Keith Wolahan (Menzies, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

My question is to the Prime Minister. This week, iconic Australian businessman Dick Smith has placed advertisements in national papers stating the following:

No other country has, or is planning to operate their energy systems entirely on wind, solar and storage …

Why is the Prime Minister letting his ideological obsession get in the way of letting Australia join the rest of the world in adopting clean, cheap and reliable nuclear power?

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

Order! The member for Fremantle is warned.

Anthony Albanese (Grayndler, Australian Labor Party, Prime Minister) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I thank the member for Menzies for his question, but, of course, our intention isn't to have 100 per cent renewables either. We know that firming capacity—

Ted O'Brien (Fairfax, Liberal Party, Shadow Minister for Climate Change and Energy) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

But 98 per cent is pretty close!

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

Order! The member for Fairfax—

Order, the Treasurer! I'm dealing with matters before the House. The member for Fairfax sits right near me. He definitely doesn't need to have that decibel. He's been interjecting all throughout the week. He's going to remain here, but he's—

Government members interjecting—

Order! We're going to put him on a warning. You're on a warning, and that means, like the member for Hume, who's also on a warning—

An honourable member interjecting—

Yes, and we're going to hear from the Prime Minister in silence.

Anthony Albanese (Grayndler, Australian Labor Party, Prime Minister) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I'm pro compassion, Mr Speaker. The fact is we understand that gas, for example, plays an important role in firming up renewables. I know Dick Smith. I like Dick Smith. He's a good fellow, and he's made a great contribution to Australia. What he knows is that for longer than he's been on this earth, I think, the coalition have been promising nuclear reactors. They've been promising them since 1952! That's when the then South Australian Liberal Premier said, 'A nuclear plant could be developed here in the next 10 years.' And then we get to 1969, where John Gorton said:

… we shall, during the next Parliament, take Australia into the atomic age by beginning the construction of an atomic plant at Jervis Bay, to generate electricity.

The Illawarra Mercury reported in 1970 that the Jervis Bay plant would be the first of 20 atomic plants, costing more than $2 billion to be built in Australia by 1990. Their idea of facing the future is moving on from Menzies to Gorton. The Liberals have been so obsessed with the nukes that the only costings we have are in pounds, shillings and pence, because we haven't got anything else from this mob. We haven't got anything else in all that time.

You wouldn't think that nuclear reactors and supermarkets have much in common, but let me tell you what they have in common: they are both shambles from those opposite. Both of them are causing divisions among those opposite, including, of course, when they're all at the Queensland LNP conference on the weekend, where there will be no mention of it. 'Nuclear' will be the word that they dare not speak its name.

We know, as well, that out of both of them, it's the case that the Nats are pretty happy about how it's going, the economic policy, which is being led by the National Party—who, to be fair, have always had a touch of socialism about them, a touch of government intervention. But for the party who used to talk about markets and used to talk about business, they have strayed so far away from it. They're opposing measures that were there in the budget. The truth is that both of the coalition policies will mean bigger power bills and bigger grocery bills, and, every time this bloke has a thought, Australians would end up paying more. (Time expired)