillion dollars. The current debate around nuclear energy, unfortunately, marked by Labor's use of a three-eyed fish from The Simpsons cartoon from the 1990s, conveniently ignores the fact that Australia already has a very long-running, very effective and very safe nuclear reactor producing life-saving medicines in Australia. This raises the question: if we are willing to use an open pool nuclear reactor to save lives, why won't we use nuclear technology to power our nation? This inconsistency in the Albanese government's stance on energy extends to national security as well. While opposing nuclear power for energy, the government supports submerging nuclear power plants into submarines together with the personnel who operate them.

Australia's current targets of 82 per cent renewables by 2030 and net zero emissions by 2050 are already proving to be unachievable and very expensive under Labor's radical plan. The government focus should not be on the percentage target of renewables but on achieving affordable and reliable electricity for Australians. The coalition's approach is transparent, advocating for seven firm baseload nuclear power sites on expiring coal-fired power station sites. Locating nuclear plants on these sites would negate the need for Labor's intrusive and environmentally and economically destructive 28,000 kilometres of new transmission lines. Our plan includes a 2½ year consultation process to ensure transparency and community engagement. Your voice matters to the coalition in shaping our energy policy.

In contrast, the Albanese government has not engaged in meaningful consultation in its ad hoc production of so-called green energy projects, many of which will end up as stranded assets. Labor has ignored communities and, in Queensland, green rent seekers seek taxpayer subsidies and operate outside legal frameworks that prevent agricultural enterprises and landholders from managing vegetation on their own land. These so-called green renewable projects lead to the destruction of mountaintops and compulsory acquisition of private property for transmission lines, and destroy native habitat and environmental assets.

Nuclear power requires a fraction of the land that the industrial scale wind and solar factories occupy, making nuclear a vastly more efficient and friendly option. Securing Australia's energy future to include zero emissions safe, reliable and affordable nuclear energy is a key priority for the coalition government and will be achieved under a Dutton-Littleproud government.

Nuclear power, on the other hand, requires a fraction of the land that the industrial-scale wind and solar factories occupy, making nuclear a vastly more efficient and friendly option. Securing Australia's energy future to include zero-emission, safe, reliable and affordable nuclear energy is a key priority for the coalition government and will be achieved under a Dutton-Littleproud government.